Report
on the NFTO / EFTA activities from
January
till June 2005
This Newsletter
reports basically on the meetings of the Chamber
and Board of the NFTO that were held from 3rd to
5th June 2005 in London. In terms of contents
and subjects it covers the main activities during
the first half of the year.
NFTO
Chamber Meeting of 3rd – 4th June
2005
32 representatives
of 20 countries met first at the Tavistock Clinic
and then in the rooms of the Institute for Family
Therapy in London. The meetings were hosted by the
Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice
U.K. (AFT) and the London Institute for Family Therapy.
We wish to state already at this point that the hosts
of the London meeting of EFTA did a wonderful job
making us feel very comfortable and well taken care
for. The Chairs of the three Chambers as well as
the President of EFTA, Arlene Vetere, expressed
their gratitude to the British colleagues for all
their attentions and hospitality.
The NFTO Chamber
of EFTA was composed up to June 2005 of the full-member
organizations of 18 countries as well as of a number
of regional associations, which will integrate into
national federations, or organizations until the
end of the present year. The full-member national
organizations represent: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Netherlands,
Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The organizations of 8 more countries have demonstrated
interest in joining or are presently already involved
in the process of registering. These are: Belgium,
France, FYROM, Iceland, Malta, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine.
The main topics
discussed during the different sessions of the NFTO
Chamber meeting may be summarized as follows:
1. Report
of the Board about the events of the first half of
the year
2. Changes
in the Board
3. Report
by Arlene Vetere on the new policies of EFTA
4. Representatives’ report
on the profile of their organization and the situation
of family/systemic therapy in their country.
5. Membership
fees
6. Electoral
procedures for the Fall 2005
7. NFTO Task
Support Groups.
he representatives
of Iceland that is presently in the process of registering
participated as observers. The representatives of
Belgium left the meeting after realizing that their
country was not entitled to participate in the election
procedure because their registration in the Chamber
had not been completed, even though they had paid
the corresponding annual fees. This situation provoked
a conflict since Belgium had traditionally played
an important role in the process of restructuring
EFTA. In the next months several talks followed between
the Belgian representatives and members of the EFTA
Boards. Finally the Belgian associations decided
to properly register for the course of the year 2005.
The NFTO Board thanks the members of the General
Assemblies of both Belgian associations for their
spirits of co-operation that enabled them and the
NFTOs to find an acceptable solution.
Elections
Under the
chairing of Barbara Kohnstamm the members of the “old” Board
took leave from their positions with short speeches.
All of them played decisive roles during the period
of structuring and consolidating the NFTO Chamber.
They were: Arlene Vetere, Eric Louis, Ineke Muinen,
Roberto Pereira, Jaakko Seikkula, Charis Katakis,
Kurt Ludewig and Barbara Kohnstamm (co-opted member).
The NFTO Chamber acknowledged their enormous contribution
and thanked them all heartily.
1. Report
of the Board
After welcoming the old
and new members of the Chamber the Chair of the
Board, Kurt Ludewig, paid tribute to the excellent job the secretary
(Mina Polemi-Todoulou) had done in arranging the
chamber meeting in London, encouraging the communication
with and the participation of every NFTO regular
or prospective member.
General
matters. Kurt
reminded that the new elected Board in Berlin
had only 2 members of the last years. He confirmed
that during the January 2005 meeting in Geneva
some changes regarding responsibilities had taken
place: Mina was elected Secretary and Annette
took together with Mina the responsibility for
the Registration Committee, Kurt and David for
the website, while Kurt and Eric were to represent
the Board at the EFTA Coordinating Body.
Other than
at earlier meetings it could be ascertained that
most of the structuring work within EFTA had come
to an end so that there were not many urgent issues
at present to report upon. This has enabled a shift
from an inner perspective towards the wider perspective
of the European context. A key issue in this respect
had been the concern with the standardisation of
professions in Europe and the development of a common
platform for psychotherapy. Arlene Vetere and Mony
Elkaim are leading in this work. Being this one of
the main interests of the NFTOs the Board has concentrated
its efforts to second this work.
NFTO
Basic Data. A
systematic effort was done by the secretariat
to update the NFTO Basic Data in order to include
new developments, changes in board members, representatives,
e-mails etc. For this purpose a revised questionnaire
was sent to all member associations. Mina thanked
the members for taking the time to respond sending
the required information
Sponsoring
Fund. It
was created to support attendance to the meetings
of members of countries with disadvantaged economies.
After overcoming some misunderstandings a procedure
was formulated that has been working well so
far.
Directory. Since networking between the countries is another important aim of
the NFTO Chamber it was decided to prioritize the
website refraining from a major participation in
a costly printed directory of EFTA. For this purpose
the Basic Data promises to be of utility. The costs
of an eventual EFTA Directory for the NFTO Chamber
should not exceed a margin of maximum 1,200 Euros.
Finances. Our
Treasurer, Eric Louis reported on the financial
situation of the NFTO Chamber. He announced a corrected
surplus of 5,827.07 Euros by the end of 2004. This
amount is assigned, among other things, to help
cover the expenses involved in consultations of
the EFTA Presidency with officials at the European
level. The rest will cover costs of administration
and the NFTO share for printing a new Directory.
The Budget for 2005 estimates a further shrinking
surplus of 3,827 Euros, that is, before considering
the expected extra costs of representation in Brussels.
Webpage. David Skorunka reported on his task of representing the NFTOs at
the Website Committee. There has been an agreement
that each members of each Chamber will decide about
how they wish be represented in the website. The
publishing of an electronic Directory is being
considered. The members should be asked permission
before their data in presented to the public. David
proposes a more structured and appealing, more
understandable und simplified website. Changes
at this level require collaborative decisions of
all involved as well as a clear transport of information
to the webmasters (Roldolfo de Bernart and Michal
Dusik). This will take some time.
Newsletter. For the purpose of keeping information fluid a Newsletter will be
published shortly after each meeting. In addition
to being posted in the website the Newsletter will
be sent to every registered representative of the
member associations as well as to the main office
of the association itself.
Connection
CIM-NFTO. Mina
reported that CIM (Chamber of Individual Members)
striving to avoid unnecessary splits will offer
reduced fees for individual membership to persons
who are likewise members of a NFTO. This is bound
to an agreement between the boards of each NFTO
and CIM.
Registration. Annette and Mina are working on registration issues of prospective
members and a new application form has been devised
and implemented. Although Annette Kreuz could not
attend the meeting because of important family
reasons she let the Board know that, at present,
eight countries have manifested interest in joining
the NFTO Chamber. Some of these national associations
have sent already most of the necessary documents
and have even paid the fees so that their registration
is almost complete.
Transition
period. According
to the Statutes of EFTA/NFTO the transition period
in which one country may be represented by different
associations comes to an end in 2005. Beginning
in 2006 each country may be represented by only one national organisation. This may
be either a national association or a federation
of associations. Countries that are now represented
by more than one association will need to re-register as
one organisation that comprises the
whole of the country at the latest in the course
of 2006. Annette Kreuz will be sending out the
necessary documents upon request.
Review
of the 2004 Congress. Although the V EFTA Congress in Berlin may be considered by all means
to have been a big success it has elicited further
discussions about the involvement of EFTA in
the organisation of further events both in terms
of contents and of financial responsibility.
The next congress, which is taking place 2007
in Glasgow, will therefore be organised conjointly
by the local organisers and EFTA. Kurt reports
that the congress in Berlin had a surplus of
18.000 Euros. Half of this amount was donated
to the Sponsoring Fund of the NFTO Chamber, the
other 9.000 Euros went to the German associations.
2. Changes
in the Board
Kurt Ludewig
and Janne Graff announced formally their resignation
to their positions in the NFTO Board. Kurt declared
personally, Janne by writing that their regretful
decision had to be made because of compelling personal
reasons.
Taking into
consideration that these changes leave only 4 members
in the Board it was decided to devise electoral procedures
aiming at completing the Board before the next meeting
in January 2006 (s. below).
In the meantime
Eric Louis has accepted to serve as the interim Chair
of the NFTO Board.
3. Report
by Arlene Vetere on the new policies of EFTA
Arlene accepted
gladly the invitation to report on the oncoming policies
of EFTA to the NFTO Chamber.
She confimed at first
that the new structures of EFTA had been very well established and that the former president, Juan
Luis Linares, had devoted his attention to this
goal. Training
and Supervision standards had also been well established.
Being that the case, it is now the time to shift
the emphasis from internal work to engaging in
more extensive external relations, especially in
terms of issues of influence and recognition of
the value of systemic ideas in general and, particularly,
in psychotherapy and counselling.
EAP. Mony Elkaim has been the EFTA representative
at EAP for some years and has helped to establish
EFTA at an European level (EWO). EAP strives at
creating a common platform for psychotherapists
all over Europe. This is not possible yet because
of difficulties arising from previous agreements. Under the auspices of EAP Mony and Arlene
have been working together with a specialized lawyer
to put forward the interests of EFTA within the
EU. This proves to be a difficult endeavor since
it needs to overcome strong legal differences between
the countries. A majority of 2/3 of the countries
would need to establish new regulations. Family/systemic
therapists are a “key player” in that
movement. Linking to individual therapists
should be a rewarding strategic option although
some psychotherapy
groups have been still reluctant to link with us.
An open question is whether non-EU countries might
join in this process since it became clear that
these efforts are important for them as well.
Strategy. In order to intensify effective external relations there is a need
to identify influential networks in Europe as well
as to develop relationships with the media at that
level. Relating with the European Academy of the
Social Sciences might be one way. The EFTA website
plays here an important role. Arlene reminds that EAP has generated
a Questionnaire for
all associations and major schools of psychotherapy
to be sent to each country represented in the EAP.
Chamber
members comments. The
NFTO Chamber members point at the fact that some
of the countries represented in EFTA are not
members of EU, e.g. Norway, Israel, FYROM , Switzerland.
Arlene responds that a common
platform can be beneficial to them
as well. The chamber calls attention to
the fact that EAP membership does not coincide
with EU membership since, for instance, they
include Russia and Suisse. This also applies
vice-versa. Arlene underlines the important fact
that EAP is increasingly more interested in relating
with EFTA. Members address the issue of registration
standards and legal accreditation. Arlene declares
that EFTA tries to transcend this question through
defining itself as an umbrella organization that
registers duly trained members. Israel raises
the issue that not receiving the EAP questionnaire
precludes them from participating in the process
of decision-making and insists on including NFTO
members as recipients of the questionnaire.
Requisites. In many EU countries a qualification
in the field of mental health is required as a
starting point and somewhere even another subsequent
specialty on top of that. In addition, some accept
only MDs, some only MDs and clinical psychologists.
The European Certificate of Psychotherapy does
not meet these requirements since it is based on
the idea that psychotherapy is a profession of
its own regardless of previous studies. Arlene
underlines the notion that EFTA is interested in
a common platform, not in relaxed criteria. EAP
started out as over inclusive. That does not mean
that all parts of EAP will participate in the platform.
The philosophy of EFTA - as the former Chair of
the Registration Committee, Roberto Pereira, points
out - positions itself between the two presently
competing extremes positions meaning that psychotherapy
should either be exclusively reserved to psychiatrists
and psychologists with an additional training or
that psychotherapy should be a profession of its
own open to everybody who completes a minimum of
4-6 years of specialised studies and training.
The number of years is still an issue. EAP
considers 3 years to be adequate.
In
sum: As Arlene Vetere clarified, a shift
in policy towards emphasizing external relations
starts from becoming aware of the influential
networks already existing in Europe (e.g. NGOs).
We also must realise how we currently do
business in our own countries, and what contacts
can be made with governmental instances at a
European level as well as to how to connect outside
the EU.
Further issues
of strategy relate to linking with the European Academy
of the Social Sciences and eventually with adequate
NGOs, enhancing the importance of the website, keep
high standards in the organisation of the European
congresses, and convening an expert group within
EFTA that is willing to contact the European media
and governmental instances.
4. Report
of the NFTO representatives
Following
the board’s commitment to encourage as much
as possible rich exchange between countries regarding
recent developments, Mina prepared a set of “guiding
questions” and sent it to all member associations
beforehand. These questions were devised as a way
of preparing and thinking on such important issues
as the history of the association (what triggered
its formation and how it developed), its identity
in terms of main goals and priorities, the membership
profile (profession of origin, kind and level of
training), the prevailing theoretical orientation,
the characterising approaches, the wider context
of practice (culture, differentiation of schools),
the societal acceptance, the presence of systemic
and family therapy ideas in the media, and finally
the official recognition in terms of legal status,
the training standards and the criteria of certification
of the profession.
The Chamber
members took this challenge with care, some of them
preparing a detailed presentation. Due to shortage
of time only the highlights were presented, yet even
those short briefings proved very stimulating. The
shared feeling was that there is a lot in common
among all countries both in terms of developmental
history and of difficulties and challenges in the
field.
Mina summarized
the differences and similarities emerging along the
following axes:
1. The extent to which the systemic
oriented associations restrain their membership
to mental health professionals, i.e. psychiatrists,
psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses
or open it up to a wide range of professionals
in the social sciences, mental health, education
and art fields.
2. The required level of university
training and of number of years of training in
the specialty of systemic and family therapy.
3. The extent to which personal experience
is emphasized or even required as a prerequisite.
4. The extent to which the professional
requires a legal certification at a state level,
or is certified only within the association,
or is not certified at all.
5. The extent to which systemic ideas
are familiar to the public or accepted in the
academic world. In some countries the approach
is accepted in the public but not in the academia,
in some others the prestige is still rather low
vis-à-vis other psychotherapeutic approaches.
It was a shared impression that even in the latter
cases the presence and impact of systemic and
family therapy is growing fast.
6. In addition, the associations differ
widely in the number of members, due mostly to
the size of the country and the history of the
association.
In
sum: The Chamber members committed themselves
to continue sharing on these issues and to help
building a clear and more complete image of systemic
therapy and practice in Europe. This image should
be formulated, circulated among the members and
posted in a shorter version on the website. Mina
promised to put all this together provided that
all NFTO’s send in their written presentations
following the guiding questions format.
5. Membership
fees
As
it had been previously agreed the membership fees
are due to be raised in 2006. Regarding this matter
the issue of adequate criteria for allocating payment
fee per country was raised. At this point Eric
confirmed that the current 2005 budget was based
on fees remaining as present. In a following discussion
several criteria about membership fees were
considered: Eastern countries, newcomers, small
associations, etc. A
number of representatives made the point that countries
with a disadvantaged exchange rate as well as small
countries such as Iceland and Malta should pay
lower fees. Bulgaria suggested to re-consider that
some countries would even have difficulties paying
the lowest fees; the annual salaries in the social
field should be taken into account - the average
salary for employed
psychotherapists in Bulgaria amounts to 100 Euro
a month. This applies comparatively to most former
Eastern countries. The number of members and the
size of the country should also play a role. The
Chamber agreed to leave the fees unchanged for the current year leaving it up to
the Board to discuss particular arrangements (s.
below).
6. Electoral
procedures for the Fall 2005
The following
procedure for an electronic voting was decided upon:
· With exception of the countries already
represented in the Board (Czech Republic, Greece,
Spain and Switzerland) all other NFTO members
may nominate a candidate.
· For nominating a candidate the national
organisation in question needs to be a full-member
and to have paid their yearly fees.
· Deadline for the nomination
of candidates is the 30th September
2005.
· Nominations, properly signed, should
be submitted by normal mail to the interim chair
of the NFTO Chamber, Eric Louis as well by e-mail
to the Secretary, Mina Polemi-Todoulou.
· The Board will then send each member
organisation an e-mail invitation to vote, including
a presentation of the candidates.
· Since according to the Statutes each
country has 3 votes the different organisations
within one country are expected to submit their
votes conjointly.
· The electoral procedure should be
completed before the next Board meeting in January
2006.
· The new structure of the Board will
be decided in January 2006.
· The new elected members will end
their period together with the present members
at the NFTO Chamber meeting during the 2007 congress
in Glasgow.
7. NFTO
Task Support Groups
In accordance
with the committees existing in EFTA, the NFTO Chamber
constituted four NFTO Task Support Groups:
1. Training
2. Profile
3. Website
4. Research
The task groups
came up with interesting propositions that were shared
with the Chamber representatives in a joint presentation
on Saturday afternoon. They were expressed and subsequently
fed to the EFTA Committees during Sunday’s
EFTA General Board meeting.
1. The Task Support Group “Training” -
Raymond Traube (contact person), Barbara Jozefik,
Konstantina Latsona, Slavica Gajdadjis-Knezevic,
Trish Murphy, Corina Ahlers, Carene Hamende and
Danielle Mack - expressed the wish to clarify
the conditions of acceptance for training; more
specifically they focused on the extent to which
self experience should be done in a purely systemic
frame or whether it could also take place within
the frame of other approaches. Other subject
matters were the procedures for supervision certification,
the practice of systemic training addressing
other professionals as a complement to their
practice, and the necessity for a final examination
as a part of complete training.
2. The Task Support Group “Raising
the Profile of Systemic Therapy” -
Judith Lask (contact person), Alexandros
Kokkinidis and Valerie Le Goff - focused
on ways how to promote the identity and the
effectiveness of the systemic approach (e.g. through
creating a data base of research). They gave
also great value to contacting the media
and public celebrities in order to create
a positive image and promote a different
definition of family therapists away from
the usual shrink stereotype.
3. The Task Support Group “Website” -
Spyros Verveniotis (contact person), Barbara
Warner and Jenia Georgieva - proposed: (a)The
home page should consist of small paragraphs
and brief statements, (b) it should entail data
bases and Frequently Asked Questions as well
as naming relevant bookstores, job vacancies,
statutes (highlights presented), (c) it should
link to all societies who wish to and to their
contact persons. They discussed the possibility
of regional websites, as for example in the Nordic
countries and in the Balkans.
4. The Task Support Group “Research” -
Clarissa Sammut Scerri (contact person), Eleftheria
Tseliou and Eija-Liisa Rautiainen - pointed out
the need for more and better qualitative and
quantitative research that raises the profile
of family therapy as well as the need to develop
an appropriate methodology. They proposed the
creation of a communicational chain that links
the Research committee of EFTA with the
NFTO of each country and herewith also with the
universities or other research institutions of
the country. The goal would be to (a) register
the research that is being done on issues relating
to family and systems therapy and (b) create
a network of sources and resources for funding
research.
NFTO
BOARD MEETING on Sunday 5th June 2005
The Board
met on Sunday morning for the last time during the
London meeting.
· Donation. Kurt reports of strong objections
that had came about in the Coordinating Body of
EFTA. The fact that the Local Organising Committee
of the Berlin Congress had donated half of the
surplus of the congress to the Sponsoring Fund
of the NFTO Chamber provoked negative feelings
in the representatives of the other Chambers. This
was considered to have given one Chamber an undue
advantage over the other ones. Kurt explained his
viewpoint emphasizing the fact that there had been
no agreements between EFTA and the German Group
as to cover eventual losses or to share an eventual
surplus. Because of this the German Group felt
free to dispose of the surplus without further
considerations. The German Group evaluated the
necessity of having as many countries as possible
represented at the yearly meetings of the NFTO
Chamber as of central importance. This goal can
only be reached if the Chamber is in a position
of being of some financial help to the representatives
of economically disadvantaged countries. This was
considered to be of key importance for the further
development of the NFTO Chamber as well as for
EFTA as a whole. With this argument in mind the
German Group decided in favor of
the Sponsoring Fund of the NFTO Chamber giving
it thus a solid financial grounding. Kurt as the
President of the Berlin Congress took the sole
responsibility for this decision. He underlined
the fact that the donation had been well thought
of and goal-directed towards keeping a high standard
of engagement at the European level. The NFTO Board
discussed this matter especially with regard to
keeping a well-balanced relationship with the other
Chambers and decided to open up for eventual further
discussions of the topic within EFTA.
· Membership fees. Beginning
2006 a fee scale will apply that differentiates
three categories of payment: 200 Euros (for countries
with disadvantaged economies), 400 Euros (for small
countries and for countries with still growing
economies), 800 Euros as the normal fee. The Treasurer
will order the different countries to the corresponding
categories while presenting the order of payment.
Organisations of disadvantaged countries that cannot
pay the lower fees are encouraged to apply for
sponsorship to the Chair or the Treasurer of the
Board.
· Website. The representative of the NFTO Chamber
in the EFTA Committee in charge of the Website,
David Skorunka, will appreciate any suggestions
to better the presentation and the contents of
the NFTO page in the EFTA website.
· Elections. The procedural details were
finalized.
· Next Chamber meeting: The
Board agreed on presenting the proposal to hold
the next General Assembly in Krakow to the general
EFTA Board for final decision.
· NFTO presentation: Following
Mina’s proposal it was agreed to prepare
a conjoint presentation of the NFTO profiles to
be potentially used in two ways: as a section on
the web (short form) and as a circular among members
(more extended form). Mina will contact the representatives
and invite all those who wish to help in this task.
· Farewell. The Board took leave from the resigning
Chairperson, Kurt Ludewig, who deeply regretted
having to leave the EFTA since he had enjoyed being
a part of it. He offered to keep in touch and to
serve anytime as an outside advisor until the new
members have been appointed. He also offered himself
to formulate the present Newsletter as his last
task.
NFTO
Calendar
- 17
September 2005: EFTA General Assembly in Florence, along with the TIC Assembly. Following the requirements
of the Statutes of EFTA, the Annual General
Assembly 2005 will be held in Florence. The
NFTOs are not expected to participate having
recently completed their own assembly in London.
The work completed in our London Chamber Meeting
will be reported in the General EFTA Assembly
by Eric and Annette.
- 13th – 15th January
2006: Meeting of the NFTO Board and General EFTA
Board in Valencia, Spain.
- 16th – 18th June
2006: General Assembly of the NFTO Chamber
in Krakow, Poland, and General Assembly of
EFTA. All representatives of the National Organisations are invited
to participate and encouraged to bring along
one more person from their association. Further
details will follow.
- 4th – 6th October
2007: VI European Congress of EFTA in Glasgow, Scotland
We hope to have informed you thoroughly
about the recent events in the NFTO Chamber of EFTA.
On behalf
of the NFTO Board,
yours faithfully,
Kurt Ludewig,
Ph.D. .
former Chairperson,
NFTO Chamber of EFTA
Mina Polemi-Todoulou,
Ph.D.
Secretary,
NFTO Chamber of EFTA
David Skorunka,
M.D.
EFTA Board
Member, Newsletter Co-Editor
