Working Groups

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Sunday 23rd at 3.00 pm  ’round table session’

For this session we will -according to our interest- split up into 5 groups to consider these themes:

in regards to ISCA

  • management
  • regional chapters
  • membership

in regards to Systemic Constellation Work generally

  • core elements
  • ethics

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Round table no. 1

Management of ISCA

 

Organizational matters concerning the future running of the association: structure and size of the Board, admin position, remuneration, establishment of Committees, decision making process

Here, “Management” means at least two things:

  1.       Governance: how should ISCA decisions first noticed, considered and passed. (Non-routine items)
  2.       Administration: how is ISCA managed and administered on a daily basis. (Routine items)

History / Current situation

Practically speaking, both  1 and 2 above are currently done almost exclusively by the Board chair. Previously to his term, ISCA was all but dormant for a number of years. And very recently a Transition Team has been exploring supporting a much-expanded Board with much wider member involvement, also possible through forming a number of Committees (regional, membership issues and other).

Active Questions

  • how should a greatly expanded Board work together to make decisions? Consensus, voting? Is the Board merely advisory and the Board Chair a “CEO”?
  • is there value (and is it practically possible) to engage most or all of the membership in ISCA governance? (For example, an expectation that contributing to ISCA be a membership requirement.)
  • is there a vision / hope / dream / want for YOU as a member that you would like to champion within the constellation community through ISCA, perhaps as a Board member? Because you can!

Key Outcomes

  • outline management task areas (or roles)
  • consider how decisions are finalized
  • suggest how to involve the membership in roles and decisions
  • develop a set of recommendations for the structure of ISCA Board: how many Board members, number of Committees and which, admin /secretarial / legal tasks which keep the framework alive to be paid for or not – who does these?
  • Recommendations from the Working Group to be offered to the General Assembly.

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Round table no. 2

Regional Chapters

 

How many should be created, how would they function, individuals or national associations to be representatives?

 History/Context:

  1. Potential tasks/function of chapters:
  2. Presidents of these chapters would liaise with a designated board member.
  3. There is a proposal to create regional chapters of ISCA that would form around committed individuals and/or professional associations.
  4. Currently, ISCA functions as a centralized non-profit board without formal regional chapters.
    • Carrying out future ISCA initiatives with their regional communities.
    • Making connections with existing national and individual constellation initiatives.
    • Maybe “formalising” the ties in one way or another between ISCA and national associations where they exist.
    • Seeing what forms of cooperation they would benefit from, recruiting members and raising awareness of ISCA’s existence, potential and mission, etc.
    • Suggesting and organizing ISCA sponsorship to regional events, be responsible for putting and updating these events on ISCA webpage, etc.
  5. Benefits of forming regional chapters:
  • Provides more voice and involvement of members on a local level.
  • Reallocates some tasks and workload to the regional level.
  • Adds strength to the marketing and membership drive functions of ISCA.
  • Increases sense of ownership and belonging by ISCA members.
  • Could provide legitimacy and recommended standards for regional associations.

Active Questions:

  1. Do ISCA members have an interest in creating and participating in regional chapters?
  2. What would be the benefits? The drawbacks?
  3. What is the process for proposing and approving a new Regional Chapter?
  4. Would individuals OR professional associations be representatives of particular regions? What are the pros and cons of each option?
  5. What issues/tasks would be addressed by the Regional Chapters, what would be handled by the ISCA Board of Directors, and what would be addressed jointly?
  6. What level of administration on the International Level would be required to sustain Regional Chapters?

Possible Outcomes:

  1. Assess interest among ISCA members of forming regional chapters.
  2. Collect names and contact info of ISCA members who would be interested in playing a role in forming regional chapters.
  3. Outline key learnings, issues and questions regarding the formation of regional chapters.

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Round table no. 3

Membership issues

Membership and training issues: conditions of membership, recommended training curriculum, benefits of membership

 

History/Context:

  1. There is no international certifying authority for constellation work, and at this point ISCA has no desire to aim for that.
  2. Right now, ISCA membership is open to anyone, and doesn’t have any meaning with respect to training, standards, etc.
  3. Competency in constellation work by people who do the work varies, and there is an open conversation about how to increase consistency in excellence in the work, without having a certifying authority.

Active Questions:

  1. Would we like ISCA membership to “mean” something? That is, would we like it to have some authority, and be a resource for professionals who need ways to support their stature?
  2. Would we like to propose standards, codes of conduct, and/or statements of agreement on the core of profession, and if so, what might they be?
  3. Would we like to consider different levels of ISCA membership that reflect the different kinds of people who are interested in ISCA’s work (for example, clients, facilitators and trainers)? If so, what might that look like?

Possible Outcomes:

  1. Agreement about possible membership levels and what they mean.
  2. Agreement about what kinds of standards we’d like ISCA to consider developing.
  3. Volunteers to take the work of this working group forward into developing these levels and/or standards.

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Round table no. 4

Core Concepts

The question of a minimum of defining features of SCW which we can agree on as being the Core of our work and from which we can go in different directions and do the work in all our diversity.

Context

Overlap with

  1. Development of a training curriculum guidelines
  2. Issues dealt with in the development of ‘ethical guidelines’

Benefits of a shared understanding of ‘The Core’ :

  1. Provides practical language to explain the work to the general public.
  2. Strengthens the cohesion of the constellating community
  3. Adds strength to the marketing strategies of members and the membership drive functions of ISCA.
  4. Increases sense of ownership and belonging by ISCA members.
  5. Could provide the base for meaningful discussion with representatives of other modalities

Active Questions:

  1. Do ISCA members have an interest in finding agreement on what is at the core of constellation work?
  2. What would be the process for proposing elements of the core and approving some or all of them?
  3. What is ‘Constellating’?
  4. What distinguishes a ‘Constellator’ from other professionals?
  5. What role has ‘Conscience and Belonging’ in SCW?
  6. What role have the ‘Orders of Love’ in SCW?
  7. What is the phenomenological approach to SCW?

Possible Outcomes:

  1. Assessed interest among ISCA members on the subject
  2. Finding some level of agreement on what constitutes SCW.
  3. Identify ISCA members who would be interested in continuing to work on the subject.

 

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Round table no. 5

Ethical Guidelines

Ethical guidelines for a constellator ( and our whole field): even though it is understood that ethics remains in the sphere of personal responsibility of each one of us, what are the standards that we would like to uphold and recommend for those doing constellation work. It is not about prescribing and policing, but RECOMMENDING.

History

At this time, ISCA doesn’t have a specific code of ethics published on the website. The only thing related to ethics at ISCA is a bullet point on the Charter which specifies:

The association may meet its purpose by means of but is not limited to, the following activities…

d) Formulating and publishing a current statement of ethical guidelines for those working in a systemic context, and making available to members knowledge about difficulties discovered.

Not much can be found about Ethics related to Systemic Constellations Practice. A few association of Systemic Constellations practitioners have published different codes of ethics. ( France, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, Germany)

Active questions:

  1. What is the aim and what are the responsibilities of a Constellation Practitioner?
  2. Do we believe that Systemic Constellations practitioners need a code of ethics and why?
  3. Would we like to have a code of ethics as reference for us, our peers and clients recommended by ISCA and available on the website?
  4. Would we like to follow the basic principles that psychological associations have or do we think our practice is so different that it requires a specific code?

Possible outcomes:

  1. Assessment of need for a common code of ethics for all Systemic Constellation Practitioners / ISCA members
  2. Suggestions as to how we go about the development of this code, if found needed
  3. Recommendations of few core ethical principles for constellation practitioners.