Competency Project: from the Competency Project Team

Activities: This has been a big year for the Academy’s Competency project. In January 2005 we held the third of the research workshops in San Francisco. With the support of the 2005 Assembly we continued in 2005 and 2006 with the next steps that have involved:

1. Drafting a Findings Report that includes a Draft Competency Profile as well as documents clarifying a theoretical framework for the writing of the competency profile in the form that it finally will take. This Draft was done by a team including our consultant Dr Walter Goetze, along with writer/editor Uta Ruge and team member Markus Reisen. This was done over two weekend meetings in Zurich in the middle of 2005, as well as drafting work in between.

2. A redrafting of the Findings Report flowing from a meeting of the Competency Team of Rob Black, Markus Riesen and Cliff Smyth for 3 days in New York in October 2005. This redraft which included a number of improvements in response to:
• a paper reflecting on the draft prepared by Rob Black
• discussions, feedback and suggested improvements from the project Advisory Committee as a whole, and members of that committee
• discussions between ourselves and with our consultant, and further review of the literature.
3. A feedback process – asking 33 experts in the Feldenkrais professional community if they would give us feedback on the Findings Report – these people included the IFF Board and project Advisory Committee, and others who have particular expertise in with competency ideas and issues. Of these 33 accepted the request to assist and we have received 10 replies to date. We are hoping for a few more late returns as the deadline has just passed as we prepare this report – and some people asked for a little more time.
4. 4. Preparation of a workshop which is designed to trial the use of the draft profile as a self-assessment and peer-assessment tool, which will also provide feedback on the draft profile and information in its current and potential validity for use in and by our professional field. This workshop will be held in Stuttgart on April 28 to 30. It will be run by Walter Goetze, Markus Riesen and Rineke Brinkhof.

Meetings: The Team met as often as necessary. There were a number of meetings between the Project Team and the Advisory Committee throughout the year. While taking some time for the Team, they provided some very valuable feedback and critical support for the Team. The Advisory Committee is preparing its own report for the Assembly.

Team Membership: Rineke Brinkof left the Team in May 2005, Rob Black left the project team late in 2005, we miss both with their valuable input on behalf of the community for their enormous work and commitment to the project. As a consequence we have been a hard working team of two for the last six months!

Reporting: We are preparing a longer report in advance of the 2006 Assembly and will also make a presentation and lead discussion of the project at the Assembly. At the Assembly we will circulate a Draft Profile, including feedback from the feedback loop from the community experts and the Stuttgart workshop. We hope that it will give representatives a more full and concrete idea of what a final profile might look like. We have a number of ideas for the next steps in the project. Taking into account the feedback and outcomes of the Stuttgart workshop, we will prepare some specific proposals for how we believe the project should proceed.

The future: We believe that the project has made important advances in the last year and merits the strong continuing support of the IFF’s member organisations.

Markus Riesen and Cliff Smyth
23 April 2006