In over 40 years as a training provider there has never been a situation in which a course at IFT has not been completed. Risks are monitored in the following areas that may impact on students if they were to come about:
- Changes to advertised courses
- Loss of Professional Accreditation
- Low financial performance
- Loss of expertise in the teaching faculty
- Change in location
- Changes to the training programme due to events beyond our control
- Closure of the Institute
- Changes to advertised courses
All courses are advertised in advance of practical delivery. Applications are accepted for each course. Courses can only be viable with minimum numbers. If these minimum numbers are not reached, IFT reserves the right not to deliver a course at financial loss. In such an event, applicants are informed at least one month in advance of the course start date and any monies paid refunded.
Planning for courses is always one year in advance for the Certificate and Post Graduate Certificate and Supervision courses which means that there is at least one year notice for any changes. These are usually minor in nature. If a student cannot complete any of these one year courses, they have the option of joining the next cohort to complete their study. Students on the MSc in Family and Systemic Psychotherapy, which is a two-year course, have options to take a break in studies in extenuating circumstances and may re-join the course at a future date to complete, and timescales are detailed in the AFT ‘blue book’. If students fail assessments, they may re-take the module for which they need to re-submit to complete.
- Loss of professional accreditation
IFT’s four-year training and supervision courses are accredited by the professional organisation for systemic training in the UK, the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice (AFT). IFT is required to provide an annual review ensuring accreditation is maintained and every five years a full reaccreditation procedure is completed. The risk of losing this accreditation is extremely low as all IFT courses are written and delivered in line with the AFT’s requirements and learning outcomes as set out in the ‘blue book’ for practice courses and the ‘red book’ for supervision courses.
- Financial performance
The Institute has a strong and secure financial position, with significant reserves which would allow courses to be taught to completion over a period of 3 years, allowing all enrolled courses to be completed.
- Loss of expertise of teaching faculty
The risk of this is considered to be low as IFT has the benefit of both a highly-qualified staff and an extensive teaching faculty and membership, all of whom are fully qualified systemic psychotherapists either registered with or eligible for registration with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. Those who teach supervision courses are additionally qualified and registered with the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice on the systemic supervisor’s register and able to deliver those courses.
- Change in location
The Institute’s lease of its premises at 24-32 Stephenson Way is coming to an end in December 2019. The Board of Trustees has indicated that the new premises must be in a central London location in order to guarantee continuous provision of training courses. New premises have been identified and negotiations to secure the relocation should be completed by December 2019. In the event of an unforeseen problem with our relocation, IFT will secure and rent training rooms in Central London to ensure no interruption of service delivery and continuity of students’ experience.
- Changes to the training programmes beyond our control
The IFT ensures speedy communication with its students through the virtual learning environment so that students are kept up to date with any changes due to, for example, sickness of staff or adverse weather conditions.
Our assessment, taking the above range of risk factors into account, is that the risk that we will not be able to deliver courses that students are enrolled on to completion is low. This is because our financial reserves that would enable course delivery for 3 years and gives sufficient time for all courses to complete should the Institute be threatened with closure, and staffing, accreditation, and other risks are low.