National Training Directors’ Committees:  Their terms of reference and responsibilities

1.     At the proposal of Training Directors, The Certification and Training Coordinator of the ISST will appoint a National Training Directors’ Committee for any country in which there is more than one ISST approved Training Program (and therefore more than one Training Director). 

2.      A National Training Directors’ Committee should normally have between 3 and 5 members. If the number of training programs existing in that country is bigger than that, each training program can vote for a bigger committee, that has an equal number to the number of training programs, in such a way that all training programs are represented.

3.     Recommendations with respect to the membership of a National Training Directors Committee shall initially be made by the Certification and Training Coordinators and must be considered and ratified by the Executive Board. – at the recommendation of the training programs/one vote per training program.

4.     The role of a National Training Directors’ Committee is to:

a.     Advise the ISST with respect to the structure of professional activity in the country relevant to the licensing and practice of psychologists and psychotherapists and to make recommendations with respect to the professional requirements to be met for those who wish to become Full Members of the ISST (which implies their eligibility to apply for Certification).

b.     Alert the Certification Coordinator to any conflicts between ISST Supervisors and/or Trainers that might impact negatively on the mission and reputation of the ISST.

c.      Should there be issues that cannot be resolved amongst committee members, this should be referred to the “ISST Conflict and Resolutions Committee”.

5.  Elections for the NTDC –

a.     This committee should be re-elected every 2 years through a voting system. The voting process should include the new training directors and new training programs that were founded during the 2-year period. If one training programme has more than one training director, it can be decided which training director will be part of the NTDC. 

b.     The elections for the new committee will be held at the same time the new chair is elected.   The chair will be elected from the new members of the committee and will be voted upon by all the representatives of the training programme.  Every 2 years the committee can vote for maintaining the number of the committee at a minimum or maximum of members.

6.     Membership: Any person who is an ISST Certified Supervisor and Trainer and a Training Director, who is living and working in the country in question is eligible for consideration for membership of a National Training Directors’ Committee. This includes those Certified as Supervisors and Trainers in any Certification Category (Individual, Group, Couple, Children and Adolescents). In selecting members of a National Training Directors' Committee, the Certification and Training Coordinator should:

a.   Give precedence to those Trainers who are running ISST approved training programs,

b.   Include (where available) Trainers from different Certification Categories (Individual, Group, Couple, Children and Adolescents),

c.   Seek to ensure broad representation of Trainers, for example, across different regions of the country in question, or across different language groups.

7.     The Certification and Training Coordinators shall validate a Chairperson. After the vote for a chair by the members of the National Training Directors’ Committee.

8.    In the event of voting amongst Training Programs, one vote per program is counted a vote.

9. Meetings: A National Training Directors’ Committee should meet at least four times a year (usually online) and keep and publish minutes of these meetings.

10.      The Chairperson of a National Training Directors’ Committee is responsible for:

a.   Ensuring that the Committee meets regularly in terms of #7 above,

b.   Ensuring that attention is given to any issues or events within the country relevant to the role of the committee as defined in #4 above.

c.   Monitoring the membership of the Committee and advising the Certification and Training Coordinator if one or more members is not making an active contribution to the Committee,

d.   Keeping the relevant National Training Directors’ Committee page on the website up to date with respect to membership and minutes of meetings.

e.   Chairperson of the committee will serve a maximum of two years and a new person is to be voted in by the current committee members

f.    Changes to chairs of the committee chair need to be handed over to the Training & Certification coordinators.

g.    Serves as the National reviewer for the country and consults the other members of the committee for the more complex cases

This policy will start to be implemented starting with 1^st September 2021.