How ISCA Came To Be: A Short History.

Discussions about an international association for systemic constellations were begun several years ago by members of The IAG (expanded and roughly translated as The International Working Group for Systemic Resolution in the Tradition of Bert Hellinger). Despite being composed of mainly German speaking facilitators and trainers, the IAG attempted to meet the needs of the international community of facilitators since its founding by organizing the International Congresses which have been held in Germany. Under the leadership of  Heinrich Breuer the IAG, eager to become a dedicated German association and step back from their international responsibilities, began to investigate the possibilities of forming an international association.

In 2005, at the International Congress in Cologne, Heinrich Breuer, Gunthard Weber, Albrecht Mahr, Jakob Schneider and Hunter Beaumont convened a meeting attended by over 80 people representing all the countries attending the confrerence. This group divided into specialized task-oriented groups and met for a total of 10 hours over the course of two days. The goal was to assess the interest in creating a bona fide international organization, to learn of any alliances and cooperative projects between constellation facilitators in other countries, to determine if any qualification standards for constellation facilitators existed in other countries, and to discuss issues related to education and training.  The participants agreed unanimously to pursue the goal of establishing an international organization. At that time concerns about criteria and the need for an inclusive vision were clearly expressed and agreed upon.
 
After receiving the mandate from this meeting to pursue the goal of extablishing an international association, Heinrich Breuer, president of the IAG, convened a second meeting in Cologne, in June of 2006. This meeting was attended by about 50 people with much the same aim – determining the interest in forming an international association and discussing what it might look like. Based on clear evidence of interest in the global community, a committee of volunteers was formed to develop the proposal for a new international association. Hunter Beaumont (Germany), Heinrich Breuer (Germany), Gerard Fossat (France), Milena Karlinska (Poland), Annouche Katzeff (Belgium), Constanze Potschka-Lang (France), Katharina Stresius (Germany), Marta Thorsheim (Norway) and Richard Wallstein (England) were the members of this committee. As its first step, Richard was elected Chairman by the members of this newly formed committee.
 
This steering committee met face-to-face four times over the following year (in addition to email contact) for the purpose of developing a proposal to be presented in Cologne at the International Congress in 2007. The committee proposed a name for the organization, the International Systemic Constellation Association (ISCA), discussed issues of membership criteria, curriculum, and website development. Further, they developed the draft of a charter for the association and a proposal for its structure, as well as proposals for basic recommendations for establishing criteria for practitioners. As a result of the two meetings held prior to the formation of the steering committee, it was clear to the committee that the international community was interested in the following values in a global organization:

• that it be an inclusive association;
• that it support excellence without controlling its members;
• that it be multi-cultural and interdisciplinary;
• that it be dedicated to networking, dialogue and diversity;
• that it have an infrastructure supportive of the whole and the individual;
• that it be dedicated to supporting the field which fosters the most elegant of constellations.
• and, finally, that it be explicitly not-for-profit.

In May 2007, following a year-long gestation, the result of the committee’s work was presented to a group of 80 people from around the world on the day following the close of the International Congress in Cologne. This group is “The Founding Assembly of ISCA”. This Founding Assembly voted unanimously to proceed with creating an Association in accordance with the committee’s “proposal,” hereafter known as the Charter of ISCA. Hunter Beaumont, Richard Wallstein and Constanze Potschka-Lang were elected as the first Board of ISCA in the positions of President, Vice President and Treasurer respectively. The IAG donated approximately € 3,500.00  to the ISCA for a start-up fund.
 
In the months following the founding of ISCA, three committees have formed and commenced work: Chris Walsh (Australia) is heading the Website Development Committee, and Ed Lynch (USA) and Ah Fung (China) are heading the Curriculum Committee, a committee to consider how best to support learners and teachers of the constellation approach. Maria Angster  (Hungary) is heading the  research committee. The goal of all work by these and subsequent committees is to be of value to the members of the Association and their practices.

As the Board has met over the past 6 months, it became apparent that the original draft of the charter would require extensive reworking to accurately reflect the goals and positions established by the Founding Assembly, one of which is to create an infrastructure that stands independently of the members and the board, so that it may continue to support ISCA when its membership and boards change and grow. Though this task has been complex, progress has been made in negotiating the path between meeting the requirements of German law, under which the Charter will reside, and keeping true to the spirit of the Founding Assembly.

The ISCA could not have been established without the generous support of many people. Everyone working on this project has generously donated time, expertise and, in some cases, money. For some, the work of establishing the Association has involved many, many hours of hard work. The Board expresses thanks for their generosity and dedication to the vision of the Association.