HTS Rep Cover

I am happy to enclose a copy of PHANA Council’s Helpership Training Standards Consultation Report.[1]

This report is timely, coming at a time when the Barbara Brennan School of Healing has been discussing discontinuing its policy of honoring Pathwork helpers as "therapists" for BBSH students -- because Pathwork Helpership standards are so varied and uneven.

At first glance, the solution might seem to be simple -- work towards more consistency in the common, basic portions of existing Helper training programs.

While that is likely desirable, we also need to consider the wider picture. If the Pathwork is going to be effective in reaching new areas of North America and the world, these new areas need local Pathwork Helpers. PHANA records indicate that fully 70% of the 60 US/Canadian states/provinces have no Pathwork Helper. If the Pathwork is this thin on the ground in the US and Canada, it is even thinner on the ground worldwide.

It is unrealistic to expect all would-be Helpers in remote regions to travel to existing US Helper training programs, and to pay the high $US costs of these programs. The reverse movement (flying US Helpers to remote regions) is a possible solution only in very limited circumstances. US Helpers are paid in $US, and it will rarely be economically feasible to depend on such Helpers to provide the bulk of the training in most of the world (including Canada) where local currencies are weak in relation to the strong $US.

The logic points rather inexorably towards needing to allow new training programs to come into existence in areas distant from existing established Helper training programs. But if we go this route, we have to expect that the new programs will normally start small and need time to grow. In this situation, how do we achieve/maintain adequate quality and consistency in Helper training? How far and how fast is it wise to go in this direction?

The present report bears very directly on these important and complex questions. I think that you will be as impressed as I am by the rich, well-balanced and constructive wisdom of the consensus of the community of senior Pathwork Helpers, teachers, leaders, and elders.

Roddy

[1]. As noted in the report, please visit the PHANA web site (http://www.phana.org) to see the complete consultation package, including the questionnaire, Sagewalker’s February 2001 Toronto Helpership Development Circle document, a summary table of PHANA’s HTP “Comparables”, and the October 2000 Foundation Guideline relating to new Helpership Training Programs. The web site also includes a public version of the report that omits verbatim quotes from the responses of individual respondents – since PHANA Council did not ask respondents’ permission to make these responses public.

Note for PWF Board members and Sage: The August 8 version of the report is the same as the August 1 version that you previously received, but with a number of typos corrected.