We welcome with great anticipation and look forward to the leadership and contributions of our newest board members, Pamela K. Krause, MSW, LCSW and Vicki McCoy, MA. We also express our gratitude to Nancy Shadick, MD, MPH, for serving diligently on the Board since its inception in 2013. Nancy brought to us seasoned experience in clinical research for which she was a knowledgeable, effective advocate. Her ideas regarding the IFS Graduate Research Fellowship will be launched in Q2 of this year. Please meet Pamela and Vicki...
Pamela K. Krause, MSW, LCSW, is a Certified IFS therapist and Senior Lead Trainer for The Center for Self Leadership who has a private practice with adults and adoles- cents near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Pam has adapted the Model for use with children and adolescents. In addition, along with Richard Schwartz, PhD, and Toni Herbine-Blank, RN, MS, CS-P, Pam teaches IFS through the online IFS Circle, now beginning its second year. “I love this Model and am interested in doing whatever I can to spread it to others,” she declares.
Pam has been an active community member ever since her IFS training began in 1998 and has worked tangentially with the Board since it was formed in 2013. Before the Foundation was conceived, she was a member of the Research Team Coordinating Committee. During her time with the RTCC, she was part a small group that developed the IFS Adherence Scale Instrument that determines how closely the Model is adhered to in sessions. “I love the Foundation’s mission of research and spreading the Model to the world.” With this love and enthusiasm, Pam helped organize the first Silent Auction at the annual IFS conference in 2016, which significantly boosted our financial support—thanks to our gracious community. Now officially part of the Board, Pam shares, “I’m happy to be part of this endeavor. I hope the Foundation can continue to support significant research with the Model and I feel grateful to lend my energy toward that goal.”
“To have the opportunity to participate in the effort to take IFS as far out into the world as we possibly can—into schools and hospitals, into peacemaking and community-building, into self-awareness training, and into the arts and sports—is an exciting adventure and a great privilege”
-Vicki J. McCoy, MA
Vicki J. McCoy, MA, is an organizational development and communications consultant who specializes in developing high-functioning leaders and teams that communicate powerfully to get results. As president of her own consulting firm, McCoy Communications and Training, LLC, and cocreator of a comprehensive development program called Raising the Bar: Empowering Greatness in Individuals and Teams, Vicki is a sought-after executive coach who counts among her clients several leaders in government.
In 2010, Vicki was introduced to IFS by long-time friend and certified IFS therapist Stewart Brown, PhD, at a retreat where she discovered first-hand the healing nature of the Model. “This is therapy that works!” Vicki relates. “I also knew from the get-go that IFS was more than a therapeutic model.”
A self-described evangelist for the Model, Vicki recognizes that IFS has the potential for a broad and growing reach that will help heal the world and create peace within that will be reflected without, whether with adults or children. She has completed Level One IFS training and uses it in her coaching practice, as well as with her family. After taking her grandchildren to see the Disney*Pixar movie Inside Out, she helped them identify and map their own parts, which was a learning journey for all. “’Parts’ talk is often heard in our home,” she says.
Prior to the Foundation’s existence, Vicki worked alongside Toufic Hakim, PhD, Patti Pierson, and others in IFS community-building endeavors. She now enthusiastically joins the Board, bringing a wide array of skills to the table. “To have the opportunity to participate in the effort to take IFS as far out into the world as we possibly can—into schools and hospitals, into peacemaking and community-building, into self-awareness training, and into the arts and sports—is an exciting adventure and a great privilege,” remarks Vicki. Of her new role, she says, “It is an honor to become part of the Foundation Board, a group of dedicated, accomplished, and humble people who clearly have a great time working together.”
The Foundation depends on its annual giving campaigns to operate. The funding has primarily supported the funding of a new IFS research study and our advocacy and communications efforts. As we are still building the organizational infrastructure, a small portion of our dollars continues to finance basic operational elements needed for us fulfill our mission on your behalf.
Please join us in recognizing and appreciating our community of donors by viewing all donors.
While the Foundation has a presence on three social media platforms, we are working to expand our online visibility significantly, engage more actively by sharing timely news and commentary, and position ourselves more effectively within national and international dialogues in areas related to emotional health, emotional learning, and emotional well-being.
Toward that objective, we are searching for a new associate well-versed in social media who has proven experience in building or connecting organizations with online communities and networks. Terms of engagement are flexible and negotiable. Do you or someone in your circle have such interest or record? We are accepting nominations or applications. Please send an email expressing interest, along with a list credentials and a relevant bio or cv (preferably in one PDF email attachment) to Outreach@FoundationIFS.org. Thank you.
Heads and Shoulders Above Average: Our IFS community reads OUTLOOK nearly three times more than other nonprofit publications when compared to industry averages.
Since our first publication in May 2015, we have increased our readership by 43 percent. To keep up with the increasing momentum of the reach of IFS across the world, please stay tuned to future editions and tell your friends and colleagues about OUTLOOK. Archived issues may be found online in html and PDF versions.
If you are passionate about the power and possibility of IFS, please consider making a gift for the future by including a statement in your will. If you already have a will it is easy to make an addition to the original document with a codicil.
A handful of our colleagues have done so. It is also an opportunity for you to discuss now what type of future gift you may leave and for what purpose. To confidentially discuss further this opportunity to leave your mark ahead, or to learn more about the Cornerstone Society, please feel free to reach us at Outreach@FoundationIFS.org.
Foundation for Self Leadership
(U.S. Tax number or EIN: 20-1318139)
P.O. Box 3775, Oak Park, IL 60303
FoundationIFS.org
Expanding the depth and breadth of IFS healing is made possible by the members of our community. In each of your own ways, you are instrumental in creating a better world. Together, we are achieving the Foundation’s missions. We are forever grateful for everyone’s contributions, whether financial, with volunteer time, or in myriad other ways, large and small.
THANK YOU!
Why do you donate to the Foundation?...
“I donate to the Foundation in honor of Richard Schwartz, PhD, Jeanne Catanzaro, PhD, LICSW, and Rina Dubin, EdD, who are some of the most compassionate and kind therapists I have ever met. IFS has been life-changing for me and unlike anything I have experienced. It has been very helpful to me to be supported by experienced IFS therapists during my most challenging times. Holding the space, guiding the process, and helping my parts to step back so that my Self can emerge to lead has allowed me to not only get through innumerable struggles, but also to come through stronger, having learned something important about my Self and my parts. I was recently at an IFS workshop and was fortunate to have been supported by the deep kindness, gentleness, and compassion of these three IFS therapists. These loving people, who embody the Model, were my personal hope merchants when parts of me had none. The love and acceptance I felt were powerful examples of how I can be with my parts. I wish for many more people to receive the deep healing that I’ve experienced, so I give to increase the research that will validate the effectiveness of IFS.”
– Elizabeth, Massachusetts
What inspires you to donate?
Wondering how you can Support your Foundation?
Fortunately, there are many creative ways you can contribute to advancing IFS:
Direct financial donations (larger or small), creating your own fundraising event, bequests, indirect contributions via Smile.Amazon.com, volunteering in a number of ways, or simply placing one of our fliers in your office.
Do you have other ideas?
We would love to hear them.
Please visit us here for examples of supporting the Foundation
Outlook is an occasional bulletin that the Foundation for Self Leadership publishes to share news relevant to IFS, the IFS community, and developments relating to the Foundation. It is not intended to appear solely and passively in the conventional print mode; rather, it is designed to interface with the Foundation’s social media and online platforms. Nor is it a venue for sending information out; it is envisioned more as an attempt to generate discussions within the community around issues and ideas of general interest and great impact.
The ultimate purpose of OUTLOOK is to support the Foundation’s mission of promoting the notion and agency of Self leadership. By naming it OUTLOOK, we hope it stands as a reminder that IFS is at once an external as much as an internal peace-seeking model, while holding a far-reaching view of the future.
The Foundation is grateful to Advisor Toufic Hakim, PhD, and Editor Michelle Glass, who play key roles in its production; Sylvia Miller for layout and graphic design; Grant Leitheiser, LMFT, for online content; and Keren Fortier, MSW, LICSW; Kira Freed, MA, LPC; Karen Locke, MA; and Laura Taylor, JD, for proofreading.
Do you know of any IFS-related news our community would like to know? Do you know of a client eager to share about their transformation? Please share with us such developments or happenings within one of these categories: IFS research, IFS within psychotherapy or programming, and IFS applications beyond psychotherapy.
Please complete the online form or send general information in a short email to Michelle Glass at OUTLOOK@foundationIFS.org. We will reach out to you for additional details or specific guidelines. Thank you for your submissions and helping keep our community apprised of IFS-related endeavors.
Editors of OUTLOOK reserve the right to make final decisions regarding content of OUTLOOK.
Founded in the early 1980’s by family therapist and author Richard Schwartz, PhD, Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy suggests that the “inner self” is not a single persona but rather a complex system of distinct parts (thoughts, feelings, and beliefs), each with its own viewpoints, desires and agendas. The main agenda of these parts is to protect us from inner pain generated through developmental and life traumas. The Model rejects psychopathology and posits that there is an undamaged Self with healing attributes that is at the core of each individual, even in the presence of extreme behavior.
The Model continues to generate growing interest among psychotherapists and practitioners outside the realm of psychotherapy, where it promises a myriad of applications simply as a thought process. Thousands of practitioners have been trained in IFS through a rigorous training program, administered by The Center for Self Leadership; and tens of thousands of therapy clients and workshop attendees have experienced personal transformations through the IFS paradigm.
Read more about IFS at FoundationIFS.org.
The Foundation for Self Leadership is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization registered in Illinois, U.S.A. Its mission is to advance IFS research, promote the IFS model far and wide within and beyond psychotherapy, and increase access to IFS trainings through scholarships, especially among groups with limited financial ability.
The Board and Foundation are supported
by a number of associates and volunteers:
Mary Mitrovich, part-time Financial Controller; Barbara Levine, MSSA, LICSW, Secretary to the Board (Volunteer); Michele Bruce, part-time Administrative Staff; Jenn Matheson, PhD, LMFT, Senior Coordinator (Volunteer); Anne Eberhardt, Dipl.-Psych, Operational Associate (Volunteer); Elizabeth Southwell, Coordinator for IFS Research Fidelity; Grant Leitheiser, MS, LMFT, Website Programmer and Developer (Volunteer); Jill Stanzler-Katz, MSW, LICSW, Volunteer Coordinator (Volunteer); and Michelle Glass, Editor of OUTLOOK and Donor Stewardship Associate.
Board of Directors: