EFT International Complaints and Disciplinary Procedure

Effective Date: 1st February 2018

EFT International 's Commitment to You

EFT International is committed to providing high quality and responsive services always. However, we recognise that sometimes people may not be satisfied with those services. So we have set up a Complaints Procedure to enable you to tell us when and why you are not satisfied with our services or with those of a member.

What is a Complaint?

A complaint is either a spoken or written expression of dissatisfaction. You can complain verbally but to trigger an investigation a complaint needs to be in writing.

How to Make a Complaint

If you are unhappy with a service, we would recommend that you first raise it directly with either the practitioner or the EFT International Group/Committee involved. Resolving problems as quickly and as informally as possible is always best.

However if you wish to make a written complaint please email details to ethics@eftinternational.org telling us the issue you wish to raise and why you feel it is in breach of our Code of Conduct and Ethics. If you need help to do this please contact a member of the ethics committee at ethics@eftinternational.org.

We are committed to dealing with complaints fully, fairly and impartially. We will try to minimize how stressful it is for you if you complain. Our ethos is one of restorative justice, looking for conflict resolution as far as that is possible and appropriate in the circumstances.

If the complaint is upheld, we may apply any of the sanctions below. Where possible and appropriate, we are looking for an outcome that will include positive learning for the subject of the complaint.
All complaints are dealt with in confidence. But we may use evidence gathered in investigating a complaint to help improve our services.

There no time limit for making a complaint. However, the longer you leave it the more difficult it is likely to be to investigate it.

Relationships with Other Professional Organisations

EFT International has links with other professional organisations. When a complaint against an EFT International practitioner is upheld we may tell other organisations to which the practitioner belongs. Most professional memberships require that members tell them themselves when they learn of a complaint about them.

To protect the public, any EFT International member dismissed from membership of any other professional therapy or self-development organisation for professional misconduct may be dismissed from EFT International membership on those grounds alone.

When the EFT International Ethics Committee receives a complaint, we notify the subject, tell them its content and ask them for their response. When we receive the response, we try, if possible, to respond to it within two weeks. When this is not possible we advise them that there is a delay and indicate how long we expect it to be.

Sanctions

Our approach to sanctions is:

Where possible and appropriate, we help subjects of complaints to do what they need to do to put right any shortcomings and fill any gaps in their EFT knowledge, and to overcome any difficulties in their practices. We support them to do so. This might, in some cases, require some additional training at their own expense. We would ask them to tell us when they have complied with the requested additional training or recommended changes to their practices, with evidence if relevant (e.g. an attendance certificate.)

Complainants in such cases would be told in general terms that that is what we have done.

• When a complaint seemed to arise from a lack of self-awareness or a lack of awareness of therapeutic processes or lack of knowledge of EFT we may ask the subject of the complaint to undertake a specified additional amount of one-to-one supervision with an approved supervisor and/or additional training as appropriate, at their own expense, and to let us know when they have done so.At our discretion, we may decide to ask for a report from the supervisor. We would tell the complainant only that the subject of the complaint had agreed to work through the issues raised in additional supervision or to do additional training or both.If the subject of the complaint in the situations described above refused or failed to comply with our recommendations, we would consider recommending to the EFT International executive temporary suspension or termination of EFT International membership.
• We will not reveal the identity of the complainant to the EFT International member complained about without the complainant’s permission. However, most complaints cannot progress any further unless the person complained about knows the identity of the complainant.
• When a complaint involves an inappropriate relationship with a client or trainee during within a year after the end of therapy or training we would recommend suspension or termination of membership.Before doing so we would offer the subject of the complaint a chance to represent their side of the story on a Skype conference call with two or three of us if they wished.
• We would expect an inappropriate sexual relationship would usually automatically invoke termination of membership. For something less serious or clear-cut we retain the possibility of extra compulsory supervision or suspension for a specified length of time.In the case of serious sexual misconduct, we would ask the former member to advise within one month, other organisations to which they belong and tell them that we will check with such organisations at the end of that time that they have done so. The same would apply to anyone found guilty of a criminal offence, other than a traffic violation.If we terminate membership, we also say that unless all mentions of membership are removed from the former member’s website, advertising material, course material, brochures, cards etc. within one month we will report the matter to the relevant advertising authority and the local trading standards officer.If we terminate membership, we generally tell the person complaining that the subject of the complaint is no longer a member of EFT International. However, we reserve the right to tell the complainant that we have expelled the person about whom they complained when that seems a more appropriate sanction and/or seems to better meet the needs of the person who complained. If the person who is the subject of the complaint choses to leave EFT International we tell the complainant that they have left EFTi.

The Ethics Committee will give a written report of your complaint, outlining the investigations, conclusions and recommendations, to the EFT International Management team for action.

Recommendations may include but not necessarily be limited to:

• No further action
• An admonishment
• Further training
• Extra mentoring
• Temporary suspension from Registration for a specific period
• Removal from the AAMET

How to Appeal If You Are Not Satisfied

If you complain and you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, or you are complained about and not satisfied with the outcome of the complaints procedure, you can ask to have all the evidence reviewed by a member or members of the EFT International Management Team with no previous involvement with the complaint.

They will be asked to prepare a report on their findings, and whether on the basis of the evidence available to the Ethics Committee they feel the decision was reasonable.

Appeals must be made within 28 days of the decision being announced.