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A word from the Chair with Tony Clark

A word from the chair banner

As we welcome the beginning of a new year it is a welcome many will never forget. The catastrophic fires that have raged across Australia have left our community shattered, loosing life, family, friends homes, jobs, businesses and more. We have seen the best of the human spirit and sadly some of the worst. Lets also not forget the tragedy that has befallen our native wildlife and the terrible long term impact – their homes have been completely destroyed.

Amongst such tragedy we also see how wonderful our human spirit can be. People from walks of life are giving up their time and money to help those in in need. From donating to money to my local community in Creswick hand making pouches to help the Koalas who have been injured on Kangaroo Island.

We as an Engagement community are no different. I am immensely proud of so many of our members who have put up their hand to help the communities in crisis by lending their personal expertise to deal with what is happening and begin the painful process of rebuilding. Here are some of the highlights:

For all of those who have come together, both through IAP2 and in your personal lives, please accept a personal and sincere thanks from the Board and our community, human kindness is a priceless gift and a treasure that must be fostered.

As we look forward to 2020 it will be a challenging and exciting year, rebuilding from bushfires and continuing to meet the challenges of day-to-day life will go on. IAP2 Is looking forward to the future as we start to take advantage of many years of hard work.

On the international front we are powering ahead to form a true foundation to further acknowledge and bring credibility to the profession. Under the leadership of Kylie Cochrane – IAP2 International Chair – a new IAP2 global training model is in development. This will lead to the establishment of a common set of core training and professional standards on a global basis. Each region will continue to develop and deliver professional development opportunities that meet local needs, recognising that all countries have their own unique and cultural requirements. IAP2 Australasia is currently doing just that and will be introducing a range of new short courses during 2020 with our highly skilled trainers and practitioners.

This year we will be turning our energy to building Member Value through a range of strategies and services including expanding and improving the support of our local networks, developing an advocacy strategy, and further improving our ways to support young and emerging professionals together with looking at ways to develop our indigenous and Maori practitioner capacity building program. We are also looking at revamping our national conference, this year it will be held in Melbourne and will look very different from last years event.

We are looking forward to taking advantage of our new online system. While this is not the sexiest thing to talk about it is going to open up our ability for you as members to connect, share information, organise local network events and so much more. Our team is super excited about the potential.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our outgoing Chair, Donna Marshall, for her leadership, energy and passion for IAP2. I would also like to thank outgoing board members Kate Henderson and Helen Christensen and wish everyone well for the future.

A big welcome to our three new board members, Nathan Connors, Lance Brooks and Penny Townley, and thank you to Joel Levin, Allen Rodwell, Kylie Cochrane, Jo Wilkins, Mandi Davidson and Amy Hubbard for their ongoing work and commitment to IAP2 and the profession. Also a massive shout out to our tremendous staff under the leadership of Marion Short, great job guys!!

Finally, I would like to thank you, our members, your commitment to delivering better outcomes makes our community a better place. I am honoured and privileged to lead IAP2 as Chair and will be dedicating my time to deliver better outcomes back to you, our members.

Tony Clark