After a while in this community, you may hear of strong personal beliefs about why an Academy or an Association is better than the available alternatives. We are a passionate and loyal bunch. There is always going to be some truth in every opinion because everyone is different, while the bottom line is that all the training services whatever their business format, are insured to do what they do. In other words, they are all legal and they are all good enough within their remit. It really is down to what you need, what you are looking for, and what you believe, so here is a run-down of some of the main differences.
Stepping aside from simply EFT, this article is written to look at training academies and professional associations in general. One word about our industry, however; it is often the case that different EFT organisations recognise each others’ standard of training at least at the basic level, so you can often learn with one and then transfer across to another.
Let’s look at definitions. An academy is a school – an independent place of learning. That school may set standards and expectations in order for you to continue to use their logo or represent yourself as one of their graduates, but other than that, if you toe the line then you are generally speaking qualified for life and if not, even academies have complaints committees. Some really large training organisations have put a shelf life on their certification so that a re-sit it required every three years or so in order to regenerate your status as qualified, but other than that, no annual fees or expenses.
An association, on the other hand, is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a group of people organised for a joint purpose. Often they are charities or CICs with committees at the helm, voted in from among the membership. These will take annual subscriptions which are used to further the reputation of the association and its members and also to offer varying levels of support and advice. What you get for your money will vary from one membership association to another.
Sometimes in order to be completely impartial, an association (The ANLP is such a one) will decline to train anyone at all. This allows it to set its own standards and to be 100% focused on support and reputation. Others who do decide to train students generally make certification dependent on continued membership so that if you stop paying, you lose your qualification. However, in the unregulated landscape of complementary and alternative practices, carrying the right logo is often seen as proof of reliability and high standards.
To be really cynical about this, Academies can offer excellent training and they rarely or never require more money once you are fully qualified. It’s a one-and-one situation and if you are lucky, some will arrange or provide community supervision, mentoring and assistance at little or no cost. Associations however can cost quite a bit on a regular basis. They may stipulate the channels through which to buy mentoring and supervision, in order to control the quality, and they take annual fees, however, these are to a very large part ploughed back into raising membership profile and reputation.
Because it can be quite easy to transfer from one EFT certification to the other (or, if you are so inclined, join them all), you can afford to shop around for benefits and make your own decisions, just as you would for professional directories. They all serve slightly different markets, so it depends on your goals, your sense of preparedness, the kind of support you’d like, etc.
Author: Cheryl White, EFT Test Manager