Aromatherapy Consortium : Latest Newsletter / proposals
You may/may not have received the AC's (Aromatherapy Consortium) newsletter on regulation and what it means for AC members (not least the £60 membership fee!). Here is John Dent's (Embody CThA) reply for your information:
This is a simple voluntary Register of aromathetapists set up by the
> Aromatherapy Consortium on its own.
> It is NOT the proposed Federal National Complementary Therapists Register
> which is still subject to consultation. This consultation reaches its
> next stage in October.
> CThA advises members who are Aromatherapists to consider if they will gain
> any benefit from joining this AC register which is not yet approved by any
> national body, the Department of Health or the Princes Foundation for
> Integrated Health.
> As far as we can see the Aromatherapy Consortium has little funding to
> promote its register to members of the public or any other professionals.
> At present CThA Members gain from over 7500 members of the public visiting
> the Emabody site where all have listings..
> CThA accepts that some aromatherapists who have taken a keen interest in
> the work of the AC may wish to join its register.
Mariette
Mariette, I'd like follow up on your message and share that I have received far more referrals via the Aromatherapy Consortium than I ever have via Embody/ IGPP/ GCP and IFPA.
The only exception to this was the Embody promotion in the Daily Telegraph.
The AC have been working for many years alongside ALL the aromatherapy professional bodies, awarding bodies and other relevant parties including the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH).
The FIH state in their publication, Complementary Therapies, A Guide for Patients published in 2005:-
"At the moment, there is no single body that regulates the aromatherapy profession. There are a number of professional associations that practitioners can choose to belong to but an aromatherapist is not required by law to belong to a professional association nor to have completed a specified course of training, although many do belong to the organisations listed below.
These organisations are working together as the Aromatherapy Consortium to develop common standards of training and practice and one register of practitioners who all meet a required standard. When this happens, members the public will have a single point of contact for finding practitioners. However, this process takes time and at present standards of training can vary, which is why we suggest you ask the questions in Chapter 6."
The document is well worth a read and can be dowloaded at - www.fih.org.uk.
As far as I am concerned, the more professionally qualified aromatherapists that support the AC, the better. In their latest newsletter to members it says:
"we received a very positive message from the Foundation of Integrated Health about ways they intend to lobby the NHS and the Department of Health to officially recognise the register. We will be invited to join the new Integrated Health Associates group early next year. This group currently involves GP's, physiotherapists and chiropractors etc. who are looking to set up integrated healthcare services.
We have been accepted on the Foundation's Regulation Programme for its second year and agreed the targets for the rest of 2006." They are also lobbying private healthcare providers to include aromatherapy and AC Registered Aromatherapists.
