Dear MAMFT members,

The Board wanted to share why we have not made a formal statement about what is happening in Palestine and Israel right now, as well as in Sudan, Ukraine and unfortunately many other places across the globe. We discussed this at our December Board meeting and agreed a larger, ongoing conversation is needed about the capacity, scope and policy of how MAMFT responds to these types of issues

What do we mean by that? As a small, volunteer Board, we want to use our capacity to best serve the organization and steward its resources. We want to be engaged locally, since we are a state-based organization. However, as systemic therapists, we’re also aware that what is happening globally impacts our members and local communities in a number of ways. This presents us with the issue of when and how to comment on events unfolding globally, especially since we only have 2 part-time (wonderful) staff, a completely volunteer Board, and no PR team!

We don’t want to only make statements. We want to do the actual work of living up to our values and mission as well as maintaining the organization and its day-to-day operations running. Thus, the Board will be working on a policy on when to make statements, how to ensure they align with our values and mission, and how to match actions to words. Having such a policy would ensure we can be more consistent as an organization, rather than having messaging shift when members rotate on and off the Board.

We understand that much of our Board’s work is not always visible to our members and that we’re still young as an independent non-profit since we separated from AAMFT in 2018. We appreciate your patience and welcome your feedback and questions, as always.

Thank you for your understanding and ongoing support and best wishes for 2024!

Sincerely,

Alex Iantaffi, PhD, MS, SEP, CST, CST-S, LMFT

Board President on behalf of the MAMFT Board of Directors