Co-Counselling International - Organisation

Organisation

CCI is a peer network with no core structure, classes and activities are organized by individuals or groups acting self-directedly. The network consists of individuals and groups who agree to a set of ideas about what CCI is. Although it has no formal status, the principles outlined in A Definition of CCI (Heron, John 1996) have stood the test of time as a necessary and sufficient statement of those ideas.

Organisation within the network varies from place to place. In some parts of the world there are structured organisations at national or local level, or both, with a variety of organizational structures and requirements for membership, e.g. the payment of subscriptions, in addition to being members of CCI. In other places the network has no fixed structure and co-counsellors organise in an ad-hoc way.

The network is currently active in Germany, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, UK and USA. There are also groups or contacts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Spain and Switzerland.

Members of the active parts of the network generally organise local and national gatherings of co-counsellors in addition to the international gatherings. These gatherings are usually self creating, in other words there is no pre organised programme, facilitators or speakers. Facilitation rotates between volunteers or sometimes even plenary sessions are peer facilitated. Plenary sessions are mainly about organising the business of the day, as part of which anyone who wants to suggest or offer to facilitate a "workshop" explains their idea. The workshops cover a wide range of topics from applying co-counselling to a range of issues e.g. depression or gender issues, to trying out other approaches to personal development such as meditation or cognitive behavioural therapy. Some of the sessions may be training, e.g. in assertiveness, while others may be for games, music or dance. Generally there is a choice of things to do, including having co-counselling sessions or just socialising. The events generally have to be self financing with the participants paying the costs of accommodation, food and any necessary administration.

In addition to these events, individuals or groups of co-counsellors organise a range of ad-hoc themed or facilitated activities. These can range from residential training courses for which the facilitator would be paid to day or half day sessions on a theme such as money or eating.

A number of local newsletters are produced to keep co-counsellors in contact, let them know about events and spread news, ideas and experiences. The practice is not to edit contributions to these newsletters and they may contain personal experiences as well as private lists of co-counsellors. For these reasons they are generally confidential and not available to non co-counsellors. CCI does, however, have a fairly active public web presence.