If you have successfully completed "Fundamentals of Embodied Intimacy" and have been given the go ahead to continue on to the Professional Training, you may submit your application and register by paying for it here.
 
The SPT-Specialized Professional Training consists of two parts.
 
1. Community Integration Sessions
 
There are two different FEI workshops that took place in March 2024. All of the participants from both FEI’s that have been invited to continue will be combined in these Community Integration Sessions, which will take place every 2nd Monday, starting June 3rd, from 4pm to 6pm Pacific time. The specific dates are: June 3, June 17, July 1, July 15, and July 29, and August 12. The purpose of these community integration sessions is to expand the container to include a larger community (the participants from both FEI programs), to address topics specific to the training cohort, like giving an overview of the apprenticeship process, for example, and to integrate both the learning and the community through structured activities, breakout groups, check ins, Q&A, and case consultations.
 
2. The Surrogate Partner Symposium and Continuing Education Series
 
This part of the professional training will consist of 12 weeks of 3 hour sessions with a broad diversity of surrogate partners and other subject matter experts sharing their expertise on 25 different topics relevant to Surrogate Partner Therapy. These sessions will meet weekly on 12 consecutive Thursdays starting June 6th and continuing through August 29th, with the exception of July 4th, a holiday in the US, where there will be no meeting. These sessions will meet from 3-6:10 pm. We will hear from one or more subject matter experts from 3-5:40 pm Pacific time, with a 10 minute break sometime in the middle at the discretion of the speakers. Then the guest speakers will leave us, and there will be an additional half hour which will be a facilitated discussion and integration of the content from 5:40 to 6:10. This last half hour is optional, so if you’ve had enough at that point you are welcome to skip it. If you choose to stay, you will be invited to consider questions like “What most impacted you from today’s session?” “How do you think you can incorporate this in your work as a surrogate partner?”
 
These sessions will be open to practicing surrogate partners to attend for continuing education, so there may be others there in addition to the combined training cohort.
 
Also the “How to Help Generalize Surrogate Partner Therapy” course is a required part of the training. This course will be scheduled on a Saturday morning sometime during the summer. This course is 2 hours, and will be recorded in case you are not able to attend in person.
 
In total, the SPT-Specialized Professional Training will consist of an average of 4 hours/week over 12 weeks, plus “How to Help Generalize SPT” (another 2 hours) for a total of 50 hours. Although these programs will be conducted over the Zoom videoconferencing platform, they are meant to be done live, and you are encouraged to do as many of them live in person as you can. Community-building is an important part of the program. We do know that it’s not always possible to make every one, so the Symposium series will be recorded. You will be required to attend 9 of them live, but for the remaining three, it will be possible to review the recording later.  In order to create greater safety and intimacy, the community integration sessions will not be recorded. Although you are strongly encouraged to attend every one of them live, it will be acceptable to miss one of them, or two at the most.