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Another month of exciting news of #FIGTMembers has come across our news feeds.

David Hodson #FIGTMember and partner of the International Family Law Group, who are 2018 #FIGTSponsor, becomes one of the first fellows of the Asian Institute of Alternative Dispute Resolutions.  Congratulations David! The AIDR will benefit from your knowledge and experience.

It was also exciting to see notifications across social media that three of our #FIGTMembers including our founder Ruth Van Reken are joining together to present at the International Association for Counseling Conference in Rome.  Ruth along with Shellee Burrows and Daniela Tomer will be leading a panel discussion about TCK and CCKs. This was a collaboration which developed at #FIGT18NL.  You never know what might happen from attending an FIGT conference!

Kate Berger showed up on LinkedIn being congratulated for an excellent video interview with the Financial Times speaking about the choices and challenges of international schools.  It’s a beautiful video with great content.

Also showing up on Linkedin with a picture of a newspaper article was Florence Chabert d'Hieres, #FIGTMember and volunteer in our Communications Team. The newspaper had written about her new book “I’m a citizen of the World”  This book was also starring with many congratulations for Florence on the French speaking expatparents FB page.  The book is available in both English and French and a great resource for parents, counselors and international schools.

In the Summer 2018 edition of their magazine, Access, #FIGTMember and #FIGTSponsor for 2018 wrote about us!  They congratulated FIGT on our 20 year celebration and called us a “Global Sister” organisation. Awww.

We loved reading Julia Simons blog about the 19 Reasons to come to #FIGT2019 in Bangkok. My favourite is number 10 but it's hard to choose.

Many of you will have completed Vivian Chiona’s survey on living an international life.  Well the results are in!  What do you think we miss the most? Read the interesting findings from Vivian's survey.

Big Congratulations go to Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang whose amazing film, "Alien Citizen: An Earth Odyssey" won the Outstanding Achievement Award in the Performing Arts category at the Calcutta International Cult Film Festival!  The showing of the movie was a hit at our last conference.  If you get a chance to see it, don't miss it. 

Again this month there were some amazing #FIGTMembers writing about their current transitions.  Our own Lillian Small (PPWR writer at #FIGT18NL and our Social Media Team Lead) writes about an unexpected move to Cairo and a few other exciting pieces of news!

Marilyn Gardner is writing (beautifully as always) about leaving ‘home,' the journey, and the arrival in Ranya, Kurdistan.  We wish her and Cliff all the best in this amazing new location.

If you are an #FIGTMember and want to share your news for future editions please email us.

We are happy to share that the FIGT Board of Directors has approved the launch of a new, shared-interest FIGT affiliate:

 The Counseling and Coaching Network.

Counselors and coaches have become a growing subgroup in the FIGT community.

As a result, the Program Team of #FIGT18NL decided for the first time to have an Early Birds session on Counseling and Coaching. The session was well attended and confirmed the need to have a platform to share ideas and information within this subgroup during the whole year cycle and not only during the yearly Conference.

Communication, connection, and collaboration are at the heart of this initiative.

We see it as an opportunity to create a platform of communication and to share information that is relevant to our niche in the field of global counseling. It can be the place to go when you are moving countries and you have to find your Counseling professional way again. A place where relevant professional education opportunities can be shared. A place for peer supervision and much more. 

The leading team of the C&C Affiliate are all FIGT members:

Daniela Tomer, Tami Nelson, Shellee Burroughs, Jacqueline Herbstman and Kelli Jones Sanness

We are looking forward to hearing from you.  Please contact us at counseling@figt.org.

Your voice is needed for our first ever Asia conference!

She has also received feedback from them on the impact of becoming a David Pollock Scholar and attending the conference. “As first-time attendees to the conference, no-one knows exactly what to expect but in talking to some of the 2017 and 2018 scholars the resounding outcome is a form of delighted surprise and intense gratitude. They particularly enjoyed:

• The strong level of interest in their topics.  From the experiences of non-privileged, forced expatriation of Hazara women living in liminality between Iran and Afghanistan; to families with special-needs children in Taiwan and beyond; to non-white, non-Western, non-Global North voices; to family abuse within the expat context; to Japanese-TCK experiences; to theater expressing TCK/CCK experiences; to the experiences of black migrants; to telling stories through art and puppetry for children to effectively manage relocation issues - the list is large over the years!  
  
• The broadening of their  minds to possibilities they hadn’t previously realized with their work (volunteer work included)/studies/business/book and non-profit start-up ideas
  
• The connections to others who became their mentor, their champion, and in many cases their new BFF (Best Friend Forever) in just 3 days
  
• A new network of people who have intersections with their passion or work in ways they never considered
  
• A refreshed sense of determination
  
• ·A focus
  
• No need to explain yourself
  
• Perhaps most priceless of all: A place to belong and be heard at long last.”
  

The David C Pollock Scholarship honors a legend in the field of global mobility whose story became legend not through TV appearances, popular podcasts, internet postings or business schools touting successful global leadership skills, but through his work as a missionary in Africa, raising a family there, serving a greater purpose, and seeing the human impact of lives lived globally.  He spoke, and wrote, passionately about the human impact on families and individuals in transition.  He was able to make sense of the experiences and bring a voice to the voiceless, “to make the implicit explicit”, and always wondered who are we leaving out?  Who is being left behind?  And critically, he did something about it. 

With the David C Pollock Scholarship funds raised every year at the conference, FIGT seeks to move his work forward and memorialize his mission by continuously asking not only “Who is missing” from the FIGT table?  But also, how can their passion help others in global transition?  What can be gained by lifting their voice and giving opportunity to attend?

Successful applicants receive

• free conference registration ---they will attend the conference for free
• a partial stipend to defray travel costs ----they will receive a  stipend for travel expenses
• the opportunity to contribute to families in transition and those who serve them
• contacts, networks, ideas, resources, and friendships garnered at FIGT Conference.

Next year’s conference will be held for the very first time in Asia, in Bangkok, from April 26^th -28^th 2019.  Applications for the David Pollock Scholarship (and the Request for Proposals to present) are now open and close on September 30^th.  

For more information and to begin the Application Process click here.

The excitement is mounting, my colleagues in Communications, Program, Scholarship, Sponsorship and Logistics are in full swing, and all Board members are preparing to on-board our new in-coming fellow Board members. Truly amazing what we are able to accomplish working together - and exciting to be a part of.

Moving into the next phases of our new membership strategy I am also happy to share, that with Communications we are working hard to find ways to ensure our members’ news, accomplishments, events and highlights receive the attention they deserve. We do, however, need your help as well. We cannot keep track of all our growing memberships news and updates ourselves, so we invite you to let us know what you are up to, which you feel our community could benefit from. And, by all means, if you are a member,

Have a blog to submit for consideration? You can do so here.

Have some news to share? The launch of a book, a conference you are attending/speaking at? We will be starting a blog dedicated to ‘our members in the news’ so do please keep us posted. But DO also share your news, updates, questions in the Member Only Facebook group - we were happy to see so many join it. Also, feel free to hashtag #FIGTmember when you are posting - on your pages or posts.

New to FIGT, considering becoming a member? We invite you to explore some of the Resources available to everyone: our Public Directory if you are looking for a service, support, locally based contact/resource; our Resource Center for an overview of articles, books, news items, blogs and more. All, supporting and related to our mission to be a welcoming forum for globally mobile individuals, families, and those working with them.

A first-time FIGT sponsor in 2018 is RelocateGuru, owned by Nicole Blyth. Her company grew out of a personal observation about an obvious need she encountered in her own life after moving home 16 times: how to feel like a local in a new place, right from the start, without having to research hundreds of websites.

“In this day and age, I believe it takes too long to organise a move and feel a part of a new community,” Nicole explains. “I felt it was about time that there was a solution that helps everyone feel like a local anywhere. So I created the RelocateGuru app to be a community where we can share all the local knowledge we accumulate when we live in a place − all over the world − so that we can help the next person feel more welcome. Using the app, you can start making friends and connections in your new town before you get there, find which neighbourhood is best for you, read local recommendations, find businesses, and save everything you need to know about your new home in one place. Like having a new best friend in your new town giving you all the insider tips and tricks before you've even packed a box!”

“Every time I talk to strangers about the RelocateGuru app, they all tell me stories about the stress and hassle they had and how they wished they had the RelocateGuru app to help them in the past. Whether it was getting a house in the wrong part of town, to not knowing there was an easier way to get a bank account set up, or how to choose the right school: there are hundreds of things to figure out for the first time. The more people who share all those insider tips about the places they’ve lived that we wish someone had told us, the better the community gets for everyone.’

For Nicole, it was experiencing her first FIGT conference in 2017 that brought both a sense of community and a desire to support that community through sponsorship.

“The message and community of FIGT align so well with the mission of RelocateGuru to help everyone feel like they belong anywhere they move in the world, that I was very proud to have the opportunity to be a sponsor this year. From talking to attendees, speakers, organisers and other sponsors, all from different sectors and with different reasons for being at FIGT, there was a commonality that we shared, where questions like "where are you from?" didn't matter. Instead, we were all interested in each other's stories and the similarities we shared in our experiences, no matter where or how far we have travelled.”

“After attending the first year, I was blown away by how welcoming everyone was and how I instantly felt like I belonged − for the first time in a really long time! I met people like they were long lost friends even though we had only connected online, and learnt so much throughout the conference. So I knew that if I had the opportunity to support this special community I would.”

Attending the 2018 conference as a sponsor, Nicole gained valuable feedback on the RelocateGuru app directly from the very people who can contribute to it, help spread the word about it, and benefit from using it.

“In particular, the conference highlighted the importance of expat spouses being an essential support to overseas assignments that don't often get the recognition they deserve. I hope that RelocateGuru would be a useful resource that supports these unsung heroes, helping to make the practical and emotional challenges of transition to somewhere new easier. It was great to get feedback on what everyone wished the app could do and this is having a direct impact on how it is being developed. The collective knowledge we all have from so many places from around the world, this community has always been my ideal first members of the app. The feedback from everyone has been incredibly useful to help make RelocateGuru the community and resource you will want to download and use whether you are moving or just want to help others feel welcome and be the resource you want to tell everyone about!

Nicole also believes the RelocateGuru app will help benefit those offering coaching, training, counseling, relocation and other needed services for the globally mobile community.

“There are so many wonderful FIGT members that have services that support expats, I hope RelocateGuru will be a useful tool and a place to share all these fantastic businesses and resources so they can be found more easily, and help more people feel a part of their new community quicker and enjoy their new chapter to the full.”

As a sponsor, Nicole and RelocateGuru help ensure that we better support people living, working and studying across cultures throughout the year. Sponsorship is also vital to help fund our annual conferences, and keeping conference registration fees lower than practically any other three-day event in the world.

“The value of coming to FIGT is that as people, we develop stronger relationships when we meet each other face to face. There is something that video calls can't quite match, and coming together makes understanding different points of views and new ideas much easier. It also sparks informal debate and deeper conversations that go on well into the night! Attending the conference this year was a great opportunity to delve deeper into the issues that expats are facing, to understand them in more detail so that I can design the RelocateGuru app to be even better and help make living a global mobile life easier to navigate.”

For the past five years, the Parfitt Pascoe Writing Residency has been a vital part of the Families in Global Transition Conference. The opportunity for budding writers to receive formal training, mentoring, writing assignments and publishing opportunities has been eagerly embraced by the FIGT and expat writing communities.

So, it is with real sadness that FIGT is announcing that PPWR will not be a part of #FIGT2019. 

Jo Parfitt, the driving force behind the PPWR, is currently unable to continue in her driving role of managing the Residency.  Those of you who follow Jo’s Monday Morning Musings will be aware of some of the personal challenges Jo is facing and her need to prioritise balance and self-care.  

All of us, on the FIGT Board, appreciate and understand Jo’s decision. We will review the writing residency concept in the future.  For now, we wish Jo strength and blessings.

There have been 22 writing residents, 100s of articles and 100s of thousands of words.  We thank Jo (and her partner in PPWR, Robin Pascoe) for the legacy of writers and writings they have created. 

We’ve noticed several FIGT members popping up in our newsfeeds over the past few months so we started taking notes to share and celebrate with you all. Don’t worry -there were no scandals - it was all good news!

Featuring significantly was Katia Vlachos.  Her recently published book, ‘A Great Move: Surviving and Thriving in Your Expat Assignment’ hit the headlines in different places.  From the Financial Times business books of the month in June to Relocate Global Magazine  LIDPublishing and the expatnetwork Katia’s work was admired and appreciated.  Congratulations Katia!

Katarina Holm-Didio, one of FIGT’s NY Tri-State Affiliate leaders and a former board member, recently wrote an article for BR Anchor Publishing about having a baby while living abroad and she referenced us –and another #FIGTmember, Lisa Ferland.  Thanks Kat.

Child Psychologist and Expat Relocation Consultant, Kate Berger, was interviewed as a recognised expert in an article for the Dutch News about Dutch repatriates. It is well worth reading.

British based FIGT member, Louise Wiles, ran a comprehensive Global Mobility Virtual Summit featuring presentations from several FIGT experts. 

Dania Santana, Multiculturalism, Diversity, and Inclusion Expert was excited to learn her proposal had made it to the community voting for the 2019 South by Southwest Film Festival for her Panel Idea: The Hispanic Marketing Sauce: Are we all Mexican? Over 5,700 proposal were received so getting through to the voting stage is a big achievement! You can support her by voting up on the Panel Picker site.

Naomi Hattaway, has launched an inspiring new initiative –the I am a Triangle Impact Initiative. If you heard her speak at our conference earlier this year in The Hague you will know of her desire to make an impact in the world and her belief that those of us who have global experiences are in a unique position to do so. The first project she has chosen to focus on is one led by another of our amazing members Marilyn Gardner, educating nurses in Kurdistan – you can support this great opportunity and have an impact on a different part of the world.

Speaking of different parts of the world, our Facebook feed has been busy with posts by FIGT members in transition, telling their stories of their latest global moves with beautiful writing that takes us on the journey with them.  We wish you safe journeys and smooth landings Maryam Afnan Ahmad, Lucille Abendanon and Mariam Ottimofiore and look forward to more details in blogs yet written.

And Tanya Crossman may have won the award for publishing the first #FIGTMember blog about our next conference! She tells us who should go to #FIGT2019 in Bangkok and why!

If you are an #FIGTMember and want to share your news for future editions please email us.

A new monthly message from our Membership Chair: for members & non-members alike. An opportunity to remind the community of the treasure of resources, solutions and opportunities this broader community has to offer.

Before I share this months’ #FIGTmember moment ….how excited are you about the announcement made regarding #FIGT2019? I for one, am already looking forward to the excitement of a new location, the new discussions which will no doubt result and of course, hoping as many of those I have connected with in the past - at conferences or online - will be there too.

As exciting and important as our annual conference is, we know, as Board members that not everyone can attend. This was in part one of the reasons a new membership strategy was launched in The Hague at #FIGT18. We wanted to extend the dynamics of the connections made between people drawn to FIGT year round - to those who are able to attend a conference, as well as those who are not able. 

We reduced our annual membership to make FIGT more accessible; we introduced the Public Directory for organisations, international schools, small businesses and non-profits to be available as resources to all (member as well as non-member) and we have opened a group on Facebook for our members who are on Facebook. To date our groups on FB have either been conference or theme related - but we want to invite all to the discussion - regardless of whether or not they have attended a conference. So, if you are a member but have not yet asked to join the FIGT Members Facebook group, please do so. 

All our members are welcome to join and share who they are, what they are doing, call for help for resources as they move, arrive to of leave from a location.

We appreciate not everyone is on Facebook, so to those who are not, please take advantage of the Members Only section of our website, where you can also reach out to fellow members with a question, suggestion or conversation. And, less active - but with intentions to grow - we are also on LinkedIn - as a page and a group.

Rest assured, as is our practice, a Conference Group will be opened for 2019 Conference attendees as soon as conference registration opens.

Two final reminders to our current members:

Are you listed in the Public Directory? DO take a moment to ensure your profile is updated and complete. You can do so by logging in. Having difficulty? Get in touch with Judy, our Administrator who would be happy to help uploading your profile picture or logo.

Take a look & listen: Sir Mark Moody-Stuarts’ Keynote presentation at #FIGT18 is now available. This keynote presentation resulted in much discussion, and debate - about corporates being at the FIGT ‘table’: should they?, why?, what could they bring to the discussion or take from the experience? Sir Mark’s Keynote address is now available to all our Members.

Lastly, interested in becoming an FIGT Member? We did announce a new, more accessible fee structure and categories at #FIGT18 which you can read about here.

FIGT is fortunate to have supportive sponsors. This is the fourth of a short series of articles highlighting those whose invaluable financial and professional support helps keep FIGT growing.

Another multi-year FIGT sponsor is Worldwide Speech, owned by Erin Long. Erin has lived as an expat for many years, and understands the unique lifestyle and choices expat families must make when choosing the best education options for their children. She and her team are familiar with the nature of a mobile, cross-cultural education requiring children to transition from one international school to the next. This is reflected in the wide variety of educational services they offer online, including speech and occupational therapy, reading and math intervention/tutoring, Individualized Education Program (IEP) equivalents, and teacher training for classroom modifications.

All of Worldwide Speech therapists and teachers are certified in their disciplines and specially trained to teach and provide therapy online. As Erin explains, “We can help a huge range of children. Our clients range from kids that need minor support at school to kids requiring various types of therapy and classroom modifications.”

Working with and supporting globally mobile families is the very reason Erin’s Worldwide Speech has been such a stalwart sponsor of FIGT. “We decided FIGT was the ideal organization to sponsor because our clients are children in constant transition. We understand their needs and the special challenges they may face with education in international school settings. Our goal is to reach out to families and let them know they can find help for their children.”

Attendance at the yearly FIGT conference is a natural result of sponsorship. “The value in attending the annual conference is two-fold,” Erin says. “We learn about the various challenges families are facing when looking at education options for their children. We see the various ways people approach and think about their children’s needs. The atmosphere at FIGT allows people to be honest and discuss their concerns in a group of like-minded people.”

Erin points out that she also personally gains invaluable information at the conference as she and her family live a life in transition as well. Through FIGT, she has learned about the effects constant moving has on children, and uses this knowledge to inform her decisions, both professionally, and with her own children.

Read more about our great sponsors from our 2018 Conference here: Expat Journals, Access, International Family Law Group.

We are excited to announce the theme for the first FIGT conference to be held in South East Asia!

Connect. Lead. Change.

Families in Global Transition 2019 Conference is welcoming new perspectives to inspire and support people in transition using the theme ideas: Connect. Lead. Change. The Request for Proposals (RFP) describes the theme further.

Connect: How the challenges and advantages of virtual and physical connections (or disconnections) impact values, families, careers, identities, friends, traditions, languages, cultures, and rituals.

Lead: Ways of inspiring and cultivating leadership, qualities of leaders, and research on the subject matter as directly relevant to people in global transition.

Change: How global mobility drives personal and professional change, innovative thinking, and adaptation to a constantly shifting environment.

Program Director, Daniela Tomer, revealed that the theme emerged from the experience of the 20th Anniversary Conference in The Hague in 2018. There, the Program Committee observed that FIGT has become a platform for connections to be made, for leadership to be developed and displayed, and a platform to call for and empower change.

As Tomer described, “People come to FIGT who are interested in global transitions, to learn, to connect with others who have experience or expertise; to make new connections, to deepen connections formed at previous conferences and to connect in real life with those they may have previously connected with online. This year we saw FIGT presenters leading great initiatives for change.”

She expressed the hope that presenters from all sides of the global transition – the owners of the move, the movers themselves -the TCKs, CCKs, expat partners, the supporters of the moves -the educators, therapists, counsellors and others who can speak to an aspect of the theme, “will find different ways of looking at these ideas and provide opportunities for diverse and exciting presentations.”

For those who haven’t encountered us before FIGT is a welcoming forum for globally mobile individuals, families, and those working with them. We promote cross-sector connections for sharing research and developing best practices that support the growth, success and well-being of people crossing cultures around the world. 

To learn more about the RFP and how to submit a proposal click here.