IAMFT Official Policies, Rules, & Regulations
Anti-Harassment Policy
Illinois Affiliation of Marriage and Family Therapists
Purpose
The Illinois Affiliation of Marriage and Family Therapists (IAMFT) is committed to fostering safe, respectful, inclusive, and professional environments for all individuals. This Anti-Harassment Policy outlines expectations for members, board members, volunteers, employees, contractors, presenters, and attendees in all professional and related settings, including clinical practice, supervision, training, conferences, professional events, community interactions, and digital communications.
This policy aligns with:
The Illinois Marriage and Family Licensing Act
The Illinois Domestic Violence Act of 1986
Illinois Administrative Code 68 IAC 1283
The Illinois Human Rights Act
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The AAMFT Code of Ethics
Scope of Application
This policy applies to all IAMFT members, volunteers, and participants of IAMFT sponsored events whenever they are functioning in a professional capacity or representing themselves as therapists, including but not limited to:
Clinical practice and telehealth
Supervision, consultation and training relationships
Educational settings
Conferences, workshops, seminars, and IAMFT-sponsored events
Community Outreach, presentations, and public events
Online and digital communications
Any professional space where IAMFT membership or licensure is relevant
Definition of Harassment
Harassment includes any unwelcome, hostile, or intimidating conduct-verbal, nonverbal, physical, written, or digital-that negatively affects an individual’s ability to participate in a professional interaction or creates a hostile environment.
Harassment may include, but is not limited to:
Derogatory, demeaning, or abusive remarks.
Bullying, intimidation, or coercion
Repeated unwelcome comments, behaviors, or gestures
Threats or hostile behavior
Displaying offensive or discriminatory materials
Harassment based on any protected characteristic
Protected characteristics under Illinois law include:
Race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, religion, pregnancy, veteran status, marital status and immigration status.
Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is a specific form of harassment and includes:
Unwelcome sexual advances or propositions
Requests for sexual favors
Verbal, written, or nonverbal sexualized comments
Display of sexual content in professional settings
Sexual or romantic behavior toward current clients, supervisees, trainees, or students
Sexual or romantic behavior with former clients within the legally restricted time period
Quid pro quo
Sexual harassment is strictly prohibited in all IAMFT-related spaces and professional contexts.
Prohibited Conduct for IAMFT Members
IAMFT members are prohibited from engaging in:
Harassment or discrimination of any type
Sexual harassment or sexually inappropriate conduct
Bullying, intimidation, verbal abuse, or hostile behavior
Misuse of power or authority in supervisory, teaching, or evaluative roles
Engaging in dual relationships that increase the risk of exploitation or harm.
Behavior at conferences, trainings, or events that compromise safety, respect or professionalism.
Unprofessional or harmful behavior In digital spaces (email, social media, forums, online seminars)
Standards for Conferences, Events and Public Settings
IAMFT expects members, volunteers, and participants to maintain the highest professional standards when attending, presenting, or participating in:
IAMFT Conferences and workshops
National or regional processional conferences
Community education or public presentations.
While participating in these environments, members must:
Treat all participants with respect
Avoid discrimination or harassing language
Maintain appropriate professional boundaries with colleagues, interns, students, and community members.
Ensure conduct reflects positively on the profession and IAMFT
Event Cancellation & Refund Policy
We recognize that plans can change. Because Illinois Affiliation of Marriage and Family Therapists (IAMFT) events, such as the Annual Conference and Futures Conference, involve significant venue contracts, catering guarantees, and program commitments, the following cancellation and refund policy ensures that IAMFT can continue offering high-quality conference and event experiences for all attendees.
The IAMFT Event Cancellation & Refund Policy applies to all conferences, workshops, training, social events, networking events and any other in-person or virtual events organized, sponsored or hosted by IAMFT.
Please review this policy carefully before completing your registration.
Participant Cancellations:
Full Refund: You may request a full refund if your cancellation request is received at least 21 days before the event.
Partial Refund: Cancellations made between 20 and 8days before the event will receive a 50% refund. A processing fee of $25 will be deducted from the refund amount.
No Refund: No refunds will be issued for cancellations made less than 7 days before the event. No refunds will be issued for no-shows.
Transfers/Credits: Because of the financial commitments associated with the conference or event, registrations cannot be transferred to future IAMFT events and credits are not offered except in rare, documented emergency situations. Your registration will be cancelled and a refund will be issued based on the above refund conditions.
Substitutions: You may transfer your spot to an eligible attendee if your substitution request is received at least 2 days before the event. Any
Organizer Cancellations:
Full Refund: If the event is cancelled by the organizer, all registered participants will receive a full refund using their original payment method within 15 business days from notification of the cancellation.
Rescheduling: If the event is rescheduled, all original ticket holders will be notified 24-48 hours in advance of the registration announcement being sent to membership and going up on social media.
Exceptions:
IAMFT understands that emergencies happen. We will consider exceptions only for unavoidable and documented emergencies, such as:
Illness or injury
Serious family emergencies
Natural disasters affecting travel
Public health–related restrictions
All exception requests must include documentation and may qualify for a partial refund or credit, reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Please contact us as soon as possible to discuss your situation.
How to Cancel:
All cancellation requests must be submitted in writing by sending a message to illinoismft.conference@gmail.com.
Please include:
Your full name
Name of event
Order/confirmation number
Email used for registration
Reason for cancellation or substitution request
Contact Information:
Email: Conference@IAMFT.org
Website: https://www.iamft.org/
Continuing Education (CE) Certificate Policy
IAMFT Annual Conference
Attendance Verification Process
To receive Continuing Education (CE) credit for a workshop, participants must:
Bring their CE passport card to each workshop
Present the passport card to the workshop volunteer to receive the required number of stamps (two stamps for the morning workshop and one stamp for each afternoon workshop),
Remain in the workshop for the full duration to be counted as present
IAMFT operates under a trust-based attendance policy. A stamped passport serves as verification that the participant attended the workshop. IAMFT trusts that participants who receive a stamp were present for the workshop in its entirety.
Submission of CE Passport Card
In order to receive a CE certificate, participants must submit their completed CE Passport Card:
To a IAMFT CE Committee member or
At the registration desk
At the close of the conference or at the close or their participation in the conference
Participants are encouraged to retain a digital copy of their CE Passport for their records.
If a participant forgets to submit their CE Passport in person, or does not verify their attendance, they may submit a clear digital photocopy of their completed passport card to ce@iamft.org within one (1) week following the conclusion of the conference. Please note that the printed CE certificate will reflect the workshops printed on the passport card that is submitted.
After this one-week submission window has passed, CE Committee members will be unable to issue a CE certificate for a lost or unsubmitted passport card, as attendance can no longer be verified after the conference has concluded.
Distribution of CE Certificates
Participants who register for the IAMFT conference and purchase CE credits in advance will have their CE certificate generated based on the workshops participants selected at registration.
If a participant chooses to attend a different workshop than the one selected at registration on the day of the conference, please note that this change will not be reflected on the CE certificate. CE certificates will reflect the conference workshops recorded through the established attendance verification process.
The only circumstance under which changes will be made to a CE certificate is if the conference itself changes a workshop, cancels a workshop, or adds a replacement workshop presentation. In these cases, the CE Committee will update CE certificates accordingly.
Conference or CE Committee members are unable to make any other changes to CE certificates on the day of the conference or after the conference has concluded.
“…. The injustice of having some significant area of one’s social experience obscured from collective understanding owing to persistent and wide-ranging hermeneutical marginalization…” – that is hermeneutical injustice (Fricker, 2006).