Ethics Update from Amina & Aqil

Jamiat Am
1

Dear friends,

Amina Hall & Aqil Brown are chairing our Ethics Policies & Procedures Review, and share the following update with us. We will engage the Ethics Forum Discourse more actively in December & January as we enter more fully into reviewing more detailed recommendations. If you would like to join the Ethics Forum, please email ethics@inayatiorder.org.

With love,
Alia

Background and Alignment:
When the World Wide Message Council (WWMC) met in January we were asked by Pir Zia and agreed to work with the IO Ethics Committee and the IO BOT to complete a process of providing feedback on the proposed IO Ethics Policy and procedure documents. The work requires strong alignment among these key leaders in order to complete a complete set of ethics documents that will provide the Order with tools and methods for managing the complex process of ethics.

We had a few ‘starts’ over the first part of the year and have now have agreed to work with a representative and collaborative process to:

  1. Engage a fully representative team of Inayati Order members of the IO Board of Trustees, The Ethics Committee and the NA Message Council and World Wide Message Council to build alignment for:
    o Confirming a collaborative working model
    o Chartering the steering team
    o Committing to supporting the work and final recommendations of the team
  2. To meet together in a structured process in order to ensure our work will result in an aligned team with the solid agreements and clear processes needed to produce the revised/refined Inayati Order Ethics Policies and Procedures.
  3. To base work on preparation which involved using the input and feedback we have heard and continue to seek to-date.
  4. To work in a model that can serve us in a fairly fast-paced and dynamic process in completing this complex and comprehensive task.

IO Ethics Steering Team Process and Goals:

  1. To bring a collaborative and partnering process to revise the Inayati Order Ethics Policies and Procedures that will apply to all activities of the IO North America with steps toward aligning world-wide through the Inayati Order World Wide Message Council.
  2. To provide the team working ground rules determining the process, interaction and outcomes agreements in order to ensure that our work will result in the successful completion of our tasks.
  3. To provide the process for working with pairing teams; smaller working groups—a steering team of 7 representative pairs of individuals who are best equipped to elaborate and determine the details of the policies and procedures.

Steering Team Completion is defined as having documents ready for North American Board of Trustees authorization on the following subjects, (whose content has alignment from the IO Ethics Committee and the North American activity heads, and, substantial alignment from the wider community:

  1. Ethics Policy and Guidance
  2. Ethics Procedures describing case team configuration, case investigation, resolution, and case appeal
  3. Financial Ethics Policy and Guidance

Accomplishments to date:

  1. Chartered the IO Ethics Steering Team
  2. Established and aligned around ground rules for our work together
  3. Defined scope of work
  4. Created pair teams representative of IO BOT, WWMC and IO Ethic Team members to work on, and assigned high level tasks and subject area to each
  5. Started collecting relevant resources
  6. Started collecting feedback from members of each constituency and others within the IO
    IO Ethics Steering Team members:
    Naima Brown, Zumurrud Butta, Suhrawardi Gebel, Huzur Nawaz German, Amina Hall, Nigel Hamilton, M’ellen Kennedy, Suria Less, Nur Azad Mangold, Tara Muir, Hakima Normand, Rabia Povich, Tajalli Roselli, Devi Tide, Alia Wittman

Progress:

We have begun solidly having met 4 times, one more time scheduled in November; more meetings will be needed. We are targeting the end of 2019 for completion.
We are not rewriting from scratch, we are starting at where Ethics Committee left off.
We want to get continuous feedback, instead of waiting until the end, so that alignment is realized.

Completion does not include anything that would apply worldwide at this time; whose feasibility would need to be assessed in a new initiative once this current initiative is completed.
Contacts for the team:

Amina or Aqil as co-facilitators/pair for inquiries about the steering team itself and its process:
lhall@wakefieldway.com
aqil@gardenlight.org

**Naima, Tajalli, or Suhrawardi as the pair team for the IO activities or, have a topic specifically **
related to impacts on being a leader in one of the activities:
naima@inayatiorder.org
roselli@rhondaroselli.com
suhrawardi@inayatiorder.org

Alia, or Devi for general feedback:
alia@inayatiorder.org
devi@sufihealingorder.org