Building Knowledge, Growing Community: Quarterly Updates from IDA-SI

Building a Cohort

We have already been receiving applications for our program and have enrolled our first 2 students and processing a couple more applications. Prior to publicizing our program, our first couple applicants found us through the IASI website, and are from surrounding states. This reiterated our mission of increasing access to Structural Integration (SI) education. We hope to continue building the curriculum and offer support in future years to practitioners in other states wanting to start programs of their own, so future students will have SI education offered in their communities.

Expanding Curriculum

In October we hosted Lauren Christman and Richard Polishuk to train our faculty on Weight Bearing Palpation (WBP), part of a curriculum they have spent over two decades developing and generously gifted for use in our Academy. Lauren and Richard have extensive background in Structural Integration and Aston Patterning (respectively). Their bodywork practices and course offerings draw from that background, as well as craniosacral therapy, visceral work, pediatrics and orthopedic methods.

We are extremely grateful for the gift of their curriculum. As we spent the last 9 months developing curriculum for our basic training, we wanted to build a program that would nurture our students to be critical thinkers while they work - more than just a recipe. Assessment is the best way for practitioners to understand how and why they work the way they do, and we wanted to build other assessments in addition to body reading. The WBP is a simple and informative method of assessment that can provide a clearer map of holding patterns in a body. Visual body reading is of course traditional and a useful tool, which will still be included in our program. We anticipate WBP to be more accessible as a hands-on assessment, particularly for students who may struggle with the visual assessment.

Official Tax Exemption

As of November 2024, we have been approved through IRS as a tax exempt educational non-profit organization. This is great news for anyone interested in donating to our organization, since the donations are now tax deductible. Our scholarship fund is a key piece of our strategic plan to increase access for SI education. The scholarship fund will be open to BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals attending any IASI recognized program. We have committed 30% of all donations to the scholarship fund, as well as 5% of tuition from our own program. We currently offer $2,000 scholarships for attending our training program, and anticipate a general scholarship fund being available in the next couple of years.

IDA-SI on a Podcast

One of our lead faculty, Denise Foster Scott, talks about her external pelvic floor training, ethics, and our training program for IDA-SI, on Kirstie Segarra’s podcast, Fascia & Bones. Check it out!