Today, I read that the Charity Commission for England and Wales is undertaking a consultation that "will inform the review of the approach to registering organisations that promote complementary and alternative therapies." (CAM).
"What's that to do with us?" I can hear managers and parents and Trustees saying. "What's that got to do with conductive education?
Well, as most conductive education organisations in the Uk are registered charities, depending in some cases entirely on charitable fundraised income, what would you do if you lost your charitable status?
The review will then help the Charity Commission decide whether organisations that use or promote CAM are charities. The nub of this is evidence, says the Head of Charitable Status at the Commission:
"Our consultation is not about whether complementary and alternative therapies and medicines are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but about what level of evidence we should require when making assessments about an organisation’s charitable status."
Note that the requirement for evidence is presumed ahead of the consultation:
"The Commission says that it must rely on evidence to be assured that there is public benefit, and the consultation focuses on the nature of evidence it should require of organisations using or promoting CAM that apply to register as charities.
For example, the regulator asks how it should consider conflicting or inconsistent evidence as to whether a certain therapy is effective.
The underlinings are mine.
Now you do not need to know much about conductive education to know that surveys of research from a medical (therapeutic) perspective have repeatedly shown the evidence for conductive education to be "conflicting or inconsistent" or just inconclusive.
Personally, I think (and have often enough said before) that this conclusion is arrived at because conductive education is not a 'therapy', it's not a 'treatment'. A common response when I have said such a thing is to say that I am quibbling about words; 'therapy' or 'education' what does it matter as long as the children (and adults) get it.
Well, perhaps now it is about to matter - and not in an insignificant way. Maybe now is the time to make up our minds (at least in the UK)?
Me? I know what I would tell the Charity Commissioner: I would say as Ildikó Berente wrote earlier this month on Facebook (via Conductive World):
A conductor is a pedagogue, not a provider … The conductor acquires the pedagogic system, the pedagogical system founded by András Pető. The Pető system of pedagogy!
A conductor is a pedagogue, not a therapist, I would say.
Best be prepared for when the Charity Commissioner reads your website or your charitable objects.