Good day, everyone. This is Jennifer Pierce Weeks, the Chief Executive Officer for the International Association of Forensic Nurses, and this is our committee orientation. The goal of this short program is to make sure that everyone involved inside an IFN committee, task force, or other group of the association understands the expectations of that commitment. The first thing to know is that committees and task forces created inside IFN are done so following the bylaws of the association, and they are formally created by the Board of Directors. So the bylaws state that the Board of Directors may provide for any committee advisory group and the like that consists of people who are not directors of the corporation, typically members, and they can discontinue any such committee at their pleasure. So this is fairly typical of all membership associations. It's simply part of the association bylaws. So the board creates any committee, but in addition, they also prescribe the work of the committee. Committees are typically formed with a specific purpose in mind. Generally speaking, that happens as a result of information that we may obtain from members, members coming forward and asking for it, or the realization that certain work needs to get done that should involve member input. So when committees come together, they come together at the direction of the board, their work is prescribed by the board, and the goal of that committee is generally to advise the Board of Directors. The chair of any committee appointed by the board is appointed by the board president and approved by the larger board. So at the end of every calendar year, because IFN functions on a calendar year, the incoming president is asked to select their chair for each of the open committees inside the association. And once they confirm that that individual is willing to serve as chair, that whole list of chairs is put before the Board of Directors for a vote. The board typically approves that or they have discussion if there's any kind of question about who's being chosen for a chair. They interact regarding the decisions and then they vote on those chairs. In the event that a chair position becomes vacant, in following the bylaws of the association, the board president can name the chair that will fill the vacancy. So that's all part of our process and bylaws and also very much in line with how other associations function. So there are several, of course, committees and task force of the association, two that are open to all members of the organization. The open committees, which any member can join at any time, are the membership committee and government affairs. The rest of the committees that I'm going to talk to you about here are considered closed committees, meaning there's a finite number of members inside that committee, which helps the committee function and get the work done. And so those committees are the awards committee. That's the committee that determines who receives IFN's annual awards. The education committee that works directly with the education director in doing things like reviewing the American Nurses Credentialing Center applications for continuing education. But they also look at the educational offerings that IFN has and they look at the evaluation data and they make some determinations on what might need to change, what might need to be added, what might need to be removed. The finance committee, which is a committee that probably meets the least. They typically meet quarterly. They look at the financial reports quarterly that come out from the association as well as our annual report, but they also review the proposed budget for the following year and they approve that budget before it goes to the board of directors for final approval. The program planning committee, probably the one that most members are familiar with, is the group that is chosen each year to work on the annual conference that IFN holds. We also have a research committee and they have multiple goals, but one primary goal of theirs is really to accept applications for the research grants that IFN gives out each year to score those and to make determinations about who should receive the research dollars that IFN allocates every year. The social justice committee, the position paper committee, the education guidelines task force, the scope and standards of practice task force, and the bylaws committee. You'll see that the education guidelines, scope and standards, and bylaws, all closed committees have asterisks next to them. That's because those committees are instituted. They're not year-round running committees, but rather they're instituted when necessary. Right now, the same education guidelines task force is up and running and working on updating the education guidelines, which should happen every few years. When they're done with their work, then that task force will close and it won't reopen again until we're ready to update those guidelines. The same goes for the scope and standards of practice and the bylaws. If there comes a point where any major changes to the organizational bylaws need to happen, then a special convening of the bylaws committee is put in place. And then there are also special committees, if you want to call them that, and we're going to talk about those specifically so you understand the differences with those. The first special committee is the Commission for Forensic Nursing Certification. This is sometimes referred to as the commission or the certification commission, but this body is defined as a functionally autonomous committee for the association. And they're responsible for establishing, reviewing, and overseeing implementation of the policies guiding our certification programs. The commission has the sole authority to establish policies for certification eligibility, development, and scoring of the exams, administration of the exams, recertification requirements, and operations of the certification program. The policies and procedures for the commission are determined and approved by the commission and reported back to the board of directors. So while IFN has a set of policies and procedures organizationally, the certification commission has its own, and they absolutely function independently of the larger association. The nominating committee is also a special committee. And under the bylaws, the nominating committee shall consist of three elected positions. And they're elected according to the membership form and the process defined by our policy. So each year when IFN has an election, one of the seats on that ballot is for a nominating committee member. And with the three members on the committee, each year a new member is elected, the person who's been on the committee for a third year rolls off, the new person rolls on. And the committee consistently is that three-person committee. The chair of the nominating committee is the person who's serving their last term on the committee. And each term for the nominating committee lasts three years. But why this is a special committee is because it is wholly an elected position. If anybody steps off of an elected nomination committee position, it is under the bylaws, the board of directors who replaces that committee member. So it's by appointment at that point. And then we also have the Journal of Forensic Nursing, which is the association's scientific journal. Also autonomous is the JFN editorial board. So we call them a board essentially, but they fall into the special committee category. They provide oversight for the association journal. The editorial board is led by the editor that IFN hires in collaboration with a contracted publisher that we work with. And they are responsible to adhering to their own set of journal policies, and they are responsible for development and implementation of the journal that you see each quarter. Unless otherwise stated, a quorum is a majority of the whole committee. A majority of the whole committee constitutes a quorum. So, if your committee is made up of 10 members, then 6 members is a quorum. As we have the 2 committees that are open to all members. Government affairs and membership the majority, which really. It's important when you're taking votes on things. It tends to be the majority of the people attending the meeting. If a vote is taking place. Otherwise, the expectation, if a committee is voting for something is that a quorum is present in order to hold a vote. So, if there are 6 people on the finance committee. And they need to approve the budget at least 4 people have to be present at that meeting to call a vote to approve the budget. If there's only 3 people out of 6. At the meeting, a vote cannot be called. So, a quorum needs to be present for a formal boat to be called inside a committee, which is another reason why commitment to the committees when people sign up for them is really important. It helps us get the work of the association done. When a vote does occur. And a decision is final, even if the vote was not unanimous, the committee gets behind the decision made. This is true at the board of directors level as well. When the organizational board makes a decision, sometimes the vote is not unanimous, but whatever the decision is, all of the board get behind the decision. They may not have agreed to it during the vote, but if the majority said, this is what they want to have happen, then the whole board gets behind it. And that really helps us to avoid situations where. You know, unprofessional conduct behavior conversations are happening in the background. The chair of the board, the chair, excuse me of the committee. Has a series of responsibilities they're expected to follow any associated policies relative to the committee they're chairing. They're choosing the members of the committee, and if it is a closed committee, they're also determining the appropriate number of members for them to get their work done. They're developing the meeting agenda in conjunction with. The board and staff liaisons, which we'll talk about in a minute. They work with the board and staff liaison to schedule and invite all participants to the meetings. Scheduling of the meeting should be planned to accommodate the chair, the board and staff liaisons and the majority of committee members. That's how it should work. So some people use doodle polling and other polling devices to figure out what's going to work best for everyone. The chair also facilitates the committee meetings. And they ensure that there is at least 1 committee member at every meeting who is assigned to take minutes. It isn't the job of the chair to take minutes. It isn't the job of the board or staff liaison to take minutes. It's the job of the chair to find a member of that committee willing to take minutes at that time. So that there can be a record of what has gone on. The minutes usually at the following meeting are approved by the committee and submitted to the staff and board liaisons for filing and I'll. Talk to you a little bit more about how that communication should take place. And then committee communications, which again, we'll discuss this should occur inside the committee community. So that all members can participate in the discussion. It used to be that I have had reports coming out of its committees. We changed that a few years back. What we need is a legal record of the meeting. And that's what minutes are minutes are a legal record of the meeting that was held. They are necessary for for audit purposes. So that we can show the work of our volunteers, whether it's the board of directors or a committee. And each of the minutes should be set up so that anybody who's reading them. And we will make sure to provide minute templates for all of the committees as we move forward into 2020. So that we can show the work of our volunteers, whether it's the board of directors or a committee, and each of the minutes should be set up so that anybody who's reading them can tell the date and time the meeting happened, who attended, what the agenda items were, and what the decision making votes were. So that we can show the work of our volunteers, whether it's the board of directors or a committee, and each of the minutes should be set up so that anybody who's reading them can tell the date and time the meeting happened, who attended, what the decision making votes were, and who attended, what the decision making votes were. So that we can show the work of our volunteers, whether it's the board of directors or a committee, and each of the minutes should be set up so that anybody who's reading them can tell the date and time the meeting happened, who attended, what the decision making votes were. So that we can show the work of our volunteers, whether it's the board of directors or a committee, and each of the minutes should be set up so that anybody who's reading them can tell the date and time the meeting happened, who attended, what the decision making votes were. There are other key players on each of the committees or task force of the association, and those are the board and staff liaison. The board liaison represents the board of directors at committee meetings. They are not a voting member of the committee. They provide suggestions or recommendations during the meeting. They communicate committee activity back to the board and vice versa. If there's something that needs to be communicated from the board to the committee, that would be the role of the board liaison to transfer that information. They also assist the chair in the development of the committee agenda. The board liaison is there as support as well and a resource for the committee, including meeting scheduling. So if meetings need to be scheduled, the staff liaisons should have Zoom accounts so that they can schedule and send out the calendar invites to all of the committee members. And of course, make sure that that is also communicated in the committee community online. They communicate committee activity back to the CEO of the organization. They are also not a voting member of the committee, but they assist the chair in development of the committee agenda as well. And they ensure that all the members of the committee that have been chosen are added to the committee community. And then there is the committee members themselves. They have a set of responsibilities if they commit to serving on a committee. If there is preparation needed for a given meeting, they prepare for the meeting. They attend and participate at committee meetings. They work with the committee and value and strive for consensus when decision-making is happening among the committee members. They encourage involvement of other members. And the committees, really, they meet at least quarterly through typically Zoom conference calling. And some meet monthly. Some meet more frequently, depending on what is being achieved, right? So during the research grant solicitation, the research committee may meet more frequently. During the nominations decision-making for the ballot, the nominations committee may meet more frequently. So it depends on what the charge of the committee is. But the members who sign up for committees are willing to serve a minimum of that one year, typically, unless there is a different directive. Like if you are a nominations committee member, you get voted into that, then your term is a three-year term. So it just depends on what committee you are serving on. But all committee members promote the values of the association. Typically, decision-making inside the committee itself is conducted following Robert's Rules of Order, and you can actually get a link to Robert's Rules if you're not familiar with them, and by majority rule, when a vote is actually taken on decision-making. We discussed that when we talked about a quorum. But regardless of the decision-making inside a committee of the association, final approval of all resources and plans run through the Board of Directors. So when the Education Guidelines Task Force finalizes their updates to the same Education Guidelines, they're not automatically published. They are moved to the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is then expected to read through those, make any additional edits or suggestions, and either send the document back to the Education Task Force for more revisions or approve the document with edits. Sometimes when edits are made, they're sent back to the committee so that the committee understands exactly why the changes that they made were made. But the Board is the final authority of the association. And so everything that is created, maybe there's a journal article that a committee is very interested in writing. Maybe it's a document that's being created, or it's a position paper that's coming out of the position paper committee. All of those things are finalized by the Board. And the Board has the fiduciary responsibility to actually make sure that they are approving of what is being sent to them, because whatever gets produced by a committee, or even by the Board, is a statement being made by the organization. And so the Board has final say on those things. And whenever a product is developed, again, all product development inside committees or task forces are working on products that are essentially proprietary information of the association. It is IFN's intellectual property. So it gets created by a committee, it gets submitted to the Board, edited by the Board, and approved by the Board as an association document. As far as communications go, all communications at the committee level outside of committee meetings should occur inside the community for that committee. So when you log in to the IFN Open Community, if you're a member of a committee, you're going to be assigned to that, and you can click on My Communities, and you should be able to see any committee or community that you belong to. And inside that committee is where, if there's dialogue happening in between meetings, that's where it should happen. It should happen in the discussion tab of those committees, so that all of your participating committee members can see the conversation going back and forth, or can see the documents being shared with the group. And this is also where draft minutes and finalized minutes should be posted, so that the association can meet its audit obligations by collecting and saving those documents. You as the member can adjust your settings so that you can get real-time updates whenever somebody posts in the committee you belong to, or you can get a daily digest, whatever you choose, but the member is in charge of their own settings. And then finally, really only the president of the board and the CEO under our policies are empowered to speak as a representative of IFN. Now, both the president and the CEO can give someone else permission to speak on behalf of the association, but typically it is only the president and CEO that do that. So we're contacted by the media frequently. Those are the two people inside the organization that typically speak unless someone else is designated to do so. And then lastly, I will say that we have probably 300 volunteers each year that serve on committees, task force, and a variety of other things that the association does. Having membership involvement at that level and that voluntary involvement in the association is what keeps us strong. You do the work of the association. The staff does too, the board does too, but really a lot of the work that we get done, we couldn't get done without you. So we thank you very much for your dedication to serving on committees of the association and helping us get our work done. If you have any questions at all regarding this presentation, your role or goals inside committee work, you certainly are welcome to email me directly. My email address is here, jpw.forensicnurses.org. Don't hesitate to reach out. And Christina Prezente, our membership director, is also a valuable resource to you in this regard. Thank you so much and thank you again for your willingness to serve.

committees

bylaws

Board of Directors

communication

decision-making

approval