Accreditation

Achieve an internationally recognised qualification

Accredited Partnership Brokers assist partners and other stakeholders in shaping and managing their partnerships in an informed, imaginative and courageous way. This role is increasingly seen as central to ensuring multi-stakeholder collaboration is effective, sustainable and transformative. Accredited partnership brokers help to set high standards for collaborating in a systematic, principled and ethical way.

There are a number of pathways on to the PBA’s Accreditation Programme to ensure the best fit for those from diverse experiences, backgrounds, sectors and contexts. These include:

  • Training graduates pathway – for those who have completed PBA’s training programme and have been recommended by their trainers
  • Advanced Practitioners pathway – for those who have completed PBA’s Advanced Practice course or those with a very strong partnership brokering track record, or those who may have a qualification and track record in a comparable professional pathway (for example as facilitators, mediators, negotiators, change managers)
  • Tailored pathways for: place-based groups operating in a specific location, local / community-based practitioners and programmes commissioned by organisations.

What does Accreditation give you?

As indicated above, the Accreditation programme has multiple entry points and pathways but each one involves reflective practice and interaction with an experienced mentor offering both support and challenges to your evolving practice.

Gaining accreditation enables you to join a worldwide group of experienced partnership brokers who recognise that, whilst every context is unique, there are universal principles and approaches that underpin collaborative activities that are genuinely inclusive and mutually beneficial.

Accreditation gives you the courage and confidence to work with a greater degree of impact and influence.

Beyond Accreditation, we are now looking at ways to strengthen the growing community of Accredited Partnership Brokers (APBs) by facilitating global connections, peer support and learning – more to come.

Three features of the Accreditation Programme

The Accreditation Programme has three strong features:

  • An emphasis on becoming a more reflective practitioner in order to de-layer your partnership brokering experiences and to give yourself space for insights to emerge.
  • Working closely with an assigned mentor mentor – selected for you from a pool of 30+ highly experienced partnership brokers from across the globe – you will be accompanied you on your Accreditation journey and supported as you take increasingly brave steps in challenging poor partnership practice and helping partners to push boundaries
  • Through its high-level Accreditation Panel, there is a comprehensive and rigorous assessment process to ensure that every decision to award Accreditation (or not) is fully considered, appropriate and fair.

Accredited Partnership Brokers are able to:

  • Put APB (short for ‘Accredited Partnership Broker’) as a post-nominal after your name
  • Put this logo in your CV or email signature alongside any other professional credentials:

  • Join the PBA’s International Network of Accredited Partnership Brokers
  • Become a PBA Associate – which entitles you to help shape and build the organisation and to be eligible to apply to become an authorised PBA trainer, mentor or service provider

For more information download the appropriate information sheet which provides you with more details of the programme, criteria for acceptance, timings and the costs involved:

The Accreditation Team:

  • Accreditation Coordinator – Marta Serafin
  • Interim Manager – Ros Tennyson
  • Lead – Judith Nichol

If you want to have a conversation with someone from the Accreditation team about whether the programme is right for you – contact the Accreditation Programme Coordinator on accreditation@partnershipbrokers.org

We look forward to hearing from you!

“Prior to the training I had been trying to broker a strategic partnership for nearly two years… During my PBA Accreditation, I employed the concepts and tools of partnership brokering … and within weeks the partnership arrangement was formalised.”

“As Accredited partnership brokers, we need to disrupt the notion that technical skills and knowledge alone will be enough to change the world. Partnering for transformative change requires wisdom (more than knowledge), presence (rather than ego), unity (instead of duality) and an understanding of complexity (instead of an assumption of logical progression).”

“I used the Accreditation Programme to build on my previous professional experience and acquire a whole new specialisation. My mentor asked me really challenging questions, and helped me to reflect on my own performance and partner reactions. I was pushed to think about my frames of reference and to work through my emotional responses to the work. It set me up to work more confidently as a partnership broker.”

“As an Accredited partnership broker I now truly understand that courageous partnership brokering means being present, stepping up when necessary, challenging unhelpful behaviours and organisational cultures, holding space for new things to emerge, living with a level of tension and reflecting honestly and courageously.”

“The recent success of our highly complicated partnership now seems surprising to all the partners, like some sort of magic that cannot be replicated… but it is clear to me that after many years of frustration and impasse, my newly acquired skills as an Accredited partnership broker was the critical success factor.”

“I have thoroughly enjoyed the Accreditation process and look forward to implementing my new thinking and to be part of the PBA family. It’s been a brilliant professional experience for me and I so enjoyed the challenge of the final assessment session.”

PBA is a Company Limited by Guarantee (UK Company No. 7814169).
As a not-for-profit company, any surplus income is reinvested for the ongoing development of the Partnership Brokering profession.