Accreditation

Achieve an internationally recognised professional 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.

Achieving this qualification brings with it the level of confidence and quiet authority necessary to enabling different – sometimes divergent – players to work well together – often against considerable odds.

Pathways to Accreditation

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

  • Partnership Brokers Training Accreditation Pathway – for those who have completed a PBT course and have been recommended for Accreditation by their trainers
  • Tailored Accreditation Pathway (in the process of being expanded to include a wider intake) – for those who have completed the PBA’s Advanced Practitioners training or have not completed a PBA training course but who have a strong partnership brokering track record or who are in transition between roles or who have a qualification in a comparable professional pathway (for example as facilitators, mediators, negotiators, change managers)
  • Collective Accreditation Pathway – where an Accreditation programme is co-created with PBA for a number of suitably experienced individuals involved in collaborative programmes of work within the same organisation, department, partnership or network.

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.

Four features of the Accreditation Programme

The Accreditation Programme has four strong features:

  • A programme that is responsive to your specific context and professional priorities.
  • An emphasis on becoming a more reflective practitioner iin order to de-layer your partnership brokering experiences and to give yourself space for insights to emerge.
  • Being accompanied by an assigned mentor on your Accreditation journey – selected for you from a pool of 50+ highly experienced partnership brokers from across the globe. Your mentor will support you as you take increasingly brave steps in challenging poor partnership practice and helping partners to push boundaries.
  • A comprehensive and rigorous assessment process overseen by the PBA’s Accreditation Panel, 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:

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:

If you want to have a conversation with someone from the Accreditation team about whether the programme is right for you – contact the Accreditation 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.”

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As a not-for-profit company, any surplus income is reinvested for the ongoing development of the Partnership Brokering profession.