International Missions Personnel Consultants (IMPC) exists to serve churches, mission boards, and other agencies that send North American personnel overseas for work, by providing pre-field candidate assessments of an adult’s emotional and relational readiness for an international placement.

IMPC's goal is to enable candidates to work better in partnership with their agencies, by coming to a good understanding of their strengths, areas of resilience, and areas where remediation and support will increase their abilities to thrive in their international placements. The candidate will receive, through their Candidate Report, as well as the interview:

increased self-awareness
reinforcement of their strengths and God-given talents
vulnerabilities to address and growth areas to remediate before going overseas

Assessments

IMPC utilizes standardized and valid psychological assessments, along with an extensive Life History Questionnaire, that are filled out on-line by the candidate. Results are blindly (without meeting the candidate) interpreted by a PhD psychologist and two reports (listed below), along with tentative recommendations, are written:

Report for the agency (Agency Initial Report)
Report for the candidate (Candidate Report)

Interview

IMPC values multiple sources of wisdom interpreted by two professionals, in order to achieve the greatest accuracy in these assessments. A feedback session/clinical interview is typically conducted virtually with the candidate by a second clinician (who has consulted with the first clinician and read the initial reports). The interviewer then writes an Agency Final Report, which always provides helpful supplemental information to the Initial Report.

IMPC assessment specialists and clinical interviewers are licensed mental health professionals with Masters or Doctoral degrees in behavioral science fields. They are also people with years of experience in Missions, as they either grew up on the mission field, have been missionaries themselves, have done extensive missionary care work within the context of their private practices, and/or are missionary care specialists for missions/agencies/churches.

Reports Generated

Agency Initial Report

A blind interpretation (pre-clinical interview) generating a narrative of the assessment results, combined with a bottom-line summary of “emotional and relational readiness for cross-cultural ministry” ratings in 4-5 areas: Interpersonal Readiness, Intrapersonal Readiness, Stress Resilience, Cross-Cultural Adaptability and if married, a Marital and Child Factors section. Recommendations for remediating vulnerabilities and areas of weakness, including suggested readings, are included. The agency and interviewer (but not the candidate) get copies of this report.

Candidate Report

A blind interpretation generating a summary of the findings – which includes 3-4 apparent strengths and likely problem areas. This is written to the candidate with verbiage taken from the Initial Report. Recommendations for remediating vulnerabilities and areas of weakness, including suggested readings, are included. The candidate and the agency both get copies of this report.

Agency Final Report

Written by a second clinician; it contains information based on the interview and assessment feedback session with the candidate. After final consultation with the psychologist who wrote the Initial Report, IMPC’s final recommendations are scripted in this Final Report and sent to the agency; the candidate does NOT get this Final Report.

IMPC Process

Invitation to the candidate to start the online assessments: the agency initiates contact with both the candidate and the IMPC Director of Administration. Once contact has been made, the IMPC Director communicates the process to the candidate and assigns the assessments. Some of the online assessments expire within 1 month, so it’s important not to start the process if it cannot be completed within 1 month.
Scoring of the Assessments: this is done by the IMPC Director of Administration and a summary of the assessment results is sent to the IMPC psychologist.
Interpretation of the Assessments: a PhD psychologist writes the first 2 reports described above (the blind interpretation). The anticipated timeline is to provide the agency with these reports within 12 business days of receiving the entire package of completed assessments.
Clinical Interview: the psychologist writing the initial reports assigns a clinical interviewer from a pool of interviewers, carefully matching the interviewer to the candidate, based on the candidate’s needs. The clinical interviewer shares the Candidate report with the candidate before the interview, to be used as a foundation for the interview and feedback about their assessment results. The anticipated timeline is to provide the agency with the Final report within 2 weeks of the Initial reports being shared with the second clinician/interviewer. Meeting this ideal timeline is subject to the availability of the candidate and the interviewer assigned; any time delays will be communicated to the agency.
Final recommendations: The clinical interviewer writes the Final report and collaborates with the psychologist who wrote the Initial reports; final recommendations are prayerfully and carefully scripted. The Final Report is then sent to the agency. IMPC staff is available for consultation about resources to assist with remediation, e.g., finding Christian counselors. We want candidates to thrive when they are sent to the field!

For more information please email ipp.impc@gmail.com

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