Empowering Holistic Well-Being

The International Self-Care Foundation (ISF) is a registered UK Charity with a global focus. ISF is funded by donations and grants and operates as a not-for-profit entity independent of all commercial interests. Our official Charity registration number is 1158114. Keep reading to learn more about the International Self-care Foundation.

An independent sister organization, ISF Hong Kong, was established in 2013 and is a Hong Kong-registered Charity. The focus of ISF Hong Kong is the Greater China area.

Self-care needs to be an integral part of people’s lives and integrated into families, communities, organizations, and society. But with many different elements involved and being substantially outside the remit of current health and social systems, self-care has in the past lacked a champion.

The International Self-Care Foundation has therefore been formed to champion self-care around the world. In practical terms, this involves helping to develop evidence-based self-care concepts and practices and helping to promote the role of self-care in health.

ISF’S Vision

Is of a world in which people live long, healthy lives, taking personal responsibility for their own wellness by adopting healthy lifestyles and self-care behaviors.

ISF’S Mission

Is to work with all stakeholders in health to support countries, communities, and individuals in the adoption of evidence-based self-care practices.

ISF’S Core Strategy

Self-care needs to be an integral part of people’s lives and integrated into families, communities, organizations, and society. To achieve this, self-care concepts and practices need to be developed in an evidence-based and systems-based (holistic) way.

ISF’s core strategy is to help to develop evidence-based self-care concepts and practices, and to help to promote the role of self-care in health.

The President of the International Self-Care Foundation is David Skinner. David is a biochemist with over 34 years of leading a major Canadian self-care organization (now the Food, Health, and Consumer Products of Canada) and was a Director of the Global Self-care Federation (GSCF), an international trade association based near Geneva, Switzerland, from 1983 to 2013.

Dr Austen El-Osta is Director & Trustee of ISF. He is also Trustee of the Self-Care Forum & Director of the Self-Care Academic Research Unit (SCARU) which is recognised as the academic home of self-care. He sits on various international panels & working groups including WHO Expert Review Group on Self-Care Interventions for Health & Wellbeing. Austen is progenitor of the Self-Driven Healthcare movement, author of the Self-Care Matrix: a unifying framework for self-care & Principal Investigator of various studies including the Living Self-Care Survey, the Self-Care Policy Mapping Toolkit & the Self-Care Capability Assessment Toolkit (CAPITAN) initiative.

The Chairman of the International Self-Care Foundation is Zhenyu Guo, Ph.D. Zhenyu was a tenured professor of medical electronics in Canada before returning to China and establishing himself as a leading Chinese entrepreneur.

ISF Works in Collaboration With:

If an Organization Wishes to Work in Collaboration With Isf Please Contact Us