RA Passes Consent Agenda, Motions on Re-licensure Model and Internat'l FW Resources
The Representative Assembly is in full swing this week, having already voted on several measures and in discussion of several more.
The assembly passed the items on Consent Agenda Y, and also voted unanimously to have the Commission on Continuing Competence and Professional Development (CCCPD) develop guidelines that state licensure boards can use to create standards for people returning to practice. (Motion 4) The RA also gave a unanimous nod to having the Commission on Education refine and post to the AOTA Web site documents drafted in preparation for an International Fieldwork Collaboration Program to use as resources for students who would like to do fieldwork outside the United States.
The guidelines will be available to state associations and regulatory boards seeking to establish or amend re-entry competency. The language also will be added to AOTA's Model Practice Act that many states are in the process of adopting, to make it easier to incorporate re-entry standards into future state practice act updates.The State Affairs division of AOTA has been working with individual states as these issues come up, and would welcome more uniform standards for re-entry across the country. Particularly because the profession is still more than 90 percent female, some OTs and OTAs let their licenses lapse during their child-rearing years and return when their children are older. Others return after working outside OT. CCCPD will present a final report on this effort at the fall 2009 online assembly meeting.
Representatives were enthusiastic about encouraging what is becoming a small but more popular trend as time goes on - fieldwork outside the United States. Up to this point schools and students have had little help in finding the resources they needed to do this. The documents may include an ethics document, an international planning guide and a guide for students seeking these posts as well as timelines for academic programs and fieldwork sites and a sample memorandum of understanding. Reps felt that connecting with OT programs abroad is one of the things that should be happening in support of the Centennial Vision, to make occupational therapy a more recognized and powerful profession by 2017.
Voting also closed today on 2 other motions, for which results have not yet been posted:
1) a charge by the Special Interest Section Council (SISC) to have RA leadership develop "an equal and consistent system for soliciting member feedback on proposed RA motions for both spring and fall RA meetings";
2) Motion 5: a charge led by President-elect Florence Clark to reorganize the AOTA Board of Directors in a way that ensures that "a broad range of occupational therapy practice areas are consistently represented on the board."; and
Meanwhile, discussion on a substitute motion from Task Group 3 to have AOTA look into the timeline and costs of developing evidence-based practice products on OT in oncology is being held open until tomorrow morning as the Speaker awaits information delegates requested about it. .
The task groups are recommending defeat of the first two motions without any substitute motions, and adoption of the substitute motion (3) for oncology.
The rationale for creating a better member feedback system is rooted in the desire of RA reps to know as much as possible about how their constituents want them to vote on upcoming issues. This motion argues that since the development of the fall online meeting almost a decade ago, there has been less effort to collect information from members as to what they think about the fall topics, as on what is on the agenda; the topics are not published in OT Practice. Task Group 2, however, felt that it is expected that elected delegates will communicate with their constituents in preparation for the meetings, but the main reason is money. The AOTA Web site is now being used as an "official publication" to get information out without having to spent money on printing and distribution.
Task Group 2 is also recommending defeat of Motion 5 (changing the representation on the AOTA board) without a substitute motion. Clark's contention is that the board is overly weighted right now with educators rather than practitioners, who often are elected because they have better name recognition among AOTA members. At one time elections rules did ensure that one group of people could not monopolize the board; however, almost a decade ago the RA voted to have the board stop representing practice areas and instead seek corporate expertise in the form of elected directors rather than the heads of the various AOTA commissions. That structure still exists. The task group discussing this rejected the argument. Statistics, it said, show that clinician participation has actually increased since the board adopted the director model. Also, most members are both practitioners and educators. The BOD is not meant to create and enact policy, but to guide the corporation. The Speaker of the RA is a member of the board.
As to the oncology issue, representatives were concerned about having AOTA national office staff spend time and money researching something that might not come to fruition. They sought clarification on how action on the issue would be taken. Voting will begin on this matter tomorrow at noon.
Voting has recently opened on Motion 6, a member-driven motion to build diversity within the profession to meet the goals of the Centennial Vision by "establishing a method for collecting, reporting, and maintaining statistics related to clinical and academic workforce diversity." Task Group 3 is recommending defeat of the motion based on the fact that AOTA already keeps such statistics.
Discussion is continuing on two motions:
1) a substitute motion asking the RA Coordinating Council (RACC) to determine just what is OT "practice" ? Can people in education, research, etc. be considered practitioners in terms of regulatory language? This issue is coming up in state regulation cases.
2) probably the most controversial motion this assembly, Motion 3, asking for a name change for OT assistants to OT associates. Task Group one is recommending defeat of this motion, which we will cover more fully in our April 27 OTA edition of the print magazine.