Subject: Overview and further thoughts
on the rules change proposal submitted to the Board in February 2014
The
document is attached and also copied below. Please include it with the Rules
Change Proposal I submitted.
Please
include this note and the attached letter in your review at the CE Ad Hoc
committee meeting on June 30th.
I also
wish to add this additional consideration for LMBTs: LMBTs who are NCBTMB
Board Certified will have to take twice the number of required CEs, one set for
the NCBTMB and one set for NC BMBT, if NC BMBT no longer accepts NCBTMB
approved CE classes. Many of our most successful and medically oriented LMBTs
do maintain this certification, and are looking forward to further development
of their practice through being included under Obama Care.
Thank
you,
Nancy
Toner Weinberger
Dynamic
Equilibrium
309
Oakwood Court
Youngsville,
NC 27596
919-562-1548
Memo:
Overview and further thoughts on the rules change proposal submitted to the
Board in February 2014.
Date: June 26, 2014
To: NC BMBT Board
Members
From: Nancy Toner
Weinberger, BS, LMBT
Dear Board Members,
Continuing
education can be defined as learning experiences that enhance and expand the
skills, knowledge, and attitudes of massage and bodywork therapists that enable
them to render consistently competent professional service to clients. It is
also defined as learning that comes after entry level learning, and thus does
not include basic knowledge and skills taught in every massage school.
Continuing
education for massage therapists and bodyworkers requires oversight to ensure
both quality of instruction and appropriateness of course content.
Quality relates to who is teaching the educational material.
Continuing education presumes to encompass education that enhances the skills
and knowledge of all levels of professional expertise; therefore the standards
for qualifying continuing education providers must be much higher than what we
require for massage school teaching. Two years of practice is not nearly enough
to qualify someone to teach at the continuing education level. And while we
require teacher training for instructors in massage schools, no such
requirement exists for CE instructors. Furthermore diverse topics in CE, like
all specialties, require not just general experience, but professional
experience specific to the content being taught.
Massage schools
often distinguish themselves by offering training in specialties beyond the
basics as part of their standard curriculum; this level of training has been
designated continuing education, provided the persons enrolled already have status
as a professional (are licensed.) Standards for qualifying CE instructors
should apply to schools and organizations, as well as the entrepreneurial
individual.
Appropriate CE
content is partially
defined in that by its very nature continuing education is above and beyond
entry-level learning. It is also easily defined in terms of excluding all
topics beyond the scope of practice of the LMBT. Beyond that however,
boundaries become more difficult to define because of the diversity of the
profession.
For example, one
cannot deny that energy work is a big part of many LMBT’s practice and how they
work, so it makes sense to increase competence in energy work for those
practitioners through continuing education classes. We have all had the
experience of feeling sick after a “bad” energy work session from a therapist,
or, as a therapist, taking on our client’s headache after the massage or energy
work session is over. For many, many therapists, the spontaneous awareness of
energy flow during massage and bodywork arises well after massage school is
over- knowing what to do suddenly becomes imperative. Yet energy work is not
even regulated by the Practice Act. And at what point do energy work classes
get too far out there, or take on a religious tone, such as Reiki with the
Angels? And who should make the decision as to what is too far out- the
professional massage and bodywork therapist, or some other entity such as the
NC Board of Massage & Bodywork Therapy, or the NCBTMB/FSMTB? This is just
one example of challenges faced in defining appropriate content for CE.
Other
considerations: Continuing
Education has been pretty much fully functioning in the US for many years now.
Individuals and companies have their entire financial structure based on
providing CE to massage therapists and bodyworkers nationwide, and pay hefty
fees to be approved. Consideration is needed to ensure that financial damage
does not result from decisions made by this board, especially in the current
unstable economy. The vast majority of CE Providers, both individuals and
organizations, want one nation-wide approval process, not multiple
approvals for courses they teach. CE Providers do not understand why the
NC Board is determined to go with FSMTB rather than the more evolved NCBTMB.
Many Providers see the FSMTB’s focus on safety and ethics as a small sub-set of
what it takes for therapists to maintain competent professional skills.
Since national
approval is apparently desired by everyone involved, well thought out decisions
now about .0700 rule changes can provide the flexibility needed as the future
unfolds. For example, keep the definitions of appropriate content very simple
and then flesh the details out in a document similar to the document online
defining modalities that fall under the massage law. By doing this, a simple
motion and vote can determine whether a new topic is allowed for CE credit or
not. The long list of defined allowed content I included in my proposal was
largely a concession to Rick Rosen’s already submitted content
guidelines. I doubt we need something that lengthy in the rules.
The Board can also
future proof the rules by including a clause in which the Board can directly
approve CE Providers and/or courses. This would provide protection should a
contractual agency fail, and also allow the Board to possibly approve the
Jurisprudence Learning Exercise for CE.
Continued
discussions amongst CE instructors are leading to rethinking the idea of one
source of approval, and that multiple approval agencies might better serve the
profession, so long as each agency is national in its scope. For example, the
IASI and ACCOM can meets the CE needs of specific bodywork professions- general
agencies cannot.
Thank you for your
consideration,
Nancy Toner
Weinberger, BS, LMBT