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ELAP Work Group Members Announced

Anne Williams of ABMP has confirmed to me today the members of the group that are working on the Entry-Level Analysis Project that I have been blogging about for the past few weeks. Since the secrecy surrounding this project has been my main complaint about it, I will share that information here.  The members are:

Cynthia Ribeiro, President of AMTA (National), educator, and school owner.

Tom Lochhaas, University-level educator, author, editor with 24 years experience in developing college-level textbooks and ancillaries.

Elan Schacter, Massage therapist, instructor, text reviewer, contributing author.

Clint Chandler, Massage therapist and instructor, experienced in curriculum development.

Rick Garbowski, Massage therapist and instructor, experienced in curriculum development.

Jim O’Hara, Instructional designer.

Anne Williams, Director of Education for ABMP.

Williams stated that she was in the process of compiling the comments of those who were present at the Leadership Summit; that everyone present was now in support of it, and that much more information about the project would be forthcoming in the next two weeks. She further stated that this was intended to be a research project, and that what people do with the information will be their choice. As I said in my last blog, neither ABMP, AMTA, or any of the other organizations present at the Leadership Summit are regulatory organizations, and none of them have the power to dictate legislation. (Clarification: the FSMTB is an organization of regulatory boards, but is not regulatory in and of itself).

I am acquainted with several of the people on the work group. Cynthia Rebeiro, Pat Archer, and Elan Schacter do good work in all they endeavor to do. I would have liked it if this information had been put out there immediately, along with the rest of the details, but you don’t always get what you want. And actually, the fact that you don’t always get what you want is sometimes a good thing. As I also previously stated, the wheels of legislation turn very slowly…and just because our organizations want something to happen doesn’t mean it’s going to. If the evidence produced by this project turns out to show that 750 hours ought to be required for entry-level education, it will take many years for that to happen in every state. That’s my prediction, and I’ll be glad to take any bets on that.

I’ve been reviewing COMTA standards for the past couple of days in preparation for a site visit, and it would be great if those were a requirement for every school. I think the quality of education would increase exponentially if every school had to jump through the hoops to prove they’re doing things diligently and going beyond what most of the state boards require. I’ve also been revisiting the MTBOK, and while I still have a few issues with it, I certainly hope it is taken into consideration.

I personally still think that education should be about quality, and not quantity. 500 hours is arbitrary to me–and so is 750. Look at some of the Canadian provinces…their required hours are 4 digit numbers. Those are arbitrary too, when it comes down to it. It should be about competency, not about hours. From my own experience, and someone has made this comment to me before–in entry-level massage school, you learn what not to do. It’s when you begin practicing that you begin knowing what to do. My real education started when I walked out the massage school door, and it’s been that way for a lot of us.

This project is going to be released for comment in a couple of weeks, according to Williams. I urge everyone to take the opportunity to comment–beyond any job task analysis survey that gets spread around. Those show tasks, and don’t reflect opinion. This is of too much magnitude to the profession for opinion not to be considered. School owners in particular need to speak up. If you run a 500 hour school, how many of you can afford to increase that be 250 hours? How many would just fold? I advise you not to sit on your hands.  It’s like an election. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain, and complaining after the fact doesn’t have any impact. Express your opinion.

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Report from the NCBTMB Approved Provider/CE Meeting

I just got back from Chicago, where I participated in the Massage Approved Provider Panel convened by the NCBTMB. I have to say it was one of the best meetings I have ever attended. Everybody left their egos and their agendas at the door…not one single moment of tension or dissension occurred, in spite of the fact that competing entities were represented.

I spent the weekend sitting next to Bill Brown, Deputy Director of the AMTA. I’ve heard through the grapevine that Bill has wanted to strangle me a few times over my blog, and I’m glad he got the opportunity to know me a little better. I might have managed to convince him that I have a few redeeming qualities and I’m not just the crazy blogger he thought I was.

Cynthia Ribeiro, President-Elect of AMTA, was also present, and what a class act she is. I had supported Cynthia during the AMTA election, and there’s no doubt in my mind that was the right move. She is one fine lady who has made many contributions to our profession, and had a lot to contribute to the task at hand this week.

Bob Benson, Chairman of ABMP and Anne Williams, Director of Education for ABMP were there. Bob brought his considerable business acumen to the meeting. I’ve worked with Anne before and she’s just a go-getter who shares my philosophy of “make it happen.” She has a great sense of humor, too. There was a lot of laughing this week, which is always a great ice-breaker and good for the cohesiveness of the group.

The facilitator, Drew Lebby, provided exactly the right balance of keeping things moving, listening, and explaining. We had breakout groups and larger discussions and the whole meeting just had a great flow. Having been in meetings with some very boring facilitators in the past, I thought he was wonderful and I would highly recommend him to groups who are looking for a great facilitator. He has 35 years of experience at it and it shows.

I heartily applaud the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards for sending Kathy Jensen, VP of the FSMTB, and kudos to the NCBTMB for inviting the Federation to participate. Since the MBLEx has taken a huge chunk of the NCBTMB’s exam market share, and the Federation has also recently announced plans to jump into the CE approval arena, I can think of past administrations at the NCBTMB that would have spent the time sniping about the Federation as competition instead of inviting them to attend, all the more reason why I appreciate their willingness to play in the same sandbox. That theme was reiterated by Ribeiro and several others this week–this isn’t about your organization, or my organization, or who’s the biggest or the best–it’s about massage and increasing the quality of massage education.

COMTA was also represented by Commissioner Randy Swenson. Several state board members were in attendance, as were approved providers and a couple of nationally certified massage therapists.

The AFMTE was not represented, although they were invited to participate, and as a founding member of that organization I personally found their refusal to attend distressing. This meeting was about education, and in my opinion, they should have been there. I contacted Rick Rosen to give him the opportunity to explain their absence, and his response was that since the AFMTE has decided to partner with the FSMTB in developing their CE program, he felt it would blur the issue and divert their focus to attend.

Nice try, Rick, but since the Federation was invited, and in fact chose to participate in the meeting, I don’t buy it. The mere term “Alliance” suggests that you are representing education, and not just one faction of it. The Alliance could have made some great contributions to the meeting and you missed out on a good opportunity to do so. Rosen is of the opinion that the Federation should replace the NCBTMB and the individual states who do their own approvals as the only provider/CE approval entity. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that issue.

No one has been a more vocal critic of the NCBTMB than I have in the past, and I have defended the right of the FSMTB to offer their competing exam, as I don’t believe that any entity is entitled to a monopoly. I will go further and say that I don’t believe any entity is entitled to a monopoly in any arena, so I am not in support of the Federation having a monopoly on continuing education. They have the undeniable right to jump into the market if they choose, and the marketplace will decide. I am personally not going to be dictated to of which entity I have to throw my CE approval business to unless my state makes it a law that I have to choose one or the other. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

There are 42 member boards in the Federation and so far, although many states have voted to accept the MBLEx, and some have adopted it exclusively, many others have refused to throw out the NCB exams, and continue to give their licensees a choice in which exam to take. I believe the same thing will happen when it comes to continuing education. Some states will go with the FSMTB CE program, and others will continue to allow providers to make their own choice. It’s the American way. Furthermore, in many places legislative changes will be required in order to switch from one to another or add another approval entity, and we all know that legislation most often moves at the speed of molasses. That is also the American way.

There were a number of problems identified with the NCBTMB’s current system. For one thing, some providers have taken advantage of the fact that once they received approval, they could add on classes at will. Some have ignored the fact that there is a prohibition on classes that are based on a product they sell. Some have ignored the fact that there is a prohibition against classes based on religion and/or spiritual practices. Some have ignored the fact that they need to be genuinely qualified to teach in their subject area.

Bruce Baltz, an NCBTMB Board member, mentioned people who teach NMT techniques suddenly throwing in a class in lymphatic drainage needing to be looked at carefully…sorry, but your attendance at a weekend workshop does not qualify you to suddenly start teaching it yourself. The people who have been guilty of these offenses are going to have a little awakening when some of the changes to the program are implemented.

The suggestions for solutions were great and it was interesting to see that when we broke up into small groups to do problem solving, most of the groups were on the same page. Some of the suggestions included requiring providers to submit videos of their classes, a much stricter and more frequent auditing process, an improved evaluation process where students can go online anonymously and evaluate teachers and class content, a required online class for teachers themselves to improve instructor competence…lots of good ideas that the NCBTMB is going to consider and decide which ones to implement.

Every organization and individual at the meeting expressed a genuine interest in assisting the NCBTMB in this endeavor. Even better, they all agreed that all the organizations, not just a choice few, need to come together once or twice a year for the good of the profession. Bob Benson stepped up to the plate on that front and good for him for doing so…AMTA and ABMP can take a few swipes at each other, but in the final analysis, there is room in the sandbox and he knows it.

All in all, I thought it was a wonderful gathering of some of the best and brightest, with the intent of creating a positive outcome, and I was honored to have been included. Paul Lindamood and his team did a great job in organizing the gathering and assembling the best people they could get. And hey, any meeting that includes keeping chocolate on the table at all times does it for me.