Excerpts of the Speech given by AMTA Executive Director Elizabeth Lucas at the 2006 AMTA National Convention Your Board of Directors, the officers you elected to lead AMTA into the future, is devoted to serving our members, while advancing the massage therapy profession. To achieve that future, they have selected three goal areas of priority focus this year: • To enhance the member experience by delivering value that earns member loyalty and commitment; • To advance professional competency by ensuring AMTA members have the competencies, skills and professionalism to be successful; • To advocate and influence by proactively pursuing licensure in every state One of the unique attributes of AMTA is the involvement of our members as volunteers. Volunteering provides a way for members to get involved and be active participants in carrying out the future direction of AMTA, as well as delivering ongoing programs at the local level through our network of 51 chapters. Your National Board, with input from government relations volunteers, staff and other professionals, has defined the must haves and should haves for state laws. With this information clarified and established as the basis for our work, the AMTA Government Relations Program was officially launched this past spring. We are working with chapters to achieve our goals of consistency in massage therapy licensing. I’m delighted to tell you that in a recent survey, 90% of members said we should continue our government relations goal of portability of massage practice. Today, we have legislative activity in 11 states, providing lots of opportunity to make a positive move forward in creating, revising and promoting fair and consistent laws. As we are pursuing our focuses on the member experience, professional competency and advocacy and influence, we also are expanding our relationships with people, organizations and regulators whose areas impact massage therapy. We continue to build our relationship with the Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC), its Academic Consortium of Complementary and Alternative Health Care task force and other complementary, alternative and integrated healthcare groups. Now, though your membership dollars, AMTA will be financially supporting the efforts of IHPC to hold a consensus conference on massage for low back Page 2
pain. This is planned to take place in 18 to 24 months. The goal is a federal statement that indicates massage is effective for low back pain. Another relationship area we are developing is around the importance of having one entry-level exam for the profession. Over the last year, we have sent you emails and articles explaining the importance of this idea. Just a year ago, the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB) emerged. Your AMTA leadership continues to support this kind of federation. But, to have portability, states need to accept similar requirements. We don’t want massage therapists in a few years to have to take one exam in one state and have to take another if they move to another state. We continue to encourage both FSMTB and the National Certification Board to find a workable solution to the exam issue. AMTA representatives recently attended the annual meeting of the FSMTB and are meeting with them again in November, along with the NCB. We will keep you abreast of continuing developments. As we pursue our future, we keep in mind our 15-30 year goal, the Board established a few years ago. It’s what we call AMTA’s “Big Goal” – “That AMTA members are the choice for massage as a routine part of society’s health and well-being.” The idea is to influence consumers to choose an AMTA massage therapist. To support this, we are expanding our advertising. We’ll be very visible on internet search engines, because that is becoming the most used means for people to search for a massage therapist. We are currently running ads for AMTA’s Find a Massage Therapist national locator service on Google, Yahoo, DrWeil.com and WebMD.com. We also are running full-page ads in Health, Body & Soul, Fitness, Shape and Working Mother magazines. We are targeting people who already have experienced massage therapy and telling them they should look for an AMTA member. We are telling them AMTA members should be their first choice, because being an AMTA member shows you care about being the best massage therapist. Every year I am so impressed with Elizabeth Lucas’ Speech I decided to put some excerpts here for you. To see the full text of her speech go to www.amtamassage.org/member/Liz06speech.html O K L A HO M A U P D A T E