We are at a very exciting time in the massage profession. Currently there is a group of people meeting to create a body of knowledge for our profession and they are asking for input from the profession.
I didn’t really even know what a BOK was and why we needed it. I asked Chip Hines the program manager and here is his response:
A Body of Knowledge (BOK) provides a single source about what a professional needs to know and be able to do to be considered competent in the field. More and more a BOK in some form is considered essential for a field to become recognized as a profession.
A recognized BOK allows for a consensus to be built across the full knowledge domains (Practice, Accreditation, Research, Certification, Education and Licensure) so that everyone is playing off the same core material. This wont happen overnight, but without a BOK it will never happen.
Who is creating it? – THe recognition that a BOK was necessary has been growing for a while, and about a year ago a series of meetings including a number of organizations in the field (a BOK is usually built by the professional association for the field, but we are blessed with many) resulted in the formation of a project to build a BOK via an independent task force selected from the profession, and supported under a group of Stewards from 6 major organizations in the field. The Stewards have provided initial funding, selected a Project Manager (me) and solicited the selected volunteers for an MTBOK Task Force which started work last July.
Its important to note that the Task Force itself is independent of the Stewards, who did not participate in development of the content and do not have approval over it.
That being said, the Task Force is only 8 people trying to represent us all, and so we worked hard to put out a quick draft so we could get early input from the rest of the profession, and we will do one more go – around before the final is released in May of 2010. FOr those of you who would like to work more closely on the project, the terms of the current task force expire at the end of June 2010, so you could help with building beyond phase 1 and in institutionalizing the process.
The Steward organizations are: the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), the Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP), the AMTA Council of Schools, the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB), the Massage Therapy Foundation (MTF), and the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB).
More on this, including the original business case may be found at mtbok.org.
It is one of the most important processes for the massage profession. Your input is needed – heck it should be required by your professional association.
You can read the full document on their website at www.mtbok.org (pdf file)
You can leave your feedback for the BOK also on their website.
I believe they are meeting this weekend but I couldn’t find the dates on their website so it is important to get your feedback to them ASAP. This will impact every massage therapists’ future!
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