Dear
Colleagues,
It
has been a pleasure to meet many of you over the past year in the course of
serving the profession. I am writing now to provide you with an update of
CAOT-BC activities over the past year and to encourage you to renew your support of your provincial professional
association.
In
the past 12 months, CAOT-BC has worked hard to establish itself as the voice of
occupational therapy in British Columbia. CAOT-BC has been active in the areas
of promotion, representation and advocacy with the intention of building a
strong occupational therapy community in this province.
Since
the launch of CAOT-BC in October 2011, our membership has grown by 27%. That incredible
growth is thanks to your support and your belief in our Association.
As
many of you may know already, CAOT-BC has embraced social media as part of its
community building process and, since its inception in April 2012, the CAOT-BC
Blog has grown to over 400 subscribers and enjoys between 4500-5000 views per
month.
This
past spring, our province was the host to one of the largest ever CAOT National
Conferences with 867 total registrants. Forty percent of those registrants were
from BC—what an accomplishment!
As
you may know, CAOT-BC members receive all the benefits from CAOT (e.g. national
representation, national advocacy campaigns, journal access, insurance access
and much more), as well as many unique, province-specific benefits some of
which include:
-BC specific advocacy,
representation and
promotion
-Regional and
practice-specific representation via
the Advisory Committee
-CAOT-BC website and
CAOT-BC blog
-BC specific monthly e-news
-Free access to special interest
groups
Some
of our activity highlights over the past year have included:
· -Establishment and
operation of a CAOT-BC Advisory Committee (with representation from each health
region and a variety of practice areas)
· -Establishment of the
CAOT-BC Occupational Therapist of the Year award
· -Initiation and
continuation of special interest group activity, with each group meeting at
least 4-6 times in the past year
· -Completion of the CAOT-BC
2013 Private Practice Fee Survey
· -CAOT-BC representation at 12
events (consumer, inter-professional, intra-professional) to promote
occupational therapy
· -Publication of the
briefing note “Shortage of Occupational
Therapists in British Columbia”
· -Implementation of a successful
advocacy strategy to increase the OT remuneration for Insurance Corporation of
British Columbia service providers
· -Facilitation the initiation of a liaison committee between
WorksafeBC and contracted occupational therapist service providers
-Representation on
committees , task groups and other meetings including: Health Sciences
Association, Driver Fitness Advisory Group (BC), BC Workforce Collaborative, Pediatric
Occupational Therapy Council, Professional Alliance of Canada and OTepp
-Presentation of in- person CAOT-BC member forums held in
Victoria, Nanaimo, Courtney and Kelowna (stay tuned for forums to be held in
Northern Health, Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health regions)
-Collaboration with the
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to review and update the method of
occupational therapist reporting
-Development of the CAOT-BC
web pages
Looking
forward to our next year, CAOT-BC will continue work to fulfill its strategic
priorities to engage participation of the occupational therapy community,
represent the professional interests of BC occupational therapists and to
promote the voice of the occupational therapy profession in this province.
Show
your support for the organization and join us in this journey by being renewing your membership or starting your membership in CAOT-BC. If you are already a
member of CAOT-BC, our sincere thanks to you for continuing to support the
occupational therapy profession in BC. If you are thinking about becoming a
member, I invite any questions you may have.
Sincerely,
Giovanna
Boniface, OT
Managing Director
CAOT-BC
CAOT-BC
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