Laura Allen's Blog (160)

I inadvertently insulted a massage school owner yesterday by making a FB post saying that I wasn’t impressed by a school that had only one teacher to teach the entire curriculum, and that I wouldn’t choose such a school, personally. To begin with, I wasn’t speaking of his school when I made the post, and I had no idea that he was teaching his entire program himself, as his website gives a different impression, listing four faculty members. A couple of his satisfied graduates weighed in with…

There are some great massage therapists in my town (other than the ones who work with me), and this isn’t directed at them. But in every town, and mine is no exception, there are massage therapists who are thriving, and massage therapists who are barely surviving…many of whom eventually give up and go back to doing whatever they used to do, or find some other way to make a living.

Sometimes, a business just doesn’t make it in spite of your best efforts.  Setbacks happen that are…

There were just too many good moments to talk about them all, so some of my personal highlights:

Civil discourse, according to Wikipedia, is engagement in conversation intended to enhance understanding.

I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, when it comes to that. The good took  place recently at the MAAP meeting I attended with the folks at the NCBTMB. It was a great meeting of intelligent people who were all invited to participate in a discussion about continuing education, and not an ugly word was spoken.

The good was exemplified again…

Last week, the AFMTE released a position paper authored by Executive Director Rick Rosen, “Alliance Offers New Vision for National Certification.”

The AFMTE also recently announced that it is partnering with the…

Actually, I’m from the south, where we often say “mater.” A ‘mater sandwich should be on white bread, slathered with an artery-clogging amount of mayonnaise, and eaten standing over the kitchen sink so it can run down your chin and drip appropriately.

Everybody has their opinions…I’m out here regularly expressing mine, and not everybody agrees with them. That’s fine by me. The world would be a boring place if we all thought the same thing, and the world of massage is no different.…

The massage profession has a plethora of organizations these days.

AMTA (American Massage Therapy Association) is a non-profit organization that has some executive staff at the top, a board elected by the members, and a hearty band of tireless volunteers that keep the wheels turning. AMTA has about 57,000 members.

ABMP…

I usually report on state legislation, but the fact of the matter is, educating legislators about massage therapy has to begin in your own backyard. In many places, whether there is state regulation of massage or not, local laws are so archaic and penalizing to massage therapists, it is just disgusting.

The latest thing to hit my radar is from the city of Indianapolis. The…

Texas has a few pieces of massage legislation in the offing. And while I don’t think most of it is as detrimental to the profession on the whole as the recent amendments to Utah’s regulations, I can’t say I’m crazy about it. I have a fundamental problem with regulations that are not clearly defined, and this seems to be one of those cases. Their language just plain ticks me off, as well.…

There have been several developments in the regulation of massage in the past few weeks that I personally find distressing. Earlier this week, Florida Senate Bill 584 moved a step closer to passage. This piece of special-interest legislation would amend Florida's massage therapy law to allow graduates of certain board-approved schools to obtain a temporary permit and practice for six months without a…

A couple of the officers of the Utah Chapter of AMTA are upset with me for a video I put out yesterday about H.B. 243 that is in the works in their state. You may read the bill here.

This bill removes the term “therapeutic” from the description of massage. It also modifies the…

I have long desired to see the standards for massage therapy education raised in my state and across the nation. Here in North Carolina, the requirement is only 500 hours. That varies in the US, from the unregulated states that have no requirements at all, to the 1000 hours required by New York, Nebraska, and Puerto Rico. The rest fall somewhere in between.

Our neighbors to the north in Canada have a few provinces that are unregulated, but those that are regulated have a much higher…

Every time I turn around, it seems that something is on the horizon that affects CE providers–and the therapists who are obligated to get CE in order to maintain their license.  The latest salvo has been fired from the state of Maryland, where legislation is afoot with big changes in the CE environment. According to the Maryland Chapter of AMTA, the proposed regulations mean that…

Today is the beginning of a New Year, and I always view that as an opportunity for a fresh start. I’ve heard from a lot of therapists this year who are struggling in their practice. Most of them blame it on the economy. Yes, the economy has been bad….in my rural North Carolina county, we have the second highest unemployment rate in the state. I live in a small town of 4000 people, and the entire population of our county, which is the largest area-wise in NC, is about 60,000. There are…

Transparency, when defined in the context of non-profit organizations and public boards, implies that said organizations are accountable to those they represent, that meetings and communications are open, that full financial disclosures are made public, and that all business practices are an open book. It’s an ethical obligation.

I’ve recently posted on my blog my second annual series of reports on the financial health of the non-profit organizations…

This is the second year that I have written a series on the financial status of the non-profit organizations associated with the massage therapy profession. I am not an accountant or a financial expert. All the information in my blogs on this subject is available for public viewing www.guidestar.org, which is a clearinghouse of information on non-profit organizations.

There’s good news, and there’s bad news. The bad news is that like some of our…

Yesterday, I had shared on my FB a post from Ruth Werner, President of the Massage Therapy Foundation, entitled “Who Needs Research Literacy?“. I commented on that that all massage schools need to ramp it up and start including research literacy as part…