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MTBOK First Draft issued for public (this means YOU) comment!

Today we released the first draft of the MTBOK content. Its in a downloadable pdf document available at http://www.mtbok.org. Our press release is also available there.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the MTBOK is intended to be by and for our community, and we want to hear what you think and hope you will provide us with focused comments.

Because there are lots of potential comment-ors out there, and only 8 n the Task Force, we developed an automated comment/suggestion collection form that we think will make it easy for you to give us comments and still allow us to manage the volume of comments we get in.

We do want to hear from you. Although we ask that each comment be as focused as possible on specific areas in the document, you can submit as many as you need, and I think its pretty quick to do it. The link to the collection form in in the MTBOK pdf itself right on the first page.

I think its a great document, and I hope it generates good feedback so that its not only better, but truly represents our wonderful profession.

Thanks, and I hope to hear from you!

MTBOK Program Managers Blog is at http://mtbok.blogspot.com/

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Comment by Gloria Coppola on September 21, 2009 at 9:35am: I am reading through the 50 something pages and will post a comment(s) when I find the time to complete it and my thoughts.

Comment by Chip Hines on September 19, 2009 at 11:22am: Sure. And I just placed another one on my blog for the project (mtbok.blogspot.com) and copied it on my blog on this site so you should feel free to copy or reference that.

I was trying to provide a little more context/clarification on some aspects of the MTBOK that I think are misunderstood based on the comments Ive been getting. I hope it helps!

Comment by Julie Onofrio on September 18, 2009 at 2:58pm: Can I post that on my blog and in my discussion groups where I just announced that? (I'll give your name and the website too!)

Julie

Comment by Chip Hines on September 18, 2009 at 9:48am: 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.

Comment by Julie Onofrio on September 18, 2009 at 9:13am: So why do we need a BOK? What will it do for us? Who is creating it? How will it be used?

Comment by Laura Allen on September 15, 2009 at 11:20am: Don't sit on your hands, people! It is vital for as many therapists as possible to read this document and add their comments. I've already shared it with my network on FB, and ask all other MTs to do the same. This is a defining moment in our profession, and it's been a long time coming. Please weigh in!