Leadership Bulletin

FOTA Leadership Bulletin 2/28/2019

 Hello all, here is an update bulletin based on the minutes of our recent FOTA board meeting Conference call in February.

Elections:  Two candidates running unopposed --

  • VP: Debra Misrahi
  • Treasurer: Jordan Powers

Voting by electronic ballot. The election will take place March 4 - March 30  

Thanks to the Nominations Committee headed by Pauline Kelley and Janine Silvaroli, Association Coordinator, for assisting them. 

Conference: Conference is Nov. 17 and 18th. Theme is Embracing Occupation. We have our vendor prospectus ready, call for papers ready to go. Timeline will be July 15.  We added 1 day option for schools again. We are hoping to bring in advanced practice courses.  International OT speaker for keynote. Call for Papers will be processed via a new Memberclicks software add-on call Review Panel that the board voted to be purchased to assist Janine in her work on the project.

Membership Promotions: Brochures were mailed to the Regional Reps and Membership Committee for use in local events (and at Hill Day).  A promotional video was finalized in January, it is circulating on social media and on our website. Andre Johnson, our Members Concerns Chair has announced that Milly Panel and Mary Ellen Berkely are new members of the Membership Concerns committee. Welcome!

FOCUS Edition: An ongoing round of thanks to Kurt Hubbard, and all the contributing SIS Chairs, for the outstanding quality of the FOCUS newsletter. The winter edition was our biggest and best ever and special cudos to Janine Silvaroli for her design and technical assistance on the newsletter.

Regional Reps:  Joining Dana Dixie as our new Regional Reps Coordinator is Stephanie Carlo, who will serve as the new Regional Rep for Region 7

Governmental Affairs (GA): Hill Day 2019  in January was a great success thanks to our GA Co-Chairs, Kelly Uanino and Sharon Rosenberg. Thanks to all that attended. FOTA met with 16 meeting with representatives. We educated these folks on OT and our role. We focused on opiate crisis (non- pharmaceutical tx) and Medicaid reimbursement. Meeting with Rep. Brown- and folks were challenging us to why we need increased reimbursement rates. We promised her to f/u why this is needed.  Also discussed mental health is schools and telehealth.

Kelly and Sharon were invited to dinner with Speaker of the House- they had good discussions with massage therapy folks.

February 19th there was a DOH meeting that Anita Berry of Corcoran & Johnston (C & J) attended – to address needs of children in public school system. School and public services ad hoc advisory committee working on a white paper- working on mental health in school. Three takeaways so far as per Anita:

The Ad Hoc Advisory Committee has a sub-committee that is specifically looking at mental health in schools. They are working to put together a white paper on their findings. Their three big takeaways so far:

  • Workforce issues – trouble finding qualified providers, and ones willing to work for less reimbursement in the school system
  • Privacy issues – HIPAA and FERPA
  • Telemedicine – beneficial to addressing the issue but not all schools have access to the technology

Anita is reaching out to DOH to see how FOTA can be involved and provide recommendations. 

Feb. 15- C & J spoke to Senate regarding bill about disabled parking permits- initially PT could do it without medical doctors. We are requesting to be added to that bill. Senator Diaz t. SB 0688.

Kelly and Sharon meeting with Anita this week to talk about ACHA concerns and Medicaid. 

Leadership Development: Committee planning an event for June 8th  Keiser OTA Jacksonville with nominations to open March 4th for anyone folks may know.A video conferencing link to NSU Tampa Campus- this is under discussion. AJ- will f/u with Ric C to see if technology will support this.  The committee is working on a draft for amending the Bylaws to make the Leadership Committee into a Standing Committee with voting chairperson. Also, a Leadership Series for FOCUS articles will be done over this next year. Thanks to Nadya Ramos and Michael Steinhauer for heading this committee up.

Bylaws and Policies Procedures: David Pallister is and I are working on setting up a review and approval process for our Policy and Procedure Manual prior to the June board meeting.

Budget Planning 2019_2020: Now is the time to start thinking about expenditures and needs for the 2019_20 Fiscal Year. Kathleen Frahm, Treasurer will be facilitating the development of new budget proposals, provide guidance and information on last year’s spending to aid in planning. We will be planning to provide rationale for spending, plan for investments in projects to grow our membership and provide better member services, and measure the impact of our spending through outcomes data. Our budget will be designed to be in alignment with our new Strategic Plan.

Strategic Planning: Ric Carrasco is heading up our Strategic Planning Committee; meetings are ongoing to update goals, including collaboration with Board members. We have mission, vision core values. The committee developed a new Goal area for Scholarship! The new plan will be presented for approval at our meeting in June.

Mark Your Calendars: The June Face-to-face meeting of FOTA –Saturday, June 15th at Nova Southeastern University Tampa. Developing Face-to-Face Agenda for June

  1. Budget Approval
  2. Bylaws Amendments – Leadership Standing Committee and others?
  3. Strategic Plan 2019 – 5-Year Plan Approval
  4. Transition of Officers, President, Treasurer, VP
  5. Meeting with our Lobbyists
  6. Annual Reports from Officers, Coordinators and Chairs

Looks like it will be a busy FOTA year moving forward!

Brent Cheyne, OTD, OTR/L

FOTA President

 

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