CARP-BC Society 2002 Annual Report
Annual General Meeting was held June 26, 2003
President’s Report
Welcome CARP members and guests to our 2002 AGM for the CARP BC Society. Your CARP BC Board has been very busy with a number of projects and initiatives. I will briefly touch on some committee accomplishments, which I am rather proud of and each committee chair will follow with their reports.
The Professional Development Committee continues to do an outstanding job under both Allan Kaufman and Audrey Robertson. This committee has increased its budget with the intention of delivering training opportunities to the regions outside the lower mainland where access to training is more difficult to obtain. The committee has developed a partnership with NETWERCC and is open to developing additional opportunities in accessing workshops and training. The board continues to support the strategic goals from the 2001 planning session where it was determined that professional development was to be a major continuing goal.
We continue with development of membership and public relations through more exposure at various conferences. The committee chair Lucinda Socha has steered the development of our new web site. Please check out the new CARP BC Society's web page at www.carpbc.org
Communication with our members continues with the Rehab Review which is published quarterly as the BC and National CARP magazine. The marketing Representative, Rhonda Shade who solicits advertising for the Rehab Review Magazine has increased our revenues allowing us to use excess funds for other initiatives. This committee should certainly be recognized for its dedication under the BC chairmanship of Seann Atley. The committee works continuously at obtaining interesting and informative articles for the magazine.
Professional regulation committee researched the development and promotion of regulation of persons working in the field of rehabilitation to demonstrate professional competence to clients, payers, industry, agencies and other stakeholders. This committee consisting of Eileen Cook and Allison Klundt will give their findings in their report.
To keep us all fiscally on track, our treasurer, Gene Wallace-Deering works with each committee and ensures budgets are in place to assist with committee goals. Your CARP BC Society continues to operate in a healthy financial position.
As your Interim president for the last 8 months I have been representing you both here and at the National Board. I served as the CARP National Conference Chair and I am glad to announce The BC CARP Society experienced a profit as a result of a very successful and well attended National Conference.
I am indebted to the dedication of our BC board for the many hours of work, which they have each put in to their positions. As Interim President I am honored to have worked with such dedicated and professional Board of Directors. I must give special thanks to Past President Judy Alexander whose knowledge and generosity of time and support has been unrelenting. I look forward to serving CARP members as President in the coming year.
Thank you.
Greg Travers
Interim President
CARP BC Society
The Professional Development and Education Committee
The Professional Development and Education Committee provides our CARP-BC membership opportunities for ongoing professional development and up to date information. This ensures that members have the opportunity to maintain the high quality of professionalism in the field of rehabilitation and maintain their continuing education units for the CCRC/RRP/CVE.
Current members of this committee include: Audrey Robertson, Alan Kaufman, Co-Chair, Dorothy Hyslop, Mira Malatestinic, John Millard, and Matthew Levy.
Aside from assisting with the organization and the preparation of the B.C. Society of CARP A.G.M, the past year’s highlights include:
In October 2002, the Professional Development and Education Committee in partnership with NETWERCC sponsored a full day seminar at the WCB head office in Richmond with the theme of workplace modifications. In the morning, Julie Veilleux from Work In Progress along with Kathy Hollinger presented the new program from the Computer Assisted Technology (C.A.T). The presentation was primarily focused upon ergonomic modifications for computers and work stations. In the afternoon, Pat Tweedie and Eric Molendyk from Tetra Society presented on Workplace Modifications and Equipment. This included a demonstration of some of the equipment designed by the volunteer engineers who work for Tetra Society.
On February 5, 2003, again in partnership with NETWERCC, another full day seminar was hosted at the WCB in Richmond. Dr. Jodie Hawley and Sue Danyluk, a Case Manager from WCB presented an overview of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and assistance for trauma survivors to return to work. Dr. Marshall Wilensky, one of Canada's leading doctors and trainers in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), offered an interesting introduction into this therapeutic technique for working with trauma survivors using EMDR.
In April, members from the Professional Development and Education Committee participated in the preparation of a most successful national CARP conference held in downtown Vancouver at the Renaissance Hotel.
We are appreciative to Margo Grenier, a member of CARP Board for her efforts to assure that the CCRC/RRP are pre-approved.
Future Goals:
In order to maintain accreditation with CCRC/RRP/CVE hours, members were previously required to travel to the lower mainland at significant expense. Our goal for the next year is to provide regionalized training specifically targeting three areas including Prince George, Cranbrook and Kelowna. This will be accomplished with the assistance of several agencies including Columbia Pain Clinic in Kelowna, ICBC and WCB. For further information, please go to the CARP-BC website at: www.carpbc.org
At present, in the lower mainland, the following training is in the planning stages for professional development and training:
On October 8, 2003, another professional development session will be offered in partnership with NETWERCC. For further information, you can go to the website at www.netwercc.com
In conclusion, we encourage your involvement and any feedback to suggest presenters or topics for presentation. Additionally, we are always open to new volunteers joining our committee.
This report is respectfully submitted to the AGM on behalf of the Professional Development and Education Committee.
Alan Kaufman, RRP
Audrey Robertson, RRP
co-chairs Professional Development and Education Committee
Membership and Public Relations Committee
The new BC CARP website steered by the committee was completed last summer. The website held all the information for the National Conference this spring and for or the BC AGM. It is now being regularly updated by Donna Denham, please bookmark the site and visit often as education and professional information will be constantly changing.
This year we have also started to contact new members by phone to welcome them and give them an opportunity to ask questions. We also have been contacting members who did not renew to find out any difficulties and assist if we could.
We have been pleased with our directory for this year and are looking forward to some new changes in the one for next year. The revenue from the advertisements has been helpful in defraying costs.
We also have been busy creating membership surveys one for the National Conference and one for the BC-AGM. We need to hear from our members on their vision of BC CARP and what their needs are in education and services. We obtained thirty five responses from our BC members, most issues members were concerned about were ethics, training, networking professionally, professional development and the education accreditation process. There has been some displeasure regarding the membership fee hikes. We also inspired nineteen members to volunteer on various committees, thank you we will be calling for the fall.
We will be continuing our quest to find out the membership needs from the different regions and will communicate with the Committees and Board on what the specific needs are and how we can be involved.
Our Committee can be contacted by our website or call anyone on the Board of Directors.
Respectfully Submitted by:
Lucinda Socha
Rehab Review Committee
It has been a year of challenge and many changes for the team of people who make the Rehab Review happen.
We have been very fortunate to find a talented new design and production person, Angela Desveaux of Desveaux Design Visual Communication. Angela completed a total design update of the magazine, requiring a lot of extra work from the committee, as part of taking on the design and production of the magazine. You will have recently received the 2nd issue of the updated look. We are very pleased with the changes and the feedback has been extremely positive to date.
The advertising to editorial ratio has been increased from 20% to 30% to generate more revenue to offset always rising costs. Advertising from national advertisers has increased and we have substantially reached our targets thanks to Rhonda Shade, who very capably handles our advertising sales.
Our committee now includes ongoing members from other provinces. We expect this will continue to grow over time.
We have established what will be an ongoing feature, “Live and Interactive”, where we poll members by email regarding topical issues. Selected responses will be published in the magazine.
We are now enjoying a very smoothly functioning editorial committee who work tremendously hard to source, follow-up and provide editing for articles. A huge thank you to this group of very talented and committed volunteers: Betty-Ann Blackwell (AB), Janet Burgess, Rick Carlin, Diana Froc, Margo Greiner, Alex Jackson, Jeff McNaughton (SK), Michelle Meier (AB).
We also appreciate the continued support of the BC Board and of the National President, Judy Alexander.
Finally, it takes a lot to organization and detail management to pull together this publication. Special thanks and the committee’s appreciation to Donna Denham, the “go to” person who makes it all happen and solves most of the problems that arise, always cheerfully and always with tenacity.
Thank you all for your support and feedback…it is much appreciated.
Seann Atley
Chair, Rehab Review Editorial Committee
Professional Regulation Annual Report
The Professional Regulation (PR) group has been meeting on a regular basis to explore the options and implications for regulation. This document is intended to provide the CARP BC Society with an update on our progress.
Prior PR committees have done a great deal of work at how to regulate all members of CARP. It was determined that the scope of membership was too broad and that at this time of focus of the PR committee would be to focus on regulation of vocational rehabilitation counselors.
Why should CARP consider regulation?
CARP has a responsibility to it’s members to promote the delivery of high quality services. In the CARP Constitution and By-laws under the section on the purpose of the association it states: “to promote and encourage the study of techniques, research, methods and procedures of rehabilitation and to promote the highest professional standards” Protection of consumers
What are the benefits of regulation?
For Consumers:
· Accountability
· Access to disciplinary procedures if unhappy with service
· Reduced potential for harm
· Ability to make more knowledge informed decisions about who they would like to provide them with services
For Referral Sources:
· Standardization of service providers
· Improved outcomes
· Cost effective
· Ensures ethical guidelines and standards of service
For Employers:
· Provides criteria for hiring
· Marketing advantages
· Accountability of staff
For VR Professionals:
· Accountability to the public
· Raises status of profession
· Starts to provide protection of the profession as a separate discipline- currently at risk
What are the options for regulation?
Start a Vocational Rehabilitation College: This option is unlikely as the cost of a college, given the number of professionals in the area make it cost prohibitive to pursue this option.
Create a sub-section of an existing college: Both the College of Occupational Therapy and College of Psychology were contacted regarding the possibility of creating a sub-section of their college for Vocational Rehabilitation.
The College of Psychologists indicated that Vocational Rehabilitation counselors did not have the core components of education and practice as psychology and as a result only individuals who would qualify as psychology associates could apply. This would not be a sub-section focused on vocational rehabilitation.
The College of Occupational Therapists did not feel that vocational rehabilitation counselors would fit their mandate at this time, as there may be confusion regarding what aspects of vocational rehabilitation occupational therapists perform versus vocational counselors.
Both colleges wished us the best of luck in pursuing regulation.
There are efforts regarding the establishment of Clinical Counsellors as a separate college. This organization is focused on creating a college for masters level trained counselors. This area can be pursued by individual members.
Self Regulation: We can self regulate under the Societies Act. This action would need to be independent of CARP as it would be the creation of a new society. A survey was sent to all members in BC regarding their views on regulation and there were 20 people who responded, 10 who felt that there was no need to regulate at this time. For this reason it was determined there were not sufficient numbers of interested people to pursue this option.
What is the rest of CARP doing?
Regulation is done at the Provincial level in response to the different requirements of each Province. Ontario has done a great deal of work in this area, creating standards of practice and looking at self regulation. Ontario has arranged an agreement with the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselling to use the CCRC exam as the demonstrated minimum standard for regulation. Individuals will take the exam, regardless if they would qualify for the credential, with individuals who pass being able to join the self regulated body. Ontario members paid an additional fee onto of their membership renewal last year to cover the costs of legal consultation etc.
Future Steps:
1. The committee will present to the CARP Board on June 3, 2003.
2. Due to no formal provincial requirements for the practice of vocational rehabilitation, the high cost of regulation, and the current memberships interest in this area the PR committee moves to have this committee disbanded.
Allison Klundt- Co-chair
Eileen Cook- Co-chair
Treasurer's Report
for the Year Ending December 31, 2002
In our budget for the year ending 2002 we had anticipated a loss of about $3,855.
Our revenue for the year was significantly higher than expected due largely to higher advertising revenues that increased our revenue by about $15,000.
Our expenses were significantly less than anticipated in some areas such as amounts budgeted for work regarding Professional Regulations and for Professional Development.
We were under budget $5,000.00 and $2,400.00 respectively in these areas.
There were also other smaller variations all of which add up to a surplus of 2002 in the amount of $22, 560.00
The Balance Sheet
The Balance Sheet is a report about the Society's financial life since the day it began and about its current financial position.
The Balance Sheet presents a healthy financial picture for the Society.
Our total Current Assets at the end of 2002 have increased by about $17,000.00. The majority of this is in cash with the remaining portion in receivables or "bills" owed to the Society for things such as advertising. These are mostly collectible accounts and the receivables should also be converted to cash with the exception of a small portion that we might not be able to collect.
Our Current Liabilities as of the end of the year are unremarkable, and insignificant. We have $226.00 in accounts payable, or bills the Society has to pay.
The Society's Total Surpluses are calculated by subtracting our Current Liabilities of $226.00 from our total Current Assets of $82,773.00 leaving us with $82,547.00.
This Society's Total Surpluses have been accumulating since the inception of the Society with $59,987.00 accumulated in previous years, and $22,547.00 accumulated through surpluses from the year ending December 31, 2002.
The Society is "healthy" financially. Our assets far outweigh our liabilities. Given our Total Surplus of $82,547.00 the Society should be able to weather difficult financial times that might arise through decreases in revenue, or unexpected expenses.
However, this depends on maintaining about $60,000 or $70,000 in our "reserves" to deal with any difficult times.
At the present time the Society has a solid financial position and should remain healthy over the longer term if its finances are managed properly.
The Income Statement, or Statement of Receipts & Related Expenditures
Unlike the Balance Sheet, this report deals only with the Society's financial activity during the fiscal year from January through December 2002.
· The Society's total revenue for the year was $126,899.00.
· The Society's total Expenditures were $104,339.00.
· This leaves the Society a year end surplus of $22,560.00.
· This amount of $22,560 also appeared on the Balance Sheet as the Current Year Surplus and is also included on the Balance Sheet in the calculation of the Society's Total Surplus since its inception.
There isn't anything unusual about the Income Statement for the year.
As already noted, we had more revenue than expected in some areas and less expense than expected in some areas.
Expectations For 2003
At the present time we anticipate a small surplus for 2003 of approximately $5,000.
The Board made a decision to allocate an additional $8,000 to Professional Development during 2003. The intention is to have this expenditure translate into continuing education, and RRP and CCRC credits for members.
We did this knowing that an unanticipated reduction in revenue for the year could result in a small deficit at the end of 2003 rather than a surplus.
However, we felt that it would be in the interest of members to do this even if it means drawing on our reserves or surpluses in the amount of about $5,000.00 for the 2003 year.
Beyond 2003
The important longer term news about our finances is that even if there were a small loss in 2003 due to increased spending on Professional Development and a reduction in revenue, in the following year (2004) we could reduce the Professional Development expenditure by about $8,000.00, while still spending about $6,000.00 in this area, and still not experience an overall loss for the Society for the year 2004.
Gene Wallace-Deering, BA, RRP, CCRC.