GREETINGS FROM BOB TYLER, NEWLY SEATED PRESIDENT |
| Posted by Rhonda Messamore (rmessamore) on Mar 29 2007 |
Greetings!
Well, I’m 3 months into my presidency, and I’m still married, my children still recognize me, and I still have my paying job – so it’s going fine thus far! As you may be aware, licensure has been #1 on the priority list and has consumed much of my focus. Let me first correct a statement I made about the bill in the last Freedom that was incorrect. I mistakenly stated that it would be mandatory for private practitioners to attain licensure. However, the bill at this time is a title-protection bill only, but may become a regulatory bill as we move forward depending on the level of support for such a change.
Our legislative team made up of Willie Guerrero, Warren Daniels, Sherry Daley, Rhonda Messamore’, and myself have been working very hard on clearing the way for its passage. Among the highlights of our work was introducing the bill at the CSAM Legislative Conference (which was cosponsored by CAADAC) followed by introducing our author, Assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier, who shared his personal interest in seeing our bill get passed. I am happy to report that CSAM has written a letter of support for our bill. We have also met with the Board of Behavioral Science Examiners (BBSE), the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT), the Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW’s) the Clinical Psychologists, – all of whom initially opposed our bill. Although there is more work to do, we have made significant progress toward neutralizing all of the above-named opposition. We also managed to get a “support if amended” letter from CAADE, and hope to begin making progress toward neutralizing the opposition of CAARR.
Just as our team was at, perhaps, the most optimistic point we’ve been, we received word that the Assembly Business and Professions Committee turned it into a 2-year bill which essential puts it to bed until January. There is a silver lining to this and Willie Guerrero, our hard-working and highly dedicated lobbyist, will provide you with more details of where things stand right now in his legislative report. One of the positives about our legislation becoming a 2-year bill is that we now have more time to secure letters of support for the bill. If you have not already had the chance to send a letter of support, please go to our website, www.caadac.org and hit the “legislation” link to do so – it takes only a few minutes. It will also be extremely helpful to take a couple of minutes to complete the short, 2-question survey regarding whether or not you would get licensed if the licensure bill passed and how much you would be willing to pay for it. This is very important to the process so we can let legislators know approximately how many of us will pursue licensure. This is your opportunity to stand up and be counted while working toward consumer protection, professional recognition for counselors in our state, and higher wages for counselors.
Speaking of our website, have you seen it lately? Wow – we’ve finally purchased a website that is very attractive and simple to navigate! Please join me in thanking our Executive Director, Rhonda Messamore’, in finding and implementing such a great system!
Many of you have been receiving our CapWiz legislative alerts and Freedom newsletter via email. Unfortunately, many of you have either not provided the CAADAC office your email address or do not have access to email. To remedy this problem, postcards have been recently sent out for you to provide us your email address or notify us that you need to receive CAADAC correspondence through the mail. It is very important to us that we are able to keep you informed about your professional organization, and your response to the postcards will aid us in doing so.
I mentioned in my last report that we had our corporate attorney rewrite the NAADAC affiliation contract to provide legal protection for our organization. I also reported that Tim Sinnott and I met with NAADAC’s Executive Director, Cynthia Moreno-Touhy, and their current President, Dr. Sharon Morgillo-Freeman, to work out our remaining differences regarding the content of the bill. I am happy to report that our two great organizations have our first signed contract in three years! Another really important item that came out of our meeting in Washington is that Dr. Freeman and I agreed to terms regarding an issue that would have prevented CAADAC from billing its own members – an issue of great concern to CAADAC’s Board of Directors. I want to extend a personal “thank you” to Dr. Freeman for her willingness to help us put that issue to rest! The trip to DC was capped off by Patrick Kennedy providing the NAADAC contingency an impassioned speech about his Parity Bill and, the next day, our going to Capitol Hill to speak with legislators about Parity and other legislation that affects our profession. I must tell you that, despite the difficult issues that our two organizations have struggled with recently, I really felt proud to be a member of NAADAC as a result of the clear and profound impact we had over those few days!
Our Board of Directors also welcomed Cynthia, and our past Treasurer Al Feliciano who is now NAADAC’s Treasurer, to our April quarterly meeting during which our board was able to share some of its many concerns. Among the positives that came out of this meeting was that, when asked if she would provide a letter of support for our licensure bill on behalf of NAADAC, she agreed to do so once she has a chance to review the language and provide our board feedback on it. The board also asked about the NAADAC dues increase that was imposed when the organization was having financial difficulties, and the fact that the increase quickly pulled them out of the hole. When the Board suggested that NAADAC should consider a dues rollback, Al stated he would analyze NAADAC’s budget and make a recommendation to the NAADAC Executive Committee on the issue. Your CAADAC Board was pleased with these developments and it appeared to me that our Board felt heard. I am very grateful to both Cynthia and Sharon for making it possible to make great strides toward healing our valued professional relationship between our organizations.
On another note, you might be aware that the deadline spelled out by the certification regulations for the ten certification bodies to attain their NOCA accreditation has come and gone. There were only three organizations that met the deadline: CAADAC, Breining, and CAARR. However, the ADP requested emergency regulations to extend the deadline 6 months so any other organizations that might be close to getting accredited will have time to do so. CAADE has informed us that they expect to be accredited by the new deadline.
Finally, please be on the lookout for our Quality Assurance (QA) Questionnaire, which will be coming your way via email or regular mail if you don’t have online access. The QA Committee with its new Chair, Danielle Farnsworth, is determined to revive the activity of this important committee and report back to the membership, and to the Board the results of the survey. Please participate in this process so we can better understand and respond to your individual needs as a member of our great organization. What you think about how we’re doing really matters to us and, speaking for your Executive Committee and the entire Board of Directors, we really appreciate the trust you’ve bestowed upon us to lead your professional organization.
That’s all for now, and I hope to see and meet many of you at our Annual Conference in Sacramento this October! Until then, please remember to take care of you!
Last changed: Jun 07 2007 at 11:20 PM
Back