BCST Practitioners:
How You Can Support Your Right to Practice
An issue currently dominating legislators and regulators across the country is human trafficking. This horrific practice is one of the biggest money making activities in the world, trading human beings into forced labor, including sex. Often they co-opt the term “massage” or “bodywork” to disguise their activities.
Legislators and regulators are reviewing and tightening their laws and regulations of massage, which penalizes and inhibits the practice of many legitimate professions, in a misguided attempt to stop human trafficking. This is a law enforcement issue and should be addressed by those agencies.
However, we as professionals must take action to protect our right to practice without costly and onerous regulations. The biggest impact you can have is to contact your local regulator or legislator and develop a relationship with them. Communication is the access to building trust.
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is regulated as massage in many states and localities due to ignorance about BCST. Lawmakers and regulators take serious their duty to protect the public and they need to hear from all of us that Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapists are professionals and part of and accountable to a professional organization with a Standards for Practice, a Code of Ethics, an established training curriculum for teachers and professionals and a Grievance Procedure. And most importantly, we help people not hurt them.
We encourage you to educate yourself about human trafficking and its ways and practices. One ploy used in the state of North Carolina is to promise people in other countries that they will be provided a massage license and job if they are brought to this country by the human traffickers. Once here, people are held against their will and dependent on the human traffickers.
You are also encouraged to develop a relationship with your local massage regulators and legislators. Educate them about who you are and what you do and how it helps your clients’ health. Our experience is they want to hear from their constituents and many just don’t know about many of the professions they are regulating. Visit the State Regulations page on the American Massage Therapy Association website, which has information on massage licensing in all the U.S. states. AMTA Information on State Regulations <link to: https://www.amtamassage.org/regulation/stateRegulatins.html
We Need Your Help
The BCTA/NA is a resource for you and has suggested exemption language for BCST and tips on how to communicate effectively with legislators. Visit our Resource page to learn more.
JGRC committee members are volunteers who need and welcome your input around issues which affect our right to practice. There is power in numbers.
If you hear of any proposed legislation or massage board rule changes which might impact your right to practice, please the BCTA/NA JGRC using the email template below:
EMAIL TEMPLATE
To: [email protected]
From: ___________________
Subject: _____________________
Dear JGRC,
My name is ______________ and I would like to report the following action in the state of ________________:
JGRC Quick Links
|
