19:06:11 Hey, thank you so much, Elaine. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining us on your Thursday evening.
19:06:18 I am going to share. Our presentation here.
19:06:25 Everybody can see that okay?
19:06:29 I'm also going to start including some extra resources in the chat. So we have a copy of the PowerPoint. We also have a Google Doc I just shared that has some extra links for further reference.
19:06:39 We're going to try to lightly skim over lots of stuff, but it's still pretty jam-packed.
19:06:45 So just giving all of the information we covered tonight will be shared and so that will get started. Good.
19:06:56 Okay, so if we go to the third slide, table contents, what we're going to cover tonight And we'll go to the next piece is just kind of giving a brief history of regulation and we're going to quickly start with talking about our fellow music therapists in BC. So they
19:07:16 In the 1990s and early 2000s, they started seeking occupational title protection so no one else could call themselves music therapists.
19:07:24 At that time, the government declined and said, you're not high enough risk. You're small, too small of a profession.
19:07:30 So you can't get separate title protection. Rather, we encourage you to join like-minded professionals under the counseling umbrella.
19:07:39 So they created an MTABC joined the Federation Association of Counseling Therapy of BC, so FACT BC, and began to work on their alignment with the Health Professions Act to have music therapists regulated under the Counseling Therapy Umbrella NDC.
19:07:55 In the mid-2000s to present, the MTABC contributed to their counseling therapy competency profile, which defined entry to practice standards.
19:08:04 And at that time, our NTA certification, regardless of education backgrounds, was deemed to meet the competency requirements for entry to practice.
19:08:13 So why am I talking about BC? Because this particular profile that was created.
19:08:19 Has, well, A, it's been validated nationally with all of the many sub professions, which I'll talk about in the next slide.
19:08:26 And that many of the Federation associations that have existed across Canada have used the same competency profile for counseling therapists, including Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. There's probably more but Just keeping a short list. It's influenced many.
19:08:43 All right, next slide. So how did we get here and what does this look like in Alberta for those who are kind of maybe new to this?
19:08:53 So we know that Alberta's process has looked kind of similar, but started at a different timeline.
19:08:59 So in 2016, the MTAA would have discussed the pros and cons of becoming regulated and did vote to join the Federation Association of Counseling Therapy of Alberta, so FACTAB.
19:09:11 I was looking at the association documents at that time because I wasn't a music therapist in the province at the time.
19:09:17 And that there were discussed pros and cons. One of the pros was professional recognition and insurance reimbursement.
19:09:21 And some of the cons were potential cost and impacts on future requirements to join the college.
19:09:28 Similar to BC, to be regulated, the government did direct the 12 sub-professions to agree on a broader unified scope of practice of counseling therapy.
19:09:36 So you can see here to the left, there's the umbrella. Counseling therapy captures music therapists, art therapists, spiritual care practitioners, clinical hypnotherapists counselors, drama therapists, that's not all 12 associations, but just so you get the idea.
19:09:51 Our timeline compared to BC has been a little shorter. So in 2018, the government of Alberta announced the new legislation to regulate counseling therapy, addiction counselors, and child and youth care counselors.
19:10:02 Through this legislation, the Alberta Counseling Therapy Association ACTA was created as a mandate through that legislation to prepare the workforce for regulation and was intended to become the College of Counseling Therapy of Alberta, the CCTA.
19:10:18 If for many people who've been in this journey since it opened in 2019, we were supposed to be proclamated in the summer of 2021.
19:10:27 The government stalls continued. There was a pandemic changes in government and changes in staff.
19:10:33 There's a separate active timeline. Feel free to look at that. But there's just a piece as to why we have not been proclaimed just yet.
19:10:42 And 2022-2023 is when Isabella and myself joined the board and it became clear to us that there would be really distinct future master's level requirement to join the regular route. And at that time we began communication with CMT and MTA and our members
19:11:00 About understanding these implications. And this is kind of mostly what we're focusing on. We're not necessarily presenting a lot of new information, but just having a clear understanding of what this means for us now and in the future.
19:11:10 And the biggest learning and change for us was that in March 2024, so about a year ago today.
19:11:17 The government directed that counseling therapists would be regulated under an existing college So the College of Alberta Psychologists, rather than creating the CCTA. So that has been quite a bit of a different change for us.
19:11:30 And that's a little bit of our context here in Alberta.
19:11:39 Okay, so… Just quickly wanted to talk about professional associations and the alignment with the regulatory framework. So our MTA certification, which we all get after graduating with our bachelor's.
19:11:55 You obviously have to be a member in good standing of CAMT and you've successfully completed your Bachelor of Music Therapy degree as well as your internship and then the board certification exam.
19:12:11 And then complying with, again, like your code of ethics and standards of practice and so like getting all of that and then maintaining that allows us to maintain our MTA certification and then call ourselves music therapists and to be a part of that like specific
19:12:30 Profession. And then counseling therapists where it lines up and why we're considered under that umbrella, because I think that's a question that some people have sometimes is.
19:12:40 Well, I'm a music therapist. Why would I be under this umbrella counseling therapist?
19:12:49 Competency profile. I don't want to use the word vague. That's not the right term, but it is quite broad.
19:12:56 And so the MTA certification lines up really, really well with that. If you want to look into the specific competency profile, you can always click on the link that we provided there. But basically, we meet the competency framework. And so ACT members
19:13:12 To enter through the intermediate route, which is currently open. And the MTA certification process is essential to develop the competencies to become a music therapist. And along the way, your internship experience supports your currency hours.
19:13:26 To register with ACTA. So that just shows you how our MTA certification is obviously extremely important and distinguishes us as music therapists and how that aligns us and prepares us to register as counseling therapists with ACTA.
19:13:48 Now, just a quick distinction here between colleges and associations. Because sometimes even the names something can be called an association and it's playing different roles or it's called a college and it's playing different roles. So we just really want to distinguish between professional associations and regulatory colleges.
19:14:09 So if you look underneath the MTAA and CAMT, these are professional associations.
19:14:15 So they're there to support the profession. That is the main goal.
19:14:21 They're offering certifications, so the MTA which is which is really important and then offering the continuing education and then also keeping track, you know, when we renew our CAMT membership every year, we're also inputting those CE credits to show that we are
19:14:39 Like upkeeping our education in the field. And they also provide liability insurance and they're advocating for the profession. The membership is optional, although most people who are a part of that profession would be members of that association.
19:14:55 So that's our professional association. And then on the other side, we have the regulatory college. And so music therapists in Alberta do not have a regulatory college.
19:15:07 At the moment. But ACTA and then cap in the future So ACTA being the precursor to the college excuse me And the role of ACTA is to prepare the pressure or prepare the profession for regulation So if you meet the requirements, you are required to join. So the regulatory
19:15:29 College is there to protect the public. It's like, yes, it's supporting professions in a certain sense and there are benefits to being a part of a college, but the main reason for creating a college is the protection of the public so that there is a minimum standard of
19:15:49 Practice and education and things like that that are recognized that somebody in the public seeking those services can say, okay, this person has their you know is regulated as a medical health professional. So I can go and see them.
19:16:03 And I know that I'm going to receive this level of care.
19:16:07 Kind of thing. So both of them are essential for professions and the clients that you serve.
19:16:15 But they support obviously different rules.
19:16:24 Yeah, I think there's a piece just to kind of quickly add to that is that this idea of regulation in Alberta for music therapists is new to us where a lot of other professions, once they finish their education and their training, they become a member of their association.
19:16:38 And they become a member of the regulatory college. For us, our certification and our CMT and our associations have kind of functioned kind of offering both roles. So this is where there is a bit of a trying to clarify
19:16:52 Who's responsible for what, but that's a very good kind of standard process when kind of increasing and adding this to us as a profession.
19:17:01 And so capturing the current workforce When we become regulated, this is when MTAA voted to participate in this process.
19:17:12 Is that there's this idea that there's this agreement, we're going to capture the current workforce and we cannot disrupt the current workforce We must follow the HPA and the regulatory process and ensuring that we are increasing capturing as many practitioners presently
19:17:28 So that we have more regulated professions in the future, which just ensures that there are more for the client seeking services that there is a higher level of security and public protection and who's currently accessible in the workforce and so
19:17:48 We know that we know that act as an association. We don't have any like you're not legally required to join though we do recognize the importance of this because this is part of capturing our current workforce process.
19:18:02 And that you kind of see this sieve here. I tried to do this picture and it's often used in the Health Professions Act as a metaphor for we're going to try to capture as many people as possible Though it's not a perfect system. There is a bit of a sieve and that is recognition that it's not a perfect system, but we're trying to capture as many people
19:18:20 As possible. What's really important for us to understand too is that in capturing the current workforce, what there is an implication for is that we cannot apply future standards to previous practitioners and people who've entered into the profession in different ways in the past.
19:18:37 So this is kind of for us where regardless of education background, our MTA was assessed to meet the requirements for the grandparenting process, which we'll talk about shortly.
19:18:48 And that active membership continues to support our readiness for regulation.
19:18:54 And we do recognize that this is new to us. We've never had to do this.
19:18:59 This kind of concurrent process before. So these are just things that we recognize are new, but trying to capture as many current professionals as possible.
19:19:10 Let me go on to the next slide.
19:19:16 Okay, so… Again, just trying to distill some of this information into how this applies to current music therapists working Though many current music therapists entered the workforce with a bachelor's degree and achieved their MTA, So that's that's most people across the board.
19:19:37 And then all the steps to acquire your MTA certifications support your currency hours in the intermediate route. So as you can see underneath, there's three different boxes.
19:19:47 2019, that was the expedited route where your MTA certification is all that was required.
19:19:55 To become a member of the ACTA College. And then now, or sorry, not the college, just the act of precursor college and then the intermediate route, which is what is currently open It's, again, your MTA certification and it's the process that's again intended to capture the majority of the workforce.
19:20:19 And to show the capturing of the workforce is important to show the government how many people are working, how many professionals are in the province, and then also our membership demonstrates our financial readiness to become a regulatory college.
19:20:38 At the moment, all music therapists who are who have their MTA certification can enter ACTA. So this would apply to all music therapists currently.
19:20:49 Who are working and practicing in Alberta. In the future, so this is where things might change a little bit. Once regulation is established.
19:20:59 This intermediate route and their current rules would remain open for one or two years to, again, just make sure that everybody is able to join has joined the college.
19:21:10 And the last phase of grandparenting to not disrupt the current workforce.
19:21:15 So again, to get as many counseling therapists into the college as possible.
19:21:20 Before the regular route. Is opened in the future, which might have slightly different requirements because that at that point once the college is open.
19:21:35 Then there are set standards. That people will be required to meet.
19:21:40 And again, standards that have been set by the Health Professions Act and so therefore the government saying that to enter the college, you need to meet these certain levels of education, which is a master's level education But there are other options. So as you can see under future MTs, so MTAs
19:21:59 With a master's in music therapy would of course be eligible to register for the college and then future MTAs without master's level education This is the part where the part where I just want to be clear that with this, this is information that this is kind of the typical process that happens with regulation, but that we are also not regulated yet. And so we cannot say these things like absolutely for sure.
19:22:27 But there are substantial equivalencies. So there is often another pathway. So even if you don't have a master's.
19:22:33 That there's maybe some extra coursework and some extra supervision hours that many colleges offer.
19:22:40 So that you can still enter the college because they recognize that even if you don't have that master's level education.
19:22:46 That you are still competent to practice. But you would need to still be able to prove it.
19:22:52 In a certain way. So that's the substantial equivalence route and then provisional status we've also included there just as something that you might hear.
19:23:05 But that's you know sort of just below like fully regulated. You can obtain your provisional status for up to five years before meeting requirements. So that just, again, gives people the time to fully get the coursework or extra supervision hours and things like that.
19:23:25 So those things have not been specifically defined or set because, again, we are not currently regulated But those would be the options for somebody, an MTA in the future without a master's level education to enter the college.
19:23:43 I'm just going to add to this because I know this question comes up a lot. So it's like, if I get grandparented now and then regular route is in place, if I have a BMT, do I need to get a master's level, like go back and get my master's degree in music therapy. The answer is no. Once you're grandparented, there wouldn't be any requirement for change for education. So I just want to make that clear there.
19:24:02 Yeah, once you're in the college, you're in the college
19:24:04 Yeah. And so, okay. In the meantime, since proclamation has not happened for many years, there has been some progress for current APTA members that you, for anyone who's members or have seen the the mail out thing. There's a more sophisticated way to say that, that there's kind of two big things that we wanted to address. And one was the CRA and GST exemption so that in the 2024 CRA rule that psychotherapy services would become GSD exempt effective June 2024.
19:24:36 Acta applied for GST exemption for all of its members and so the CRA kind of looked at the CRPO, so the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, basically our sister college, so music therapists can become regulated in Ontario through the CRPO.
19:24:52 And what they looked at and ruled was that they have to look at what requirements are currently, which is master's level clinicians to enter into the CRPO. And so the CRA ruled that only master's level clinicians in ACTA at this time would become GST exempt.
19:25:08 This is a temporary ruling and the expectation is that upon proclamation that all grandparented service providers and ACTA would become GST exempt. And so part of that reason is if they said, okay, we're all going to stop charging GST. And for some reason something happens down the line and regulation doesn't happen.
19:25:28 If you have to go back and ask your clients to pay GST, that's just a whole logistical mess So what those implications are is that music therapists with master's level education in music therapy or psychotherapy or counseling are required to stop charging GST.
19:25:46 Number two is that client insurance coverage has increased in the last year. And so ACTA advocated for more insurance companies to recognize active providers for their clients to be able to seek reimbursement. So there were some steps to make sure we could align with that.
19:26:02 Of course, each person and their companies, what they cover will be really unique and potentially different. There is encouragement to have people check and see if their company now does cover ACTA members and there's a list we can provide separately of those that currently do so. And so what the implications for that are is that there are clients who are seeing clients who see music therapists who are active members.
19:26:26 May receive reimbursement through their health insurance. And so that's a bit for 2024.
19:26:38 Okay, so this is just… In this slide, just to explain a little bit like the future titles, I guess, that music therapists would be using. So we have Jane Smith, who is an rct So this is like we explained before, it's like a public checkbox of safety and standards. So it means that you are registered with the college, whereas your association distinguishes your distinct profession.
19:27:05 So in the future, we would be using both of these titles. But something that I wanted to point out is there's with regulation.
19:27:13 You know there's um there's right and wrong and then there's legal and illegal.
19:27:19 So with regulation. There is legal and illegal implications. And so if you meet the requirements to to enter college and you're practicing in that field, you need to be registered. So we can all like easily understand that when it comes to a doctor, you would not go to a doctor who's not registered
19:27:40 And able to call themselves an md even though they might have like the education but if you don't trust that they have you know the um the regulation, then you are not able to trust that they have these certain standards of practice or
19:27:56 Or things like that. That's the provincial regulation side of it. And then the Federal Association is the certification recognition. So that shows the public how you're going to practice And what your modalities and things like that might be.
19:28:15 So again, that's your distinct profession so it's it's definitely encouraged to be a part of your a part of your association, a part of your professional association, but it's not a legal requirement specifically.
19:28:30 So there might be people who are registered counseling therapists who trained as music therapists who don't maintain their MTA and that's again like more of an ethical issue, but it's not a legal versus illegal Whereas not registering with the college.
19:28:47 Would be there would be like liability implications with that
19:28:55 Okay, moving on. So I want to acknowledge first before covering, sorry, I really could have presented this information in a more digestible way, but this was the best we could do for tonight.
19:29:05 Is that when we think about what MTAA in 2016 voted for and the pros and cons about professional recognition and insurance reimbursement, as well as some of the risks such as increased costs or recognition. These really we're kind of seeing kind of a similar piece in our current
19:29:24 Concerns that we do feel is really relevant for us to address.
19:29:29 So in the lower left hand side, there are financial resources needed. So it is estimated that approximately 4,000 professionals can belong to ACTA. However, only about 1200 are registered.
19:29:41 These are rough guesstimates, not 100% accurate at this time. But as for the Health Professions Act, the professions who are seeking regulation are required to self-fund regulation efforts.
19:29:54 And so lack of memberships and general participation from the other, I can't do the math, but those who aren't registered with Okta do impact ACTA's budget and then thus set membership rates. So for many, many years, for those who are members and those who are not, that current members have been historically disproportionately funding the initial steps of regulation.
19:30:18 Another piece of this is because when there was a government stall, I think I just want to reiterate like none of this would, this was not the choice.
19:30:26 Of MTA or ACTA, so government stalling has impacted us and these financial concerns are very real.
19:30:33 And to be able to continue to show financial viability and readiness for regulation act to set up federation fees. And so MTA There's the members who, so if you're an MTA in Alberta and you're an active member, you're paying your fee separately. And for every non-active member.
19:30:53 Mtaa has paid a fee. There's a formulation per person who is not a member yet.
19:31:00 This idea of not having all of our members be part of ACTA does threaten the potential and our viability to become regulated. So oftentimes there's like you know, is everyone getting registered? Is everyone ready? Are they starting to meet these kind of
19:31:17 Processes and pieces that act as putting in place and if we're not doing that, that could potentially threaten regulation not going through at all, despite having put a lot of money and time and effort into this process. So that's a very real concern.
19:31:32 Going to the College of Alberta Psychologists, CAP grandparenting and regular route. So of course, this March 1st announcement was unexpected. And in that process, Capset put out a letter and in some of their communications has said, we're only going to grandparent master's level practitioners only.
19:31:50 Obviously for us and many other professions like spiritual care, there's the CPCA.
19:31:57 And some art therapists, like there are a lot of active members that this is a major concern for and it would disrupt the current workforce at that idea of trying to capture everyone.
19:32:08 Right now, I think what hopefully is helpful to hear in this process is that ACTA continues to press the importance of grandparenting and is considered a key stakeholder in this process.
19:32:18 And we'll reiterate that the government supports act as a stakeholder and the grandparenting process to not currently the workforce.
19:32:28 This last piece here is that right now, if we're taking a snapshot of what's happening for music therapists in Alberta, this GST exemption and client insurance coverage is currently unfair to those who are active and non-active members, those who are master's level practitioners and those who are not.
19:32:45 So not all music therapists providing similar services are ruled equally by CRA for GST exemption at this time.
19:32:53 And not all music therapy clients can receive reimbursement if their provider is not currently an active member. And so this is just a capture of Some of the concerns and pieces that we're seeing right now at this stage of regulation, which is influenced by a lot of
19:33:10 Government directions, government changes, stalls um many really huge systemic factors. So just know that this is not necessarily what MTAA or myself or anyone who's been a part of this process has necessarily anticipated.
19:33:25 And these are very real concerns for us. So I'll pass it along to the next Slide.
19:33:34 So while we're discussing kind of implications. We also want to give a full picture and talking about how regulation really is important for music therapist going forward in Alberta. It's opening doors for client access of course just being called counseling therapist means that
19:33:56 I'm going to kind of skip around the list here, but having that increased job access because we would be able to apply for jobs that are advertising for counseling therapists, not just for music therapists. And so you can see how that would
19:34:08 Of course, increase our of course jobs but access to clients and increase their access to us and the ways that they're seeking out music therapy services instead of just finding these individual contractors.
19:34:25 We also see it as definitely a better vantage point for advocating for music therapy.
19:34:30 And creating better awareness and visibility as we would be working alongside other regulated professionals. I know my experience, I'm currently working on a master's in counseling through City University in Calgary And the amount of psychologists that I have met in that process who have never heard of music therapy
19:34:49 Even though they're working with the exact same populations that we are.
19:34:54 Was astonishing to me. And I think having that regulation Sorry, of course, I gave them the music therapy speech and helped to increase awareness and visibility in those circles. But being a regulated professional means that we would be working alongside those people and especially on mental health teams and things like that.
19:35:16 So it's an even better vantage point for us to advocate for music therapy.
19:35:20 All around. Of course, health insurance would be more covered as most insurance providers require regulation to regulation for like their clients to submit claims and things like that.
19:35:38 And then we've also thinking about it just from an ethical standpoint.
19:35:43 There's, of course, benefits for the profession and reasons why we want ourselves to be regulated. But first and foremost, it is about protecting the public. And if you think about the 4,000 counselors who are working in Alberta at the moment that are unregulated. Acta has often highlighted a lot of scary issues where there are people who have been accused of misconduct and
19:36:06 Even inappropriate relationships with their clients who have just moved or shifted or stopped working at that job and started their own private practice. And there's no legal repercussions for that because they are not regulated.
19:36:22 And so that is first and foremost, as mentioned there. It's about minimizing harm. And of course.
19:36:30 Regulation is never going to cause or solve all of the issues and capture every single unregulated person, but it's absolutely a step forward and increases all of these things.
19:36:43 For the people that we work with. For the mental health field in general.
19:36:53 All right, so we've kind of covered a lot of context and really understanding the implications for music therapists coming into Alberta. And so just to kind of summarize some of these pieces.
19:37:06 So we know under education, so to enter the future college master's level education is required for the regular route.
19:37:13 If you have a master's level of training, you must register to become a counseling therapist.
19:37:19 As talked about before, if you have a BMT, MTA, but you can potentially become regulated through the substantial equivalence. As we talked about, this is not defined yet.
19:37:29 Isabel and myself really believe it's essential for music therapists to participate during the definition of what that will look like process to help support our BMTs into having a viable pathway into the college.
19:37:44 It's also quite common across all of the sub professions under the counseling therapy umbrella that university programs start to align with regulatory frameworks.
19:37:53 This exists. I've seen it in psychology and in Ontario, our sister college is CRPO. For example, Wilfred Laurier has make sure that their program now aligns and is considered a pre-approved program to enter into the Ontario based college.
19:38:11 Under supervision, there's a couple pieces to be aware of and to think about. And so if there's a music therapist who wants to join the college.
19:38:21 And so they're an intern, they want to become a member, they have a master's or something like that, that they will need to be supervised by a member of the regulatory body.
19:38:30 Now, a supervisor who is both a registered counseling therapist and has their MTA and is approved to supervise for both of those titles.
19:38:39 Can supervise for the MTA certification and for entry into the college. Just as a context, I have contacted MTO for more information and I have not heard back. And for some of the conversations I have had with other therapists, my understanding is that this is what
19:38:56 Does currently exist in many Ontario-based internships where there are regulated and unregulated music therapists.
19:39:04 As well. So say if you're a BMT MTA, you don't join the college or you don't participate in the grandparenting process and you can supervise for the MTA process. You can supervise still for the MTA certification if that other member does not intend to become a member of the college.
19:39:24 Now, you're certainly hearing language about like, what is like required and what are choices um And so if a future music therapist does not meet the requirements and does not want to become a member of the regulatory college, they will have the option to not become regulated.
19:39:42 Our master's level will be required to, BMTs will have a choice. As we understand in conversations, these members can still work with their MTA certification. However, there may be implications for employers potentially accepting or not accepting. I wrote non-regulated, unregulated providers.
19:40:01 What I'll add to that is that this idea of being regulated or not regulated is presently sometimes a barrier for employers. And so having that regulated recognition, regardless of how you got into the college, is useful, is a useful tool whether whatever title you inhabit that in so
19:40:23 Sorry, I'm kind of going off on a mild tangent for a second, but I think we've seen this in our profession. There's music therapists who will get cross-trained, whether it's in counseling psychology or they become an OT or an SLP. You see these in forums across the state. So there's often these pathways to get regulated so that their clients can have an easier time accessing them.
19:40:43 So that there's just potential options in the future. And I just wanted to be able to talk about what that may may look like.
19:40:54 Okay, I think. That's it from us. How did we do for time?
19:40:58 Yeah. Not bad.
19:40:59 Not bad considering we started like we we were aiming for 30 minutes we covered a lot. We couldn't go over as much in depth, but we really wanted to focus on the opportunity to have questions and discussions.
19:41:13 Mm-hmm.
19:41:13 At this stage and so at this stage I think let's uh Maybe it's Craig.
19:41:18 Yeah, so I'm going to stop sharing. We are going to share the slides with everybody and so Again.
19:41:22 Oh, and I'll do… Sorry.