Progress in RT Education but Lots of Room for More

From a communication from Professor Thom Skalko, I became aware that ATRA has become a sponsoring member of CAAHEP and that the Committee on Accreditation of Recreational Therapy Education (CARTE) was accepted as the Committee on Accreditation (CoA) for RT education.

CARTE will be presenting on accreditation at ATRA and doing a training session for visitors. CARTE standards and guidelines will be available in the very near future for comment and input. ATRA will then need to adopt those standards and guidelines and we will move to the implementation of the first RT accreditation program for UG education.

This is great news. But now universities need to adopt the new CARTE standards as soon as they are formally adopted. But if a university faculty thinks the standards as presented are an improvement, there is no reason why the standards can't be adopted right now.

The real key will be to get universities to "buy in" to a new RT accreditation process. Let us hope the better university RT programs show some leadership by quickly adopting the new standards and then being accreditated as soon as the accreditation process is put in place.

The profession still needs to address how to enhance graduate programs in RT -- as we have so few in research intensive universities where the best graduate programs are typically located. We need strong RT graduate education right now -- and if we move to the M.S. as an entry-level degree we'll need them all the more.