{"id":36563,"date":"2019-06-10T16:21:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T20:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/?p=36563"},"modified":"2019-06-27T14:10:05","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T18:10:05","slug":"follow-up-concerning-the-new-requirements-announced-by-great-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/follow-up-concerning-the-new-requirements-announced-by-great-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow-up concerning the new requirements announced by Great-West"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Montreal, May 13, 2019 <\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dear members,<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As you know, discussions are underway between the FQM and Great-West concerning their new training requirements for massage therapists in Qu\u00e9bec. These requirements stipulate that massage therapists must complete 1,000\u00a0hours of training by January 1, 2020 in order to be recognized as service providers.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Considering the FQM\u2019s mission to support you in your professional practice, but also inform and protect the public;<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Considering the current appeals to the government in favour of public protection and, as mentioned by Great-West, your recognition as health professionals;<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Considering the new requirements announced by Great-West, which go to the heart of our mission;<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Here are a few points of concern to us on this issue, points which we were careful to raise and share with Great-West:<\/p>\r\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\r\n\t<li>In the absence of oversight by the Minist\u00e8re de l\u2019\u00c9ducation, how can massage therapists in Qu\u00e9bec identify the schools that offer <strong>quality training<\/strong>?<\/li>\r\n\t<li>How can massage therapists complete 1,000 hours of training between now and January 1, 2020, knowing that training is not offered in all regions of Qu\u00e9bec?<\/li>\r\n\t<li>What is the content of the training program leading to the 1,000 training hours required by Great-West?<\/li>\r\n\t<li>How we ensure that the training program offers students the knowledge, abilities and competencies they need to offer effective, safe and ethical massage therapy services, like those offered in the five provinces where massage therapy is regulated?<\/li>\r\n\t<li>How can massage therapists, who have an average annual income of $17,882 according to the Comit\u00e9 sectoriel de la main-d\u2019\u0153uvre des soins personnels (CSMO) (Sectoral personal care workforce committee), pursue their training towards the 1,000 hours required by Great-West?<\/li>\r\n\t<li>How can employers of massage therapists do without a workforce for close to a year, which is the time massage therapists will require to earn their 1,000\u00a0training hours and thus meet the new requirements of Great-West?<\/li>\r\n\t<li>How will Great-West ensure that the numerous massage therapy associations in Qu\u00e9bec will be able to apply a neutral, credible and uniform evaluation process to training programs offered in massage therapy schools?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In response to our questions, Great-West sought to reassure us that it is attentive to our concerns. For information purposes, they responded as follows:<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Bonjour,<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>J\u2019aimerais remercier de leur int\u00e9r\u00eat toutes les associations qui ont r\u00e9pondu \u00e0 notre communication sur les exigences rehauss\u00e9es en mati\u00e8re d\u2019admissibilit\u00e9. Le taux de participation \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s \u00e9lev\u00e9 et majoritairement en faveur des changements que nous proposons, ce qui nous confirme que nous sommes dans la bonne direction.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>Certains ont tout de m\u00eame exprim\u00e9 leurs pr\u00e9occupations au sujet de la date cible du 1<\/em><em><sup>er<\/sup><\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>janvier\u00a02020<\/em><em>. Nous sommes conscients que cette date peut causer de l\u2019appr\u00e9hension parmi les massoth\u00e9rapeutes en service. Nous voulons vous assurer que la\u00a0Great-West est \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9coute de vos pr\u00e9occupations. La pr\u00e9sente communication vise \u00e0 vous informer que nous travaillons activement avec les associations qui nous ont r\u00e9pondu pour discuter de la meilleure fa\u00e7on d\u2019aborder les prochaines \u00e9tapes. Notamment, nous pouvons ajuster la date d\u2019entr\u00e9e en vigueur des changements et \u00e9tudier plus en profondeur la notion d\u2019admissibilit\u00e9 pour l\u2019exigence sur les 1\u2009000\u00a0heures de formation en massoth\u00e9rapie.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>N\u2019h\u00e9sitez pas \u00e0 transmettre ce message \u00e0 vos membres.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Good afternoon,<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>I would like to express my appreciation to all the associations that responded to our enhanced credentialing requirements.\u00a0 We received an overwhelming response voicing agreement on the changes we are proposing; confirming that this is a step in the right direction.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>We received expressions of concern regarding our target date of January 01, 2020.\u00a0 We are aware that this date may have caused some apprehension amongst massage therapists actively working in the profession. We want you to rest assured that Great-West Life is listening to these concerns.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>This communication is to let you know that we will be actively working with the associations who have responded to us on how to best move forward. This includes flexibility with the effective date of the changes as well as further consideration of what constitutes eligibility for the 1,000-hour massage therapy education requirement.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Please feel free to communicate this message to your members.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Note that we are continuing our negotiations with Great-West on this issue with the goal of reaching an agreement that sees all sides win. In this regard, the FQM is currently updating the competency recognition process it developed through professional experience.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Bouchard<br \/>\r\nExecutive Director<br \/>\r\n514-597-0505\/1-800-363-9609, extension 233<br \/>\r\n<a href=\"mailto:jean-francois.bouchard@fqm.qc.ca\">jean-francois.bouchard@fqm.qc.ca<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Montreal, May 13, 2019 &nbsp; Dear members, As you know, discussions are underway between the FQM and Great-West concerning their new training requirements for massage therapists in Qu\u00e9bec. These requirements stipulate that massage therapists must complete 1,000\u00a0hours of training by January 1, 2020 in order to be recognized as service providers. Considering the FQM\u2019s mission [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36563"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37019,"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36563\/revisions\/37019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fqm.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}