I had the opportunity to attend a session on the National Council for Therapeutic Recreation Certification (NCTRC)’s new Specialty Certification at the 2011 ATRA conf.
It was presented by two of the NCTRC credentialing specialists: Robin McNeal and Susan Kaufer (shown in the picture).
The Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) is the benchmark for our profession. An individual who has earned this credential demonstrates that she (or he) has met the minimum standards needed for practice.
NCTRC created the specialty certification to acknowledge the CTRS who has met higher standards in one of the following areas:
Physical Medicine/ Rehabilitation (PMR)
Geriatrics (Geri)
Developmental Disabilities (DD)
Behavioral Health (BH)
Community Inclusion Services (CIS)
NCTRC pointed out rationales for the new specialty certification program, including:
a.) Provide incentive for the CTRS to advance her (or his) professional competence
b.) Develop areas of “specialization” in our profession (much like other professionals)
c.) Improve the CEU offerings at conferences. There will be more training offered in these specialty areas to help more people to earn the specialty certificate.
d.) This should help build a critical mass of graduate-level certificates. There are two paths to earning the specialty certification. One path includes a graduate degree in TR or RT. The individual would need to take a certain amount of course credit hours in the specialty area too. Many of our allied professionals have moved to advanced degrees as the bench mark to practice. Currently, RT/TR is still at the Bachelor Degree level. This new certificate program could help increase the number of practitioners in our field who have a Master’s degree.
I [Danny Pettry] have not applied for one of these yet.
I feel I have met all of the requirements for the Behavioral Health. I am going to apply, but I plan to wait and do it during my 5-year CTRS cycle so they’ll both be on the same cycle.
For more information, visit NCTRC here:
http://www.nctrc.org/SpecCert.htm
It was presented by two of the NCTRC credentialing specialists: Robin McNeal and Susan Kaufer (shown in the picture).
The Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) is the benchmark for our profession. An individual who has earned this credential demonstrates that she (or he) has met the minimum standards needed for practice.
NCTRC created the specialty certification to acknowledge the CTRS who has met higher standards in one of the following areas:
Physical Medicine/ Rehabilitation (PMR)
Geriatrics (Geri)
Developmental Disabilities (DD)
Behavioral Health (BH)
Community Inclusion Services (CIS)
NCTRC pointed out rationales for the new specialty certification program, including:
a.) Provide incentive for the CTRS to advance her (or his) professional competence
b.) Develop areas of “specialization” in our profession (much like other professionals)
c.) Improve the CEU offerings at conferences. There will be more training offered in these specialty areas to help more people to earn the specialty certificate.
d.) This should help build a critical mass of graduate-level certificates. There are two paths to earning the specialty certification. One path includes a graduate degree in TR or RT. The individual would need to take a certain amount of course credit hours in the specialty area too. Many of our allied professionals have moved to advanced degrees as the bench mark to practice. Currently, RT/TR is still at the Bachelor Degree level. This new certificate program could help increase the number of practitioners in our field who have a Master’s degree.
I [Danny Pettry] have not applied for one of these yet.
I feel I have met all of the requirements for the Behavioral Health. I am going to apply, but I plan to wait and do it during my 5-year CTRS cycle so they’ll both be on the same cycle.
For more information, visit NCTRC here:
http://www.nctrc.org/SpecCert.htm
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