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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Advocacy

ACAPT’s board continually solicits member feedback through regular town hall meetings and other forums. 

We listened to member feedback about the Open Forum at the Education Leadership Conference (ELC) and have modified the format to encourage more member engagement on critical topics in collaboration with the APTA Academy of Education.  We encourage all to attend the "Hot Topics" discussion at ELC on Thursday, October 27 from 6:00-9:00pm.

Advocating to Congress

Though ACAPT's Federation of Association of Schools of the Health Professions (FASHP), ACAPT co-signed two letters to Congress advocating for gun control and mental health support. 

 

Student advocacy

  • We heard that members want to develop future advocates for the profession too. The ACAPT Advocacy Committee is planning a new course to teach Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students how to be strong advocates. 

  • Based on feedback from ACAPT, there are now better processes for the National Physical Therapy Exam (NPTE) accommodations.

  • ACAPT understands that student debt is a critical issue for the PT profession and we participated in the former Student Debt Task Force of the Education Leadership Partnership; based on that work, CAPTE published new rules to require that all PT and PTA education programs "provide the public with current, accurate, reliable, and easily available information about the cost of attendance."

    Known as Student Financial Fact Sheets, the new resources are designed to easily allow potential students to not only understand total costs but also compare costs across programs. The fact sheets were rolled out in August 2022. 

Legal advocacy

ACAPT advocacy with CAPTE

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CAPTE data sharing & recommendations

Over the past year, ACAPT has been meeting with Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) on a regular basis to share recommendations including:

  • Proposal of CAPTE Annual Accreditation Report (AAR) and ACAPT survey data sharing, with individual institution’s permission
  • Research and scholarship definition and standard suggestions
  • Updated AAR question revisions to clarify and streamline data collection

Due to privacy and other concerns, CAPTE & APTA have decided not to share data at this point, though we continue to meet with CAPTE and strive for a mutually-beneficial partnership to foster excellence in academic PT.

 

CAPTE Standards Revisions (SRE)

The SRE workgroup is providing revisions for both the PT and PTA CAPTE standards.  Scott Davis represents ACAPT membership on the SRE workgroup.  In early 2022, they:

  • Conducted a series of listening sessions
  • Collected documents from stakeholders and
  • Contacted previous SRE workgroup members to identify the rationale for current standards.

A first draft of recommendations will be ready for presentation at the 17th Annual Physical Therapy Education Leadership Conference (ELC) in October 2022.