In the last President's Perspective, the proposal for changing the Section's name to the Academy of Neurologic Physical Therapy, Inc was presented. At the Combined Section's meeting the new name was approved, and this change was subsequently approved by the State of Indiana, where the section was incorporated. So, moving forward we will be known as the Academy of Neurologic Physical Therapy; that title is used here. However, please note that it will take time for all of the products, webpages, and materials to include the name change.
The Academy first conceived an Education Strategic Planning Meeting in 2007. As the educational landscape and resources at that time were quite different from what they are currently, we held a second Educational Strategic Planning meeting in March 2015. Twenty-five participants met with a facilitator for a day and a half at APTA to craft a 5-year educational plan for the section. Participants were geographically diverse and represented the multiple perspectives of section membership; clinicians, educators, and researchers; early to seasoned career; Neurologic Clinical Specialist Certifications and those with other certifications. This plan was approved by the Neurology Board of Directors in November 2015 and is the focus of this President's Perspective.
The initial focus of the meeting was to discuss challenges of and opportunities for educational programming and evolve a forward-thinking educational plan. Table 1 provides an overview of discussed challenges and opportunities.
Through an iterative consensus process, the group set 4 overarching goals, each with objectives and subobjectives. Subsequent discussions with the Section's educational committee chairs and board of directors resulted in prioritization of these objectives in 3 time frames for completion as delineated in Table 2.
The Academy's Board of Directors and Educational Leadership, in association with the IV STEP planning committee, is busy implementing these objectives. One critical outcome is the development of an online learning management system that will allow the Academy to transition some of our regional courses and other educational offerings to online offerings for wider dissemination. This should be up and running by the end of 2016. Four online course offerings are in preparation and several others are in the discussion phase.
Of course, IV STEP will occur in July 2016, and its initial dissemination will occur in the January 2017 issues of JNPT and Pediatric PT. Subsequent to those issues, there will be an online e-book available for purchase. As additional progress is made, information will be included in the e-newsletter and posted on the Academy's Web site. A IV STEP postconference dissemination committee has been formed. Be on the lookout for a 2017 CSM preconference course and then a regional course based on the IV STEP themes and content.