As the year comes to an end, for many, this is a time for reflection, for retrospection, and for resolutions. A time we find ourselves looking back while also looking forward. A liminal space between calendars. In my own reflections, I find myself celebrating the end of my seventh year with the Oregon Board of Physical Therapy and the end of my first year serving on the FSBPT Board of Directors. Looking back, I am equally confident of two things:

1. There are still tasks on my first to-do list that never got done, and
2. There is so much that has been accomplished, and so much of it we’ve done together.

As I described in last year’s article, The Council of Board Administrators (CBA) was established for a three-fold purpose: to connect, learn, and inform—all with the driving outcome of public protection. This year’s annual CBA Forum and Business Meeting in Iowa was another shining example of all three aspects of our purpose within FSBPT.

This annual opportunity is for administrative staff from member jurisdictions to come together to collaborate, learn, and grow together. This year in Iowa was no exception, bringing faces familiar and new to the table, with staff from twenty-nine different jurisdictions able to attend in person. We conducted an official business meeting and a large group roundtable, during which we engaged in an in-depth discussion on several topics, including a focus on licensure verification practices. This discussion was built upon the CBA Discussion Forum post created by Missy Anthony, the current CBA Chair. The goal was to collect and document our practices in this area, creating a shared resource that could be added to the growing collection of materials available for jurisdiction staff in the Membership area, as well as on the FSBPT website. You can search for and filter resources in the Member Resource Directory.

We then capped off the day with a presentation on applying a trauma-informed approach to conducting investigations and navigating multi-state investigations. Three of our own—Stephen Curley of Kentucky, Jason Kaiser of California, and Sherri Paru of Oregon—shared learnings and best practices both on the benefits of infusing trauma-informed practices into investigations as well as on the importance of—and considerations involved in—multi-jurisdictional cases. For more on that topic, please select “Complaints and Investigations” in the Member Resource Directory.

So, as we end the current year, I want to thank all of you for being a part of this community and for sharing yourselves and your experiences to further our collective mission. In my seven years as part of this community, I’ve had to say goodbye to many colleagues, but I’ve also gotten to know so many new ones, and I’ve learned and grown so much from my interactions with all of you.

As we look forward to the next one, I encourage us all to get involved—to stay involved—in this community. Reach out and share your questions and your successes; make use of and identify the need for FSBPT resources; and—perhaps most importantly in this seemingly ever-fast-paced world of regulation—let’s collaborate on those to-do lists where we can!