Important Public Act concerning PTs
2.23.2023
Dear APTA CT Members,
We wanted to give you more information regarding Public Act No. 21-46: An Act Concerning Social Equity and the health, safety, and education of children which went into effect on July 1, 2021.
This bill is aimed at requiring continuing education related to mental health and suicide prevention. A timely bill, that we know as Physical Therapists and Physical Therapist Assistants, requires timeliness, openness and access to resources to help the populations that we serve.
This requirement does apply directly to all licensed Physical therapists in Connecticut, but is not currently required for physical therapist assistants, although, we as an association strongly encourage our colleagues to have access to as many resources as possible.
Public Act No. 21-46 requires 2 hours of education during the first year of your licensure, and at least every 6 years of your licensure after the initial year.
The approved provider, Question, Persuade and Refer (QPR) Institute Gatekeeper training, has courses available online and in person geared towards health care professionals. We have been having discussions with this group to help facilitate an educational course directed more at physical therapy professionals. They are expecting to roll out a more supportive educational series soon and we are actively collaborating with this group to facilitate the appropriate goals and objectives as well as platforms. We are also looking to institute a knowledge track at our Annual Conference this year.
Currently, the Primary Care Providers course is 6-8 hours and costs $149; the school based providers, which is applicable to many of our pediatric physical therapy colleagues, is a 3-4 hour course and is about $79.
We will continue to actively work on resources and compiling educational opportunities, but recognize that many of you may be requiring the certifications as soon as possible.
A special thank you to our school based colleagues for drawing our attention to this bill; we truly appreciate membership bringing our attention towards opportunities that impact our profession and recognize that it takes a village to keep an eye on all things happening within our professional realm.
Should you have further questions or recommendations, please feel free to reach out to myself, our public policy committee, or our executive director.
Sincerely yours,
Stefanie Bourassa PT, DPT
APTA CT President
