Occupational therapy professionals in New York state have a special reason to be thankful – and that is because we have two esteemed colleagues who are occupational therapists in the New York state legislature!
Senator Tim Kennedy is a lifelong Western New York resident and a graduate from D’Youville College’s occupational therapy program. He represents the 63rd Senate District and you can visit his website here.
Assemblyman Jake Ashby is a resident of Central New York and a graduate from Keuka College’s occupational therapy program. He represents the 107th Assembly District and you can visit his website here.
We know that Senator Kennedy and Assemblyman Ashby are in a unique position to understand the problem with occupational therapy not being designated as a ‘qualified mental health profession’ in New York state. Without this important designation, many occupational therapy practitioners are not eligible for certain positions and this limits the public’s access to important occupational therapy services that can help to support mental health.
A ‘window of opportunity’ is typically defined as a special point in time when some action might be taken to achieve a desired outcome. We know that many occupational therapy practitioners believe that they should be eligible for the QMHP designation. We also know that bills to amend the relevant law need to be introduced and then progress through both sides of the New York state legislature in order to possibly pass into law.
This is a unique and special opportunity for the occupational therapy community to come together and ask Senator Kennedy and Assemblyman Ashby if they can help with this effort.
Over the coming weeks, we hope to raise awareness in our communities about this issue. We hope to invite discussion and promote engagement so that many occupational therapy practitioners can learn about this important initiative.
We will also be making an appeal to our colleagues in the New York state legislature for their support and help.
Today we are starting off by being thankful for this opportunity, thankful to be able to advocate for our occupational therapy profession, and thankful for the platform to invite all of our other colleagues to come and learn and join in with this project.
It is going to be really exciting, and we need all of your support.
QMHP for NYS OT 
Hi, can you please share a bit about yourself, and also how you would like to engage others in this very important effort. We’ve had numerous false starts and efforts to reach out to OMH at various points. If you have the ability to rally people together, I’m hopeful you will be instrumental in bringing us closer to QMHP status. I hope to hear more!
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Hi Dave – It is just us – the Keuka OT Class of 2020 and this is part of our OCC555 Policy and Advocacy class.
This effort will focus on getting bills introduced into both the Assembly and the Senate. We have letters drafted to selected legislators as our first attempt to get some support for introducing these bills. Please spread the word and stay tuned for more. We will need lots of support!
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Please tell me more. How do I get involved with this; current OT practitioner would love to know more
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Hi Courtney – thanks for your interest! You can help by liking our pages – visiting us on other social media sites (linked off of the main page) – and sharing this blog post. We want to get a lot of our OT colleagues talking about this issue and eventually contacting legislators about getting some bills introduced for next year. Thanks so much for your interest. We will need everyone’s support!
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