Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.250 'STA Catch Up' with guest Gary Benson, Founder of the STA

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Ep.250 'STA Catch Up' with guest Gary Benson, Founder of the STA · The STA Clinician Podcast

0:00
You're listening to the Sports Therapy Association podcast, putting evidence
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back into soft tissue therapy.
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Music.
0:17
Hey people, how are you doing? Welcome to episode 250 of the Sports Therapy Association podcast.
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My name is Matt Phillips, creativerunshotlive.com. And as always,
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this episode is being recorded live at eight o'clock Tuesday on the Sports Therapy
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Association YouTube channel and Facebook page.
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For this STA catch up special, I'm very shortly going to be joined by STA founder,
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Gary Benson, who will be informing us on what is happening lately in our industry,
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what part the STA is playing in that and how we can provide you with support throughout the year.
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It's going to be of interest to not just STA members, of course,
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but all soft tissue therapists looking for guidance and support.
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So if you're listening to the podcast, then sit back and hopefully there's lots
1:00
of information that is of interest to you.
1:02
If you've got any questions, as always, when listening to the podcast,
1:05
then you can either go along to the YouTube channel where this is recorded live
1:07
and add some comments there.
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Or you can email me, matt at the sta.co.uk.
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And you can always consider to join us live on a Tuesday at eight o'clock on
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either Facebook or the YouTube channel.
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If you do join us live, then you're able to ask questions, like I say,
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to the guests. I can bring your comments up onto the screen like Angela L Thompson
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is in the house now as we speak saying hi all.
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Cecily Hislop has just entered the studio saying evening all.
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Well I was listening to Hobo Humpin's Slobo Babe but this is the better option.
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Fantastic I'm pleased about that.
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Nice background Cecily thank you very much. Yeah we are using new upgraded software
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now because of a few problems we had a month ago or so and so yeah we're glad
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to say that all those problems touched would now in the past.
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Right then. So like I say, very shortly, STA catch up.
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Before we do that, I just must say thank you to, well, basically both panels
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who have given us such an interesting couple of episodes about Facebook groups
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and are they helpful or hateful was the title.
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The last episode we had part two, which was basically some more experienced
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therapists talking about their reaction to a whole load of very nasty experiences
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shared by younger therapists who have gone to Facebook groups,
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essentially looking for help and finding not always,
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but quite often comments that for them personally didn't really help at all.
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And sometimes it was like, you've got to change the narrative.
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And they were like, well, you don't know what you mean by that.
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And be more evidence informed. And they're like, we never learned that.
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And sometimes just downright rude. And also, as always on social media,
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there's often problems.
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Sometimes it's just downright nasty, like therapists going to their business
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page and leaving loads of comments saying what you're talking about on your website is rubbish.
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It's rubbish. And you're being, you're conning your clients.
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So basically, it was a really good couple of episodes.
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And I thank both panels for their insights, showing their experiences.
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And hopefully in the last episode we managed to come up with potentially a few
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solutions i'm sure we'll be dipping into a little bit tonight as well because
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gary benson found the sda was on the panel,
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but thank you most of all like i say to both panels and
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the therapist who gave up their time as always to come on and listen and reflect
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and think and offer advice where appropriate so yeah thank you very much available
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as always on the youtube channel if you want to watch the video or on your favorite
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preferred podcast app if you just look for the sports therapy association podcast,
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we will be there along with another 249 episodes for you to get through.
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So think about that when you're thinking, where can I get some CPD?
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There's 249 hours of you to start with.
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Right then, we're going to go straight into the catch up then for tonight as advertised.
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It's not just for STA members. We'll be talking about the STA quite a lot.
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Hopefully it'll be provide some insight for you into why maybe you would consider
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joining the STA or just indeed a professional association if you're not part of one already.
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So to kick that off, what I will do now is invite up the guest for tonight,
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who is Gary Benson, founder of the STA, and we will crack on with tonight's episode.
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Music.
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Thanks, Mark. Hi, everybody. As always, people who have joined us live,
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if you've got any questions in the comments, then feel free to leave them.
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This is, above all, this is an episode where if you have got any worries or
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concerns and you're interested about where to go for help or if the STA can
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help you at all, then this is where you can leave your questions.
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So do please remember that.
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Gary, just following on from the last two episodes I was mentioning,
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you were part of the panel, but I was interested in some of the experiences
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we all talked about last week. Some experiences were horrible.
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I'd like to say it's the exception to the rule, but there's definitely a problem
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with Facebook groups when people are going on there and sharing stuff in the public domain.
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And sometimes the responses are not helpful at all. Did it make you kind of
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reflect on what the STA does or
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why you set it up and what we could potentially do in the future to help?
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Well, I think if we look at why the STA is here, I've spent 18 years representing
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members and therapists in this industry in various roles within the industry of the GCNT.
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One example, a professional-specific board advisor to the Complementary Natural
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Healthcare Council, advisors to other associations who were more general therapy
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rather than sport-specific.
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And it always seemed to me that it was a business model.
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And what I wanted was a support model. so
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the support was was first and foremost
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rather than the the membership fee but
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what i what i wanted to do was to create
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a safe space for anybody to be able to ask anything without fear
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of judgment i wanted everybody to have a sense of belonging
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to you know and if i'm honest i wanted to be a small club for people who didn't
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want to be in a big club we have become a big club now but I hope the small
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club mentality still follows us on our journey because we're on our journey
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as much as therapists are on theirs.
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But I was really...
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Proud of what the STA team have achieved in creating
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that safe space to providing the resources with
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our fortnightly coffee evening chats our fortnightly accountability
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sessions obviously your weekly web chats
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and podcasts the women in sports therapy group who
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are just primarily concerned with creating women's
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specific resources so I
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think that the industries as I said last week
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the industry's got to shoulder a lot of the blame here
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because the industry sells courses which don't
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adequately prepare therapists for working in the
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industry some of the social media comments today
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on our latest poll you know
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mentions the fact that you know why should i
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do a three-year degree when somebody can come out of a
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one-day diploma do copious
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amounts of cpd and be charging more than i am and
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they've done a cumulative seven days worth of training and they've spent
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three years 50 grand in investment and you know 20 hours a week for for three
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years that's 3 000 hours of study and i can't give them an answer you know i
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think that the lead councils in our industry have to stand up and be counted
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and say look this is not acceptable we don't accept these courses.
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I publicise on my website the minimum criteria which they must meet.
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I've had two conversations today with people who've done a course which has
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been sold to them in good faith. They've done in good faith.
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The tutors have taught them in good faith, but it doesn't meet our standard.
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I've explained that there might be other options for them.
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They might be able to go somewhere else, but they can get their insurance to
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practice independently without being a member.
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But they specifically wanted our support.
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And therefore, what I've got to do in my role as steering the STA,
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is to find a way to support those people who feel that they're being let down
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by the industry without casting them aside,
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because it's those people, you know, and
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the open groups we spoke about last time the the
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the derogatory comments often come
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from people who say things like i've never
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seen the benefit of pain to be part of a membership and
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they come out with you know they might be quoting 10 year.
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Old narratives or do this modality because
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this fixes everything and they're still talking like a
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therapist of 15 years ago 10 years ago so i
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think what the sj has achieved with its with its
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member support groups with its coffee evening chats with our podcasts
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etc and my between 30 and 50
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one-to-one calls every week with members and prospective
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members i think we've achieved a really safe space
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where you can ask a question you won't be judged you
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won't be belittled and it's the old
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saying there's no such thing as a silly question well there really isn't you
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know if you don't know it you don't know it and we don't know what we
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don't know i've got lots of knowledge up here and
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you know my my mentor going back to my sports coaching
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said to me that gary said knowledge is powerful but
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only when it's shared so i get my my
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job satisfaction that i used to get from teaching by sharing
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my knowledge and my experience and guiding and motivating
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the next generation therapist now that i not in
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clinical practice anymore yeah some
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great points there it's i found it
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tricky like listening to some of the therapists who are
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saying that they were going to these facebook groups with
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serious questions just started out full of illusion quoting some of the things
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they'd learned on courses which sadly we know is part of the problem outdated
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narratives and that and they had no idea so but it did kind of make me think
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were you are you not with a professional association at the moment who you could turn to?
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Why are you going to kind of, it's almost like hanging out, you're washing in public sort of thing.
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Why are you even risking that or rather than going to somebody in association?
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And there's so many associations out, I'm not saying it has to be the STA,
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but this seems to be part of the problem.
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I mean, I don't want to just make this into a show about being at the STA,
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but we kind of discussed last week, isn't it, one alternative to rushing to
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Facebook with a problem to what, after all, I know it's lovely thinking they're
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fellow therapists, but you don't know them.
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And there's no kind of, apart from if you want to argue human altruism might be there.
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It's not like it's an association who you're paying money to, to support you. So yeah.
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Is there as far as you know and you kind of talking to
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different associations all the time organizations are there still a lot
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of therapists who just don't belong to associations or just think it's
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not worth it i think it's probably
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as high as 50 percent
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of therapists out there and not part of an association there
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may have been previously there may have been recommended one
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by their course tutor and didn't feel that
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they got the the necessary support in the
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early days and they haven't they haven't
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continued with their membership you know there used
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to be a narrative of you have to maintain maintain membership
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of certain bodies if you wanted to be part of the movement going forward you
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know we're talking about regulation but yeah i think probably half of the therapists
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in the uk are not part of an association unfortunately you know if we look at
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the statistics and these have taken you know several years ago 75 of people
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who qualify in this industry,
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in sports massage, in soft tissue therapy.
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In sports therapy, in sports rehab, are not working in the industry after three years.
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So fundamentally, what is wrong? And if we just take at face value that the
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competency skills that we teach are adequate.
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It must be the business guidance, the marketing guidance,
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the ongoing support, because it's very
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isolating isn't it that when you pass your course i can
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remember when i first passed my sports and remedial
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massage and you know over 25 years ago i
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went back home and i thought who do i talk to now and
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this is in the days before you know whatsapp groups
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and and things of that nature i didn't have anybody to run things by you know
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i wasn't part of a big clinical practice i worked on my own so you know I fell
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into the trap of trying to better myself by adding more passive modalities but
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it was after about three years I thought.
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Actually you know the people who are coming in to
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see me are coming in with the same problems that i'm treating every
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couple of months for them what is going wrong and
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that's that's when i realized actually you know the whole
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consultation process that we do the closed questions
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you know have a history of joint problems history of heart conditions
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history of you know other diseases that
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wasn't giving me the amount of information or
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the quality of information that i required to
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clinically reason the treatment direction that's when i
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started more of a an open vocabulary sort
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of consultation where you know i used to
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sit down and say things like i'm just going to sit here with my notebook and
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i'm going to listen to you for 10 minutes i want you to tell me everything that
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you think may be relevant about your medical history that you
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know accidents that you've had injuries that you've had what your
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rehab was like did you do your rehab didn't you and
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i said i'm just going to make notes and at the end of this i'm just going to
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sort of you know paraphrase what you're saying and see if we can agree on a
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direction to move forwards and that worked really successfully for me for until
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i stopped clinical practice in 2017 when my capacity changed considerably.
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So you know the industry needs to change you
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know i've already said the industry needs to take the blame awarding
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organizations are still passing out
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information and course syllabus which are which are
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talking about old-day narratives you know of stretching muscle fiber
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breaking down scar tissue with transverse fictions and
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and you know melting fascia so we need to move on and you know i have recently
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held you know a meeting with the gcmt uh with susan findley a respected industry
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tutor we've obviously got differences of opinions but we've also got some mutual
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ground and I will be liaising with them over the coming months.
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You know, we have moved a long way.
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In the last year you know historically the
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society of sports therapists were were difficult
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to communicate with shall we say and then simon bowen
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came on board as the new ceo i'm not
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exactly sure of the timing but i met with him at therapy expo
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last year we had a very frank and honest conversation for about 90
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minutes we've had some more conversations since
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and he's been instrumental in opening communication channels
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within the industry things that we've
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been trying to do for 14 years which we
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were met with a with a defensive wall if you
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like so what simon's achieved in in
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his his his year for example as ceo
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has been remarkable you know we have now got an industry-wide
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collaboration meeting in september between
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the major stakeholders within the industry you
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know i talk regularly to to yvonne from the
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sports massage association again we we have
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differences of opinions we have differences in the way that we represent our
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members but there is mutual respect so i think that the industry is coming together
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i think one of my frustrations has been that we we've always talked about regulation
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and and how it would be here by the time we got to the Olympics or, you know,
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within the time you finish your degree, et cetera.
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But nobody's ever shown us what the model of regulation would look like.
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Nobody sat down with a piece of paper and said, look, if we become regulated.
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You know, it's going to cost you X amount of pounds per year.
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This is what your CPD policy is going to look like.
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This is what your annual obligations will be. This is your code of conduct.
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This is the complaints and appeals procedure. This is the disciplinary procedure.
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Nobody's shown us that. It's always been a carrot at the end of a stick in the
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distance. So hopefully...
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Whilst I don't see regulation as the answer to our problems,
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hopefully with some collaboration, we might stop some of the comments that I mentioned earlier.
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There was a LinkedIn chat a couple of weeks ago where the sports therapy industry
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came in for some criticism from individuals.
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And somebody had put, you know, there are three lead bodies or membership bodies
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within the sports therapy industry and the sum total of one plus one plus one
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is zero, you know, in effect saying that we're not doing anything.
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Well, I resisted responding as is now my policy.
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I don't throw fuel onto those fires.
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I think it always, you know, plays into their hands that we have to justify ourselves.
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What i think that we do we should
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be doing is we should be getting on with representing our members
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supporting our members providing resources to our members and
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doing being as professional and as diplomatic as we can and let those nearsayers
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and let them get on with their keyboard warrioring if that's a word it is now
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brilliant no there's so much in there which makes sense including the recommendation
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at the end of something we mentioned last week was it just.
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Particularly for a more experienced therapist if you see something that's not
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true on the internet you don't have to kind of like correct
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it and if you do want to leave a comment on someone's put then just give
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it half an hour give it an hour even maybe give it a day and then go
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back you don't have to reply straight away because your first answer very often
17:56
is probably not going to be thought through or maybe kind
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of reflect on how it's going to be taken by the person who originally posted
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so but it's also there was an interesting comment last week matt and it said
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our duty as an evidence-informed practitioner is to call out those people who
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are not evidence-informed.
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And I sat and reflected on that for some time after I read the comment,
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and I thought, is it really?
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Do we make ourselves look better by criticizing others, or do we make ourselves
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look better by pushing ahead and changing the industry if you like one person at a time?
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And I've had six or seven calls today from members and prospective members, and I'm not a salesman.
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I say, no, the STA might not be the body for you.
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If you would feel supported with our social media groups, our women in sports
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therapy, our coffee chats, our accountability sessions,
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then I'd welcome an application from you as long as it meets X, Y, and Z criteria. Yeah.
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But we may not be the solution for everybody.
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You know, there may be people who have got a sports massage qualification.
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They may be coming from a beauty industry and they still do a lot of relaxation
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massage and beauty therapy type treatments.
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Now, with the best of respect, I'm not going to be providing resources for that
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demographic because it's not our area of expertise.
19:25
You know, all of the people who are, you know, like you and I giving our time
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to the STA, We're soft tissue therapists, we're sports therapists,
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we're sports rehabbers. That's what we know.
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So sometimes, you know, the FHT or the CTHA might be, you know,
19:40
a better vehicle for their career path.
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But, you know, our membership is still rising. You know, our renewal rate is extremely high.
19:49
We have, you know, several a month who don't renew because they might be retiring
19:54
or might be having a career break or going traveling or, you know,
19:58
having a family, for example.
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And we accept that but what you know what I always do
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is if somebody says you know I won't be renewing my
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membership I'm going on maternity leave I'll say congratulations best
20:08
wishes to you and your family how about I extend your
20:11
membership for you free of charge so that you can feel supported
20:15
you know you don't have to go through the anxiety invoking you know experience
20:21
that you're going to next year when you want to come back to work because you'll
20:24
have been in touch with our podcast you might have attended our coffee evening
20:27
chats even if you just ring me up and have a rant about how many sleepless nights
20:32
you've got. I've been there myself.
20:34
We had five kids under five, well, five and under, so it was difficult.
20:37
I can empathize, I can sympathize, but most of all, I can support you.
20:42
Great stuff and i should reiterate i
20:45
need to kind of remind people because it's always a source of
20:48
a bit of a shock that an annual membership is 75 pounds
20:51
that's a seven followed by a five which i think you'll find
20:54
is pretty competitive as well so even you know like you
20:57
say you could get a free membership a year but even if you kept it going it's 75
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pounds so if i may if i
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may correct you there matt oh sorry it is 75 pounds
21:06
but if you're on a recurring membership it's 60 pounds and
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even if you're on a single year practitioner membership
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then we will email you 30 days
21:16
20 days and two days before you're expiring and we
21:19
will extend a renewal invitation at the discounted price
21:22
of 60 pounds the only one that remains at
21:25
75 pounds is our associate membership which
21:28
is suitable for those with a level three issued up
21:31
to 2014 team because they require
21:34
additional support in identifying progression routes
21:37
so that will stay at 75 pounds and we have got
21:40
a policy of trying to encourage our level three therapists and whilst that's
21:46
an extremely valuable contribution to a clinical practice if they want to work
21:51
more autonomously and not be directed or referred down you know somebody mentioned
21:56
the other day to me that they felt they'd become the rubdown boy.
22:00
Which I felt sad because the person's got far more skills than that.
22:04
But yeah, we are trying to encourage our members to meet the minimum level four
22:10
criteria because the qualification framework changed in March 2024.
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When the YMCA issued a level four sports massage qualification,
22:21
which combined some of the learning from level three and four and became entry-level
22:26
to what we class as the remedial industry.
22:29
Very interesting yes i mean and the reason the price is low is because i mean
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this is a non-profit association it's all about everything that is picked up
22:38
is put back into providing support,
22:41
and so much we do is yeah is free
22:43
for that reason not trying to make a profit out of it which i think probably for
22:46
therapists is what you need basically anyway right
22:50
we've already kind of given us a low down on what
22:52
you've been doing for the last month with your with and i meant
22:55
i meant to mention as well it's really i think for a lot of people it
22:58
will be quite kind of nice to hear
23:01
all the work that does go in the background to improve the
23:04
communication and it is really significant to hear
23:07
that you and other stakeholders are getting
23:10
together like simon and susan and talking
23:12
because five ten years ago that would be unheard of
23:15
and it was like if all the talking probably happened behind people's
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backs not you but other people and it
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was just no communication at all so it is it's
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the kind of stuff which therapists don't hear about but there's an
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awful lot which the STA is involved in in trying to to help all therapists move
23:32
forwards and all stakeholders get together and find things which we share rather
23:36
than just things which are different between us so it should hopefully boost
23:40
your confidence a little bit people who are worried and thinking oh there's
23:43
never gonna be a regulation because no one's talking to each other or.
23:46
It's not the case at all we are very much talking and
23:49
helping us move forward so that's cool i think
23:52
what i've learned over this this journey with the sta
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is that you know when we first started we were
23:58
heavily criticized openly for adding to the political confusion within the industry
24:05
and and i was somewhat naive and and defended myself robustly about the reasons
24:11
for that in hindsight i wouldn't have responded did.
24:16
I think what the STA has now earned is wider respect from the industry.
24:24
The fact that we are very respectful of the other associations out there.
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As I mentioned, we may have differences of opinion and different methodology,
24:34
if you like, in supporting our relevant members.
24:38
But there is mutual respect there. and you know somebody was quoted as saying
24:44
that the STA has become a force to be reckoned with you know I'm uncomfortable
24:50
with you know I'm typically English I'm uncomfortable with praise,
24:55
but it's refreshing to know that people's
24:58
opinions of us have changed because we've
25:01
been so supportive of our members and that's all
25:04
we're doing we're publicly supporting our members we're putting
25:06
a message out there that you know if you want to join us it's a safe
25:09
space you'll never to be judged you have a sense of belonging
25:12
which sort of segues on nicely i
25:15
think to what we're trying to do with our regional
25:19
conferences and you mentioned the start
25:22
of this presentation about the one we've got in september down
25:26
at the you know in collaboration with the st store and anna
25:28
maria mazzieri now what we
25:31
are doing there is much like we did at the one that we
25:34
had on the south coast with with alex more we're trying to take the focus away
25:40
from the person who's delivering the you know the the talk and we're trying
25:45
to have the presentations more led by the audience members so it's about what
25:51
they want to take away from it rather than.
25:54
Seeing ourselves as some kind of guru at
25:57
the front of the room you know preaching to the to
25:59
the masses we're actually negotiating and we're you
26:03
know we're we're adapting our presentations and our talks to
26:06
meet their needs so it is about how important
26:09
the therapist is not how important the person at the
26:11
front of the room is now with our regional conferences and
26:15
we are negotiating with five more
26:18
within the next 12 to 18 months then
26:22
hopefully you know we will get more people on board
26:25
we want to be engaging with more local education establishments
26:29
and more universities i don't think it's the
26:31
job of a professional association to form your credit
26:34
courses i think there are external bodies.
26:38
Who can do that can check policies and procedures you
26:41
know we will we do support some really good
26:44
trainers out there hopefully i'm going to you
26:47
know at the end of the the reflection series and then you've got your series
26:50
of four planned i hope to to invite
26:53
some you know some forward-thinking training
26:56
providers to to come on and and
26:59
explain why they've moved away from the the
27:03
regulated qualification framework delivery model
27:06
why they are doing a sort of if you
27:09
i can't think of a better phrase than an in-house award or
27:12
qualification that has been externally checked
27:17
for its for its quality of delivery and
27:20
and teaching resources etc this quality of assessment the staff qualifications
27:25
etc but i think it's a conflict of interest if anybody who who who leads or
27:32
steers a professional association is then in a position of responsibility.
27:38
Either as a council member.
27:41
You know in a position of authority if
27:45
they are in any way involved in
27:48
training provide provision and professional association the
27:52
two have quite separate roles and i
27:54
think that you know if we look at the government white papers
27:57
issued in 2010 enabling excellence and we
28:02
look at the reforming regulation government white paper in
28:05
2017 they all spoke about the the
28:09
the the move away from statutory regulation you know
28:12
sports therapy was taken off the the aspirant list
28:14
in 2014 so anything 2014 to
28:18
this date anything talking about regulation we're not
28:21
even on the aspirant list anymore so you
28:24
know i think that you know moving forwards there's
28:27
got to be a better system and that's what my talk will be in the
28:30
conference in september but you
28:33
know there are conflicts of interest you know both government
28:36
white papers said professional associations need to be
28:39
more robust in the assessing of
28:42
evidence quality of evidence when people
28:45
are applying at policing having you know
28:48
robust codes of conduct and professionalism and
28:51
having a robust complaints and appeals procedure now that's what we've done
28:54
that all that's on my website you can anybody can go and have a look at that
28:58
so we're doing what we think is right for a professional association we're not
29:02
getting involved in training we're not getting involved in in leading councils
29:05
And I wouldn't mind being a collaborator.
29:09
But I'm not going to be dictating what others do.
29:12
I'm concentrating really on how the STA team can better resource and better
29:18
support our existing and prospective members.
29:21
Definitely great information i'm noticing
29:24
loads of people are joining tonight so obviously people have got there have got
29:27
questions if you're joining us live then do feel free to
29:30
put any questions in the comments regarding what you
29:33
feel the support you need if you've got any questions about the sta if you have
29:38
got any suggestions about ways of supporting you that aren't happening which
29:41
could be there so yeah do feel free to use the comments people who have joined
29:44
us live and if you listen to podcasts and your questions like i say email matt
29:48
at the sta.co.uk or go to youtube and leave some comments in there.
29:52
Yeah, so yeah, you mentioned the conference that is indeed happening in the
29:57
STA Southwest Conference, September the 20th and 21st, which is a Saturday and
30:01
Sunday, which we thought was nice, just to provide alternatives to kind of other
30:05
conferences in midweek.
30:07
It gives you a chance, particularly if you're in the area, to come along.
30:10
If you can travel, then great, but there will be other regional conferences
30:13
planned, as Gary has said.
30:14
This conference is going to be a special one. It's going to be huge to start
30:18
off with looking at 100, 150, maybe 200 people, because it's an association
30:22
with the ST School Hands-On Hub.
30:25
And fortunately, again, because of our, I mean, the speakers we've got coming
30:28
along, a testimony to our place in the industry now, thanks to our involvement
30:32
with Therapy Expo and other big conferences.
30:34
We've got people like Dr. Claire Mitchell coming along to present,
30:37
Michelle Lyons is going to be there, Serena Simmons, James Earles,
30:41
Siobhan O'Donnell, Andy Hosgood, and others.
30:44
There's going to be some quality presentations. But like Gary said.
30:47
This conference in particular is a little bit experimental in the way,
30:51
but it's to try and turn the mirror around, to turn the lens around,
30:55
to focus on the actual people watching it as opposed to traditional.
30:58
You sit there like kind of quiet sheep listening to a guru at the front and
31:02
then try and write some things down and then get back to Click on Monday thinking,
31:05
oh my God, that was so much information.
31:06
So it is going to be around actual literally round tables, not metaphorically
31:10
speaking, round tables with pens and pads and activities and things.
31:13
And all the presentations pretty much all of them are going
31:16
to be geared towards involving you the attendee the
31:19
delegate to get involved and really complete that
31:22
learning curve there the day two sunday the
31:26
last section of it it's only half a day on sunday but the last two hours
31:29
are going to be devoted led by andy hosgood
31:32
who i was chatting to today are going to be about the reflection how is
31:35
what you've heard in the last day and a half going to actually help your
31:37
practice how is it going to make a difference what do
31:40
you as a therapist maybe need to change and work on
31:44
as opposed to the person sitting next to you because everyone's got different skills
31:46
and different needs so and hopefully that's going
31:49
to pave the way for a really healthy educational conference
31:53
you know there'll be a few stands and that and people there and
31:55
there'll be a chance for you to speak with people but essentially it's it's putting
31:58
it back into education which is what it's all about as well
32:01
as the networking and the really important
32:04
collaboration between you as therapists and people in your area
32:06
so very exciting tickets are
32:09
available at the st school 20th and 21st of
32:13
september there is a summer discount on
32:16
now which gets you some pounds some much needed
32:18
pounds off and there's also an sta discount which
32:21
if you're not sure of them check in the newsletter or go to the
32:24
sta members page on facebook and you'll find details
32:27
of the sta specific code discount
32:30
there yeah very much looking forward to that
32:33
sta catch-up gary what else have
32:36
you been up to as if you could fit anything else into your day or into.
32:39
Your last yeah well so i have regular meetings.
32:42
With balance who are insurance broker if
32:45
you like we we're not regulated to sell or
32:48
advise an insurance so we chose balance as a
32:50
vehicle to provide the the practitioner cover
32:53
now in our regular meetings one of
32:56
the things that i've been bringing up because it's always been a
32:59
question that's asked is you know what happens if
33:02
you work with professional sports persons now if
33:06
you're working at elite level usually but
33:10
not in not all cases you are employed by the club
33:13
or the team and in that case the
33:16
insurance should be provided by the team because
33:19
the head of medical who is always
33:22
a chartered physio if it's in football because that
33:25
was the criteria set by the past chairman of the sst as detailed on jack chews
33:31
chewing over on may the 21st of 2022 I believe so sports therapists and sports
33:38
rehabbers they tend not to be head of medical unless they work up the ladder internally and.
33:44
But it's, you know, we have now been to the insurance underwriters and we have
33:49
said for those of you who work occasionally with elite athletes in your own clinical practice,
33:55
then we have got a policy extension coming out where you can now meet the criteria
34:00
for having £10 million liability policy.
34:03
The wording of that will come out in in the next four to six weeks i assume
34:08
it will be an update on our policy and i will make the make that pdf available
34:13
in the file section of our facebook group and on our website so that's one thing
34:18
another thing i've been doing is i've been having.
34:22
Conversations with stakeholders about scope
34:25
of practice and that's come really as a
34:28
result of some conversations we've had over the
34:31
past three or four months where we've got people who
34:34
have been doing entry-level level three courses mainly
34:38
run by fitness industry training.
34:42
Providers they're usually short courses.
34:46
And they have then been sold.
34:49
By the same training provider copious amounts
34:52
of cpd for passive interventions i've
34:55
already spoke at length about how adding passive intervention
34:58
doesn't make you more appealing to a wider audience it just
35:02
gives you more tools to do the same thing of modulating pain
35:05
but one of the things that has been
35:08
apparent is that there are cpd providers
35:11
out there i'm not going to name them until i've
35:14
spoken to the sta legal team who are
35:17
selling courses and accepting people onto courses with a
35:20
level three with very limited a and p knowledge very
35:24
limited clinical experience and they're doing things like
35:26
shock wave and needling interventions you
35:29
know medical acupuncture and and dry needling
35:32
and that's clearly outside of the scope of practice
35:35
so just for clarification sta membership categories
35:39
are based on your level of qualification so if you're
35:43
a level three therapist and you are what we
35:46
class as our associate level members then
35:49
your scope of practice it will say on your certificate that
35:52
you have achieved a level three qualification in sports massage and
35:56
your scope of practice is pre post intravent massage and maintenance massage
35:59
and any cpd that you pursue should not have a remedial intention that's clear
36:05
it's on your membership certificate so that people are in no doubt if you have
36:10
a level four soft tissue therapy then that is the sort of autonomous autonomous practitioner level.
36:16
You can pursue CPD with remedial intent. I do.
36:22
Advocate that people who are looking at
36:25
courses that may be expensive is to is to book
36:28
a call with me and i will challenge you as to as to.
36:31
Why you want it in your clinic you might be passionate about.
36:33
It but it might not be the right vehicle i'll respect
36:36
your decisions in the end but i i do like to
36:39
challenge to make sure you're spending your
36:42
money for the right reasons and we we offer over you
36:46
know a hundred hours of free cpd in the you
36:48
know in our various resources to members anyway
36:51
so it's not all about going on courses and and finally
36:55
on cpd i don't think cpd is just about
36:57
professional development i think it's about professional and personal development
37:01
so when we get so i've read some really
37:04
good reflective practice cpd excel spreadsheets
37:08
over the past few weeks where there's a lot of
37:10
personal reflection about you know
37:13
i think it was tim grigg had said
37:16
you know the things that we were taught you know
37:19
however many years ago and we think well did we waste our
37:22
time did we waste our money and and if
37:24
you remember the conversations we had with Walt Fritz who mentioned
37:28
he was embarrassed by what he used to teach and Susan
37:31
Finley and I have had a conversation about that as well and you know
37:34
my view on that is we shouldn't be embarrassed because what we
37:36
taught at that time was of its time it's only
37:40
the fact now that we've got you know better researchers
37:44
out there we've got more research happening some of its poor quality but every
37:48
bit of research says at the end of it you know more research is required but
37:52
there's more access to information over the over the internet now than there
37:57
used to be so there's a lot more information that we can use to be evidence-informed.
38:02
So we shouldn't be embarrassed about what we did. It was of its time.
38:06
Some of those modalities might still be valid, but the narrative might have changed.
38:11
And that's what my job is to do with people who are suffering from imposter
38:14
syndrome and anxiety is to ring me up and say, don't throw the baby out in the bathwater.
38:20
Continue using your trigger point manual skill,
38:25
but the narrative about hypersensitivity is far
38:29
more valid than trigger pointing and
38:31
pressing on it to make pain refer to other places so there's
38:35
lots of things that i'm doing in the background which is
38:38
keeping me busy which which i'm happy with can we
38:41
touch on stewart's sure yeah i just wanted
38:43
to say before we go to stewart um i brought it up on the screen but
38:46
based on you know um celebration of what you're
38:49
saying actually jessica janeman has said here i would
38:52
like to thank you she's talking to you gary as a non-member for
38:55
gary's transparency around qualifications and training etc not
38:58
just tonight but in past podcasts it's helped me understand the
39:01
industry better which is lovely thank you jessica for sharing that
39:04
i mean that's exactly what this is all about isn't it understanding the industry
39:06
yeah i mean thank you jessica and i think that the reason that
39:10
that i do this is that you know and i
39:13
do put my head above the parapet you know another cliches like you know rocking
39:17
boats and shaking trees is because i think that you as part of this industry
39:23
whether a member of the sta or not having good faith engage with the training
39:28
that the industry provides for you.
39:31
And sometimes that's not fit for purpose. And I think somebody's got to highlight
39:35
it. I've got broad shoulders.
39:37
I'm never going to publicly say that course A is bad and course B is good.
39:42
I'm not going to say that the tutor is good or bad. But what I will say is it
39:47
doesn't meet the STA standards for recognizing it for CPD or it doesn't meet
39:51
the STA standard for recognizing it's a qualification because somebody's got to make a stand.
39:56
And I don't mind being that person who's making a stand. But I do appreciate
40:01
your feedback. I feel very uncomfortable now.
40:04
That's really cool. And if anybody else wants to make Gary feel uncomfortable,
40:07
then feel free to bring it up on the screen because he needs more of this for the work he puts in.
40:12
Right, yeah, Stuart, you were mentioning, I'll bring up Stuart.
40:14
So people who listen to the podcast, this is what Stuart had to say.
40:18
Stuart Sahan, forgive me if that's not how you've been asked your last name,
40:21
but Stuart Sahan says, what do you think are the main barriers preventing sports
40:24
therapists and rehabbers from protecting their own professional titles in the
40:29
way that chiropractors and osteopaths have and do you see hcpc registration
40:34
as the only viable path forward for statutory regulation.
40:39
There's a lot to unravel there stewart and i'm going to try my
40:42
best before i do that i'm just going to say hi to scott loins
40:45
who's in the in the group chat scott hosts our
40:48
coffee evening chats two wednesdays a month and he hosts our
40:51
accountability chats on a monday afternoon so scott
40:54
at the sta.co.uk if you need to get in
40:57
touch even if you're not a member and you'd like a you know an invite
41:00
to one of our coffee evening chats we're more than welcome
41:03
to extend an invitation to you so yeah
41:06
so let's have a look at stewart's comment if we
41:09
look at osteopathy and chiropractic there
41:13
is general disquiet within those industries
41:16
and there are increasing numbers of osteopaths who are deregistering
41:20
and becoming osteomyologists we've got
41:23
an increasing number of osteopaths and physiotherapists
41:26
who have also got some massage qualifications are
41:29
now coming to us for membership because they just
41:32
want to work in a more holistic way than
41:35
wholly chiropractic or wholly osteopathic and
41:38
they want to be you know hands-on you know
41:41
modern therapists so they're coming to us the hcpc
41:45
registration is the only way for
41:48
statutory regulation but the hcpc
41:52
said have said that they're not going to you know regulate further
41:55
professions and if you just take one example of aesthetics
41:58
we've got people out there who come from a
42:01
beauty therapy background have done a one day diploma in
42:04
you know lip filling and they're injecting god.
42:07
Knows what into people's lips and charging them 300 quid now.
42:11
That's not being regulated there is a licensing procedure.
42:14
Coming in but it's not you know
42:17
in my opinion from what i've seen and i'm not an expert on it.
42:20
But it's not addressing the fact that you know you have to be a prescribing
42:24
nurse to to prescribe these drugs and what we've seen is that with some of these
42:29
clinics because i've been following this model quite quite a lot is that these
42:34
these clinical practices are saying if you want to you know have your Botox or your lip fillers,
42:40
then you have to come in on our prescription day where a nurse will then prescribe,
42:44
and then you can continue with your treatment. So I.
42:48
The whole reason behind regulation was to protect the public.
42:52
And if really invasive treatments like that are not being regulated,
42:56
then I don't see a way forward for sports therapy to be regulated.
43:00
As I mentioned earlier, we don't know what the model looks like,
43:03
but I'll tell you what I think the barriers are.
43:06
And we have had conversations, industry-wide conversations about this,
43:10
and we will continue that in September.
43:13
There isn't the will of the industry. okay now
43:16
if you look at sports rehab which is represented by
43:20
the basrat registration and they
43:23
have an accredited register which is which is
43:26
underneath the professional standards authority so the
43:29
psa the professional standards authority they oversee the
43:32
regulators under which you have like geosk and
43:35
the gcc and you have
43:38
accredited registers one of which basrat holds and
43:41
maintains the FHT used to have one they
43:44
don't have that anymore and the other one you might be familiar with is
43:47
the CNHC model now I was an
43:50
advisor to the CNHC from its inception for three
43:53
years I left my tenure at the
43:56
end and didn't renew my my advisory role because I didn't think it did what
44:01
it needed to do to be a regulator it became a bums on seats so the main barrier
44:08
is that we need if we wanted sports therapy just as one example to be regulated,
44:14
three people would have three bodies would have to sit around the table they would have to agree,
44:19
but if you go back to the original application that was made in 2006 it was
44:24
repeated in 2008 2010 from memory one of the things that was asked of the applicant was can you.
44:33
Differentiate the role of sports therapy from
44:36
physiotherapy because they're obviously crossovers now
44:40
that exercise was never completed so that the application
44:43
was never going to go further even though it was
44:46
recommended three times on three separate occasions to the
44:48
secretary of state for health i assume
44:51
for regulation it never happened because
44:55
the applicant issued statements such as
44:58
we prefer to maintain our elite status and they
45:00
weren't they didn't consult with with at that
45:03
time the sports rehabilitators now they've got
45:06
their own accredited register so they're not going to
45:09
be interested in you know after their investment and their
45:12
staffing costs to to pursue and maintain an accredited register they're not
45:17
going to be interested in statute of deregulation sports therapy and sports
45:20
rehab one of the other stakeholders was historically linked to a training school
45:27
so if they supported statute of deregulation and at the time of the
45:32
announcement of the statute of regulation, a minimum standard of education is announced.
45:36
And if that was to be a degree in sports therapy.
45:41
Albeit we have grandparenting which is a precedent set
45:44
by physiotherapy where people working in the industry can demonstrate
45:47
making a living from the industry go on to a grandparenting
45:51
route into the register or onto
45:54
the register now this body would
45:57
never support statutory regulation because it
45:59
means that their training provider wouldn't be able to run their courses so
46:03
that was a commercial decision made by those so there
46:07
hasn't been any joined up thinking there hasn't been
46:10
any any collaboration and the occupational competences
46:13
in sports therapy whilst the society of
46:16
sports therapy have their own competences there
46:19
hasn't been an industry-wide agreed set of nos the national
46:22
occupational standards which are which are
46:25
held by the skills for health which is
46:28
sector skills council since 2014 so
46:31
we've had 11 years with no occupational competences so
46:34
in theory how are we teaching sports therapists who
46:38
are not on an accredited sst degree program who
46:41
do have occupational competences how are the other
46:44
ones how do we know that they're occupationally competent when a set.
46:47
Of standards is 11 years out of date so that's
46:50
one of the collaborative approaches we are we are going to be discussing and
46:55
there are just you know exploratory discussions at the moment is how can we
47:01
get an industry-wide set of of
47:03
national occupational standards and at the time when I inquired in 2017,
47:07
it would cost me or the STA £20,000 to update those.
47:14
I've since negotiated a zero figure with the Sector Skills Council through Tom
47:19
Bell at PD Approval, who is an external accrediting company,
47:23
who does some great work assessing our CPD endorsements and looking at qualifications
47:30
for our entry levels for membership.
47:34
A whole load of information there. Great question, Stuart. It is something which
47:37
so many people ask and so many people say, oh, regulation is the answer to all of our problems.
47:42
And it's not that black and white question or answer.
47:47
It's very clear. Can I expand on it a bit then, Matt?
47:49
If we look at physios and the HCPC model, if the numbers are to be believed.
47:56
Then there are 65,000 registered physios.
48:01
Each of those paying 464 pounds
48:04
or thereabouts every two years now when
48:07
i did some simple maths that was generating 28.1 million
48:11
in revenue now if
48:14
we compare that to sports therapy sports
48:18
rehab as a total industry wide let's let's
48:22
just say that basrat may have 2 000 registrants
48:25
they don't have members they have registrants let's say the sst
48:29
have 5 000 because they're the biggest and the
48:32
longest serving if you like of industry
48:35
representatives now undoubtedly a
48:38
large proportion of those are going to be student members and a
48:42
smaller proportion of those are going to be qualified therapists
48:45
who are entitled or should be entitled to
48:48
regulation if it occurs and we've got
48:51
the sta now we have circa 1500 members
48:54
of which probably two-thirds of those
48:57
are graduate members the the the rest is
49:00
made up of really you know highly experienced soft tissue therapists and and
49:05
people who are entering their industry at the start of their journey and then
49:09
if you look at the sports therapy organization they have several hundred right
49:13
so we're talking about 2000 2000 1000 5,500.
49:20
We're talking about 5,500 sports therapists who are part of.
49:27
An awarding sorry a membership body because we don't have
49:30
any lead bodies despite what some websites say
49:33
now 5 000 people how are
49:37
we going to afford the cost of
49:39
regulation 464 pounds every two
49:42
years so that that increases our membership fees
49:46
exponentially there are
49:49
other obligations with regards to our cpd obligations
49:52
and our policies and procedures but
49:55
who is going to be the the the body
49:58
that oversees that you know because
50:01
it won't be the sst it won't be the sta and it won't be the sto and it won't
50:05
be basrap i'm going to discount because i think they're pursuing the sports
50:09
rehab with their international recognition programs and i think they're on a
50:13
different path to us so that brings us down to three and a half thousand,
50:19
how are three and a half thousand people going to be able to afford statutory regulation.
50:25
I i don't know what the answer is but i know
50:27
what the answer isn't the answer isn't regulation under
50:31
its current you know the current model and and
50:34
the answer isn't licensing because again if there's some
50:36
licensing you're going to take you have three or four bodies
50:39
around the table they've got to agree you know
50:42
there are talk of sports massage being licensed
50:46
uh yvonne blake gave a talk at therapy expo last
50:49
year about it now that's even wider we're
50:52
going to have to have and i'll just name a few sta
50:56
sto sma ctha fht mti and all of the other acronyms who might have sports massage
51:05
therapists and soft tissue therapists in their in their membership fold they're
51:10
going to have to sit behind a table and agree the criteria.
51:15
Which in however long the GCMT has been running, hasn't been achieved.
51:21
So I don't know what the answer is, but I know what it isn't.
51:25
Yeah. I mean, we did do an episode 208 where we sat around and talked about that.
51:32
It wasn't with all the people we'd have liked to have been there,
51:34
but maybe that's something we can do in the future.
51:36
But it's a good topic. And I'd recommend, I mean, that last 15 minutes is something
51:40
out wonderfully about the problems and the barriers to it.
51:44
But also episode 208 covers a lot of that and a little bit more.
51:47
So for anyone interested in that, we seem to be a lot of people because I can
51:50
see how many people join and leave the podcast as it's live and it's stayed
51:53
on this figure for a long time now.
51:55
So it's obviously a topic which you're all interested in so yeah again if you've
51:59
got any questions on that topic or any reflections then put it on youtube comments
52:05
would be great to keep the conversation going and it's things which we can address
52:08
either in another podcast series or if you want to call back in the chat then
52:11
let us know as well and we might be able to sort that out.
52:14
We've got a comment here from chas allen which i'm
52:17
going to read out put it up on the screen for those of you who like while you're
52:21
doing that matt can i introduce chas please i'll go
52:24
for it yeah chas is is one of our members and
52:26
i've had some really really good honest
52:30
conversations with chas now chas worked
52:33
in a you know as he says there you know he he worked in a in a center that was
52:38
getting referrals from from the nhs and working within that sort of environment
52:42
and some of the difficulties that he came across and overcame are are really
52:47
the same things as what we've got to overcome as well.
52:51
He did it on a very local level and hats off to him for achieving that.
52:56
It might be a bit, you know, longer winded for us to achieve it on a national
53:00
level. But yeah, he's very knowledgeable, Chad.
53:03
There you go. And thanks, Chas, for your comment. I'll summarize it.
53:07
But basically 2009 to 2014, Chas says, I managed to get IBA biomechanics and
53:12
sport therapy into the treatment pathways for numerous conditions,
53:14
but it often proved to disrupt the status quo so much it was first welcomed,
53:18
but then hit a wall of resistance.
53:20
To achieve this, I had to align the two subjects, Rachel Fraze,
53:23
Mark Jones, and Phil Horton were involved in the trials.
53:25
It's such a tough job to adjust the goalpost nationally however
53:29
gary what you're saying is so true and accurate i even have a cic now
53:32
with a contract with local cancer and icb network however we
53:35
may be able to use biomechanics but they will only allow trigger point
53:38
therapy from sports therapy model great points regarding costs and
53:41
cpd great discussion thanks chas thanks for yeah
53:44
showing your experiences no i think
53:46
what would be useful is you know
53:49
and i have got an idea for upcoming sort of
53:52
episodes and i want to speak about
53:55
regional champions you know we at the moment we have regional
53:58
representatives who some are more
54:00
active than others but we will be looking to remodel the service and what we're
54:05
looking for is regional champions who are willing to be advocates for the sta
54:10
to to if you like to to push our story push our mo forward now chas would be
54:18
great to have on as a guest,
54:20
but also Charmaine Ho, if you're listening to this, who's one of our members,
54:24
she's just won an award for launching.
54:28
Within a gp surgery a sports.
54:32
Therapy practice which has proven to be more
54:35
effective than the old model of
54:38
msk referrals that was there and that
54:41
was a you know and i'm not being disrespectful but that was a physio-centric
54:44
model and so i'd like to invite these these
54:48
champions of sports therapy if you like to share their
54:51
ideas because it may you know give somebody
54:54
the impetus to to do something similar so watch this
54:57
space and chas i cordially invite you to time
55:00
in the future to come and share your story with a wider audience
55:03
that's great yeah definitely if anybody is
55:07
interested in that then yeah email matt at the sta.co.uk and
55:11
we could start that series off even like once a month or
55:13
something champions of the sports therapy industry that'd be
55:16
really cool that would be kind of post our conference late september early
55:20
october marvelous wonderful right
55:23
well look it's somehow already 858 can we
55:27
just touch on cecily's comment matt cecily yes
55:30
ceci's got a good question here let's bring that up cecily hisslop who's
55:33
from the panel last episode says is there enough regulation
55:37
of training providers in our industry could that help
55:40
to solve the problem no there isn't thank
55:44
you that literally takes
55:48
up the most of my time every week is is
55:51
trying to decide how to address this.
55:54
Now i have conversations with awarding organizations
55:57
you know courses that we used to accept which post covid have now gone to a.
56:02
Blended learning delivery model with with models that don't suit our minimum
56:06
face-to-face requirements they tend to be from fitness industry providers they
56:12
tend to be short courses they tend to be linked to one.
56:16
Awarding organization with whom i've spoken to but
56:19
they're not interested in raising standards so what
56:24
what we hope to well what we thought we would achieve
56:27
last march 2024 is that the level three became a a fitness industry qualification
56:34
with no remedial intention there were talks of having it as massage for sport
56:38
or massage for performance and it'd be for personal trainers who just want to
56:43
substitute, you know, one session or something.
56:45
And level four would be sort of our industry minimum standard.
56:50
We had hoped that the training providers from our industry would get on board
56:53
and deliver combined level three and four courses. That hasn't happened.
56:58
They've still got the off-call regulated awarding organization model,
57:04
which is, we've already said, is out of date.
57:07
I don't know what the answer is there. the only thing
57:10
i can control are the training providers with
57:13
whom we liaise and work by association collaboration i set the minimum standard
57:19
for those and if they don't meet it we simply won't work with them and if they
57:23
change their delivery model so it's something below our entry level then again
57:27
we will change our policy and we won't work with them so i can control.
57:33
Where our our focus is but at the same time is do i have a responsibility to
57:40
support the people who have access the industry through this route that doesn't
57:44
meet our standard so that they can get the necessary support to to move to a
57:49
really productive and long therapy career and journey.
57:54
Yeah. So great question, Cecily. Feel free to follow up with another question if you like.
57:59
But again, this is where, like Gary says, he can control, you know,
58:02
what the feedback we give when members approach us.
58:06
But in theory, that's what all professional associations should be doing,
58:09
which is why it's so tricky if a professional association does also sell their
58:13
own courses, because how are you going to get unbiased advice?
58:16
Unless, of course, all of those courses, you know, wonderful and externally
58:20
kind of verified and checked, which often isn't the case.
58:23
So it's yeah it's a tricky question but a good one
58:26
something needs to be addressed at these kind of meetings i'm sure it'll
58:28
come up in september as well right it
58:31
is 901 everybody thank you so much everyone
58:34
has joined us live it's been very full this evening which is lovely to
58:37
see we are going to start off we want to try and
58:40
keep the live atmosphere going on
58:43
these episodes and encourage you to come along to
58:46
the live recording since we get some great questions which gives Gary a
58:49
chance to share you know what you've heard tonight's vast experience so as
58:53
of after the break which is going to be we're going
58:55
to be off the next two weeks we there will be an incentive for you
58:58
I know you guys love incentives so there will be incentives for people who join
59:02
live with giveaways and things and and all sorts of lovely opportunities for
59:06
people who do join us live so do try if listening to the podcast have your summer
59:10
enjoy a couple of weeks off and then maybe when you come back uh we're going
59:14
to be back on let me just have a check so I'll give you exactly the right date.
59:18
We're going to be back on August the 19th with another reflection episode.
59:23
Try and put it in your diary. Try and find out a way, unless you're still on
59:25
holiday, but try and find a way to join us live and let's get the podcast moving
59:30
into that kind of collaboration live opportunity for learning and sharing and stuff.
59:36
But yeah, we'll give you some incentives. On August the 19th,
59:39
by the way, the reflecting guest is going to be Megan Jackson,
59:42
who's the founder of Bodies by Merge, M-E-R-J.
59:45
And she's going to be reflecting on episode 224, which we had a month or so
59:49
back. No, actually, no, that was from January. It was.
59:53
Social media, do soft tissue therapists really need it. I've followed Megan
59:57
for a while now, Bodies by Merge.
59:59
And it's, I just love what she's doing because it's just a celebration of massage
1:00:03
and the sensory experience and the benefits of it.
1:00:07
And it's a very powerful business model she's got.
1:00:10
She does a lot of Instagram work, and I'd encourage you to have a little look.
1:00:13
It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it just kind of celebrates what massage
1:00:17
can be in terms of changing sensory feedback to the brain and all the ways of
1:00:22
doing it and working with the person in front of you.
1:00:24
So Megan's going to be on the show on August 19th. So I encourage you to come
1:00:28
along and listen to that.
1:00:30
So after that, we're going to have a little countdown towards the conference.
1:00:33
So the next four episodes leading up to the September conference in Exmouth
1:00:37
is going to be, who am I going to have along?
1:00:38
We're going to have Michelle Lyons with Siobhan, the boobie physio Donovan.
1:00:45
They're going to come on together and talk about how they're going to be involved
1:00:47
in the conference. We're going to have Anna Maria Matsieri at the ST School,
1:00:51
who's going to be giving an episode called Massage Therapists,
1:00:55
What is Evidence-Based Practice?
1:00:56
Which was something that came out of our Facebook group debates where there's
1:01:01
not a clear place to go to.
1:01:03
What do we mean by evidence practice and how evidence practice can massage therapists be?
1:01:06
So that's going to be a great episode for you to listen to and find out how
1:01:09
we're going to tackle that at the conference this September.
1:01:12
Also, we're going to have James Earles is going to be coming along,
1:01:15
talking about his involvement. and also we'll have Dr.
1:01:17
Claire Minschel along as well, who'll be talking about her involvement from
1:01:21
a strength and conditioning perspective for soft tissue therapists at the conference
1:01:24
in September on the 20th and 21st.
1:01:26
Like I say, if you are interested in the conference, then go along to thestschool.co.uk.
1:01:33
There's a link to it on the main page, which will take you there.
1:01:36
We've got photos of nearly all the speakers.
1:01:39
The program is pretty much 90% filled out.
1:01:42
So you can see what the contest is going to be. We'll be adding in the next kind of,
1:01:46
over the next few weeks details on each of the presentations as
1:01:49
well so all the information is there for you and hopefully
1:01:52
we'll see you there there's also a social on the saturday night which is
1:01:55
again such an important part it's not just an excuse for piss up
1:01:58
it's also a chance for you just to kind of like build
1:02:00
some bridges get to know people in the area and just let some of those kind
1:02:04
of natural tendencies to shield and not talk about our business down a little
1:02:09
bit and just share some of our common problems and concerns so that would be
1:02:12
a lovely opportunity which will then lend itself to us being more open and honest
1:02:16
on the Sunday when we do some reflection practice.
1:02:18
So Exmouth for that conference, the Southwest STA conference in collaboration
1:02:24
with STScore and Hands On Hub.
1:02:28
Right then. Thank you so much, Gary, for giving up your time.
1:02:32
Once again this week, that's two Tuesday evenings in a row that STM members have had no one to call.
1:02:36
I'm sorry to drag Gary away from you all. That's why his phone's not answering.
1:02:39
It's the only time when he's on this actual podcast.
1:02:41
Although I'm sure you managed to text a few replies whilst I was talking just then.
1:02:45
But thanks so much, Gary, really. And thank you everyone who joined us live.
1:02:48
It's really nice to see the figures high.
1:02:50
Obviously, a lot of the information that we're putting out is important.
1:02:54
So thank you for joining us we do love to know how much of an impact the podcast
1:02:57
has which actually is reminding me that if you are interested in becoming an sda member then
1:03:03
we want to know if you heard it through the podcast we want to know
1:03:05
what is the best way of helping educate you of
1:03:08
helping support you so if you do want to become an sda member
1:03:11
and you'd like to benefit from an extra three months then
1:03:14
just use the code podcast 25 so podcast
1:03:17
25 and that'll give you an extra three months for an
1:03:20
annual membership for just 75 pounds and it
1:03:24
just gives us a way of knowing to what
1:03:27
extent the podcast helps get information out there to new people which is why
1:03:30
we do it basically and to look after current members as well obviously as well
1:03:34
as gary mentioned earlier in the show if you are a level three qualifying after
1:03:39
2014 to make sure you opt for associate member associate member when you join
1:03:43
up right that's it thank you everyone.
1:03:46
Hopefully we will see some of you after the two-week hiatus
1:03:49
we're going to take off now so that'll be on august the 19th if
1:03:52
you listen to podcasts and thank you so much just one other thing
1:03:55
if you are listening to the podcast and do do please take some time now to subscribe
1:04:01
on youtube that's really important that helps us appear higher in google rankings
1:04:05
and getting information out there and also just leave us a rating or review
1:04:08
that really helps as well just get this information out there which is one of
1:04:11
the biggest challenges we face just letting the masses know about us.
1:04:14
We haven't got kind of a media, well, we've got a few media personalities,
1:04:18
but we can't reach the mass appeal that some celebrities endorsing Facebook
1:04:22
posts manage to reach other people.
1:04:24
We haven't got that. We depend on you, the listener, to get our good intentions
1:04:27
and the good word of our guests out there.
1:04:29
So you are ethically obliged now to go and leave a decent rating and review
1:04:34
on your whatever podcast app you use, but particularly Apple Podcasts would be helpful.
1:04:38
Right. Thanks, everyone. And hopefully see some of you in three weeks.
1:04:42
Gary, anything else? to sign off? Yeah, two things.
1:04:45
First, Angela, yeah, just send SGA Gary a DM and I'll put you in touch with Charmaine.
1:04:50
And then the last thing, a bit of a spoiler alert, if you live in or around
1:04:57
the Ludlow area, please don't make plans for the 14th of February.
1:05:02
If you want to book a romantic weekend, could you do it on the 7th or the 21st, but not the 14th?
1:05:08
Watch this space.
1:05:13
There it appears.
1:05:14
Music.