2018 PRA Annual Presidents Message
Presidents Annual Message 2018
It’s hard to believe that another year has passed so quickly. As the president of PRA, I have several thoughts I want to leave you with. In 2018, we can celebrate several small successes of our professional organization. We resurrected the PRA web pages, updating many sections and sending our routine newsletter updates. This started around Feb. and was fully functional by March. Our PRA social media committee at this same time coordinated updates to our PRA Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn sites. A link to each is now active at the bottom of our web page on the right-side column. Although not perfect, we will continue to update both the content and utility of our associations web pages. This all came just in time as we anticipated the second major success of our association last March…. our annual Professional Development Institute (PDI) training in Summerdale PA on the campus of Central Penn College.
Our PRA web and social media pages helped us send out timely ‘save the date’ reminders and outreach information on our 2018 PDI and most importantly, when our March 21st and 22nd dates for the PDI were shut down due to a massive snow event, we used our web page and social media sites to communicate with our membership to not travel or attend, but to look for information on a rescheduled event which was successfully rescheduled on April 16th and 17th. Our rescheduled PDI overall attendance remained strong and many of our members and students from Clarion, PSU, Pitt and the Scranton University attended. We subsequently ended 2018 with a net gain in revenue and averted a PDI financial loss by quickly pulling together the April rescheduled event. For this, I am deeply appreciative to our Board members, volunteers, faculty members, their students, our presenters and our sponsoring business partners; CVS Health, SEIU/PSSU, CSAVR-NET, Leslie Vocational Consulting, Goodwill Industries, Geisinger Marworth and the Sierra Group. The Sierra Group has shown consistent leadership and generosity in their organizations sponsorship of college students in the annual PDI student research poster sessions, which continued in 2018. Our PDI theme on the “Impact of the Opioid Crisis”, and how the rehabilitation professional can assist in recovery and return to work was both timely and well received. We also launched the first annual Dr. Ralph Pacinelli Policy Forum attended by a distinguished panel that included; Patricia Leahy-past NRA Legislative Affairs Director; Kathy West-Evans- Business Director of the CSAVR-NET; Dr. Ray Forez-Rehab Education Dept. of Clarion University; Dr. Rebecca Dalgin- Graduate Rehab Counseling Program with the University of Scranton; David DeNotaris- OVR Executive Director; Stephen Pennington-CEO and Chief Counsel-PA CAP; and Janet Fiore- CEO of The Sierra Group. Our 2017 PRA past president, LaKeysha McLaurin, 2019 President elect Tracie Maille and I had the privilege of asking our panelist key questions about the impact of the WIOA of 2014, and the roles of businesses and employers as dual customers of public VR services. Audience participation was encouraged and was robust. It was a truly wonderful event this year.
As we end the year I would like to also share some thoughts with you on how PRA can add value to our members and along with the National Rehabilitation Association (NRA), remain a strong voice to promote the full inclusion and competitive integrated employment of persons with a disability.
First, the profession of vocational rehabilitation services and counseling is guided by a deep passion to help all our fellow citizens to achieve their highest level of independence and economic success through meaningful self-employment or employment in careers of their choice. As such, we bring to this task a commitment to the following six core principles that guide us when assisting persons with a disability to achieve greater levels of independence and employment. Autonomy: To respect the rights of VR customers to be self-governing within their social and cultural framework. Beneficence: To do good to others; to promote the well-being of VR customers. Fidelity: To be faithful; to keep promises and honor the trust placed in rehabilitation counselors. Justice: To be fair in the treatment of all VR customers; to provide appropriate services to all. Nonmaleficence: To do no harm to others. Veracity: To be honest.
As an association, when we offer continuing education training through our annual PDI, including credits in areas of ethics based on the Commission of Certified Rehabilitation Counseling CRCC code (http://ethics.iit.edu/codes/CRCC%202016.pdf ), we further and advance our mission and our professional competencies among members. This is a clear value-added benefit of PRA membership.
Second, as PRA conducts outreach we must continue to involve and expand our membership to include current college students with majors in rehabilitation education, social sciences, graduate students studying Rehabilitation Counseling, and business colleagues who are aligned with our mission and association goals. I hope we will recruit more persons with a disability to join us. We can add value to our association by expanding both the diversity of membership and resources available to us as professional practitioners when we include the above groups. As I pick-up of the duties of the PRA past president next year, I look forward to expanding outreach for new members in both the business and HR communities and among persons with a disability. Along with former presidents and current board members, I hope we can leverage our collective networks and contacts to achieve increased membership and overall engagement among PRA members on topics of interest and ways to advance our mission. The use social media and PRA web pages hold promise in helping us achieve this. Achieving this will create a value-added benefit of membership.
Lastly, I plan to introduce to our Board at the January meeting, two organizations that may help us with tools and links on relevant state legislative updates and posts (www.mypls.com), and to develop a community chat room for our members. My vision is to offer the Board tools that can increase our associations sense of being a virtual community, a platform to openly discuss ideas important to the profession and success stories among our members and the organizations they work for (Higher Logic | What is Higher Logic?). By telling our collective stories we can increase the public’s awareness of the wonderful work association members do and of the successes of those we are privileged to serve. Equally, by providing resources on current state legislation or issues that impact our members and stakeholders, added to the voice of the NRA Federal legislative updates, our PRA web site can become a reliable and frequently accessed source for members and the public on legislation impacting persons with disabilities and rehabilitation service delivery. In creating a broad community of practice and a web forum to discuss issues impacting our profession, we will create additional value-added benefits from association membership. Let’s grow PRA and NRA together, the need is now and the time is now. The voice of our members and the persons we work so hard to empower will always have our support and dedication to help them realize their aspirations and plans to achieve greater independence and meaningful employment.
Wishing each of you the very best in 2019-Ralph Roach, M.S., CRC, L.P.C. 2018 President
Please consider attending our open board meetings. The first for 2019 is scheduled on Jan. 18th from 10am -2:30pm at the Camp Hill Giant Community Center located off U.S. Rt. 15 and Trindel Rd. Guest are also welcome. For questions on accommodations please feel free to contact me or our 2019 President Tracie Maille using information available on our PRA Contact page.