March 2011- President's Message

Recent Vote: The board of directors has approved to waive the chapter dues for all current students.  This decision will be revisited in March of 2012.  The purpose of this change was made in an effort to increase the amount of developing professionals to our organization.

During our last annual meeting, (October 15, 2010/Lansing MI) members in attendance voted to absorb the student membership fee for a non-voting MI Chapter Student Representative volunteering to serve on our board of directors.  Board members will be reaching out to the three CORE accredited universities to securing presentations to current students for the purpose of learning about our organization and the benefits from membership.

 Website Changes: I have also requested that headquarters automatically activate the auto subscribe feature for our IARP - Connect-MI Chapter effective immediately. This is being done so that we can provide you with quarterly or on an as needed basis, updated information on events and local news worthy issues. We also have the capability to send out surveys and conduct e-Ballots which we will utilize in the future. I have uploaded meeting minutes back to 2009.

We, as a board have made a three year commitment to planning conferences with partnering organizations in order to co-sponsor educational workshops and conferences. We hope to expand our membership and to educate and engage a broader rehabilitation audience.

 CM/DM Conference: I recently attended the 2011 CM/DM Conference in Scottsdale, AZ.  I attended the Pre-Conference sessions Job Numbers and Labor Market Resources for Occupation, by Jeff Truthan as well as a session on 12 Steps to Valid and Reliable Labor Market Surveys.  Both sessions were very informative. The conference was well attended and I encourage each of you to plan on attending these conferences in the future. They are a wonderful opportunity to secure CEU's and network.

 EVENT REMINDER: MRA/JPD Spring 2011 Training Conference May 13th, 2011, 8:30am – 4:00pm, Peckham 3510 Capital City Blvd. Lansing, MI Speaker: Janet Fiore, CEO of the Sierra Group, Inc. Contact: asoderman@camw.net.  Phone: (517) 492-5569 Topics include: Ethical Considerations in Vocational Rehabilitation, Serving the Dual Customer, Customer Service Can Drive Up Placements and Retention and Case Studies and Wrap Up.  Please add this event to your calendar.

 

Please contact any one of the board members with questions, comments and concerns and visit our website at: www.rehabpro.org/chapters/michigan.

 

Joanne Pfeffer, President, MiARP