Spring Legislative Council Meeting - Update by Jan Westerhouse
As Delaware Legislative Councilor to ASHA, I attended the spring meeting in DC. An important part of this meeting includes visits to Capital Hill. Let me take you through the process. First, we met in the Sam Rayburn Building to be ‘briefed’ on issues to present to our legislators. Next, 150 of us were let loose on Congress! We all went our separate ways and visited the individual offices of our representatives and senators. I spent about ½ hr speaking with Sarah Rittling in Congressman Castle’s office. I again presented DSHA concerns about the omission of the language “highest qualified provider” in the IDEA bill written by Congressman Castle. Even though the bill was passed by the House, it hasn’t reached the Senate floor for a vote. If it would pass there, it still comes back to committee and there is time to change the language before it is all finalized. So, I made another strong plea for placing “highest qualified provider” back into the bill.
I also visited Senator Biden’s office where Catherine Graham is the new education assistant. Senator Carper’s office was visited and the new assistant in his office is Sean Barney. These people are anxious to hear from us regarding our concerns. Please take a few minutes and write them a brief note about your support of the language change for IDEA. They need to hear from each of us so a strong voice is presented. If no one says anything, they won’t know that we are dissatisfied with the current bill.
Legislative Council members also ranked the 5 greatest concerns at a national level. They are as follows:
- Reimbursement
- Caseload/workload
- Doctoral shortage
- Shortage of personnel
- 5.Evidence based research/treatment efficacy
In order to achieve a balanced budget, it has become necessary to have an $11 dues increase for 2005. Other resolutions that passed included Approval of the ASHA Strategic Plan, Approval of the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education, Approval of The Roles of the Speech Pathologist in the Neonatal ICU and Approval of Guidelines for the role of Speech Pathologists in the NICU. For details of all resolutions passed during the spring meeting, I refer you to the next addition of ‘The Leader’ If you have any questions, please contact me at 302-529-7690 or by e-mail: jan@wheelhousenet.com.