President and Registrar's Message

We are pleased to present the College’s achievements and successes from a busy but rewarding year. As we move forward in the coming years, we expect to see significant changes for health profession regulators. Some of this change we have been preparing for and in 2016/2017 we entered the second year of our three year strategic plan. The creation of a strategic plan in 2015 was an important milestone in the College’s growth. It allowed us to better focus our work on continuing to help the public receive high-quality, patient/client-centred kinesiology services.

Transparency has always been a core value of this College. Making it one of our strategic priorities allowed us to critically examine steps needed to increase transparency and build public confidence. The College developed by-laws that came into effect on July 1, 2016 that make more information available about kinesiologists, such as criminal charges. To further increase transparency, we began posting Council meeting materials to our website in December 2016. We continue to look for ways to improve the quality and relevance of information we make available about kinesiologists and our processes.

Another priority for the College has been enhancing professionalism of kinesiologists. Concerns from the Ontario government raised the prevention of sexual abuse to a level of urgency and while we have had no sexual abuse complaints to-date, the College is committed to doing everything reasonably possible to keep patients/clients safe. As we work through the third year of our strategic plan, the College will be devoting even more resources to advancement of professionalism among kinesiologists with expanded peer and practice assessments and new training initiatives. The College firmly believes that these types of investments serve the public interest.

We also endeavour to engage the academic institutions providing kinesiology and related degree programs through the annual meeting of the CKO-Universities Liaison Committee. We are encouraged when noting that some institutions have responded with course offerings in ethics and professionalism, and new practical experiences for students considering careers in healthcare.

Finally, we continued efforts to educate the public on the role kinesiologists play in the healthcare system and how the College protects their interests. We created two new videos to explain the practice of kinesiology and how the public can find a kinesiologist. These videos were distributed via social media so that we could reach as wide an audience as possible. So far these two videos have garnered over 10,000 views. We also began a successful brochure campaign in doctors’ offices and diabetes clinics across the province. The brochure explains in plain language what kinesiologists do and where they work, and what regulation means to the public. To date, over 21,000 brochures have been picked-up. In response to the level of interest and success, we are developing a new brochure for release and finding new ways of reaching the public with our story.

As we enter the final year of our strategic plan we will continue seeking innovative ways to increase public confidence and efficiency. We will develop new plans and strategies to respond to legislative changes, and will work with other colleges to achieve greater consistency and modernization of health profession regulation in Ontario. To our Council members, staff and volunteers, thank you for your tireless efforts and dedication, and to kinesiologists, thank you for your continued confidence, support and involvement.