Dear Barbara, Thank you so much for you Lactnet post.Currenlty there are about 11, 000 IBCLC's worldwide and just under 3,000 are ILCA members. The ILCA Marketing Committee is currently working daily on issues for members worldwide to add value to their membership and enhance communication on the new web site www.ILCA.org But the reallity is, that ILCA is not the BOD and committee members but each individual member member that becomes active and takes a voice in the organization. It is each individual that will help ILCA define its future direction. I appreciate what you stated below "Until our profession gets serious about demanding the same kind of standardized education, we will be left out in the cold and probably deserve to be. So join ILCA, get active in ILCA..." ILCA is You! Karen Querna, RN, BSN, IBCLC ILCA Marketing Chair Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:46:31 -0500 From: Barbara Wilson-Clay <> One of the things a professional organization is supposed to see to is the advancement of the profession. One of those tasks is to pursue an accredidation process that standardizes the education of the practitioners of that profession. After that task is accomplished, then one hopes that training programs emerge that teach to the accreditation curriculum. Then the taking of the IBLCE exam would become the equivalent of boards and it would be easier to argue for licensure of LCs. What's the hold up? Well, for one thing, money and member energy to accomplish these big tasks. For everyone who says: "I don't make enough money to justify spending a hundred dollars US on joining my professional organization" I say to you: "Well then, don't complain when you get denied the ability to work or to make a decent living as an LC." The doctor's order issue is not specifically exclusionary. This is essentially a consumer protection issue. I've been writing about this for years. Why should consumers trust us? No one knows how anyone was trained. No one is equivalently trained. If you aren't IBCLC, you are not even restrained by a Code of Ethics and there is no disciplinary oversight for your practice as an LC, thus no consumer recourse should a bad outcome occur. So it's the consumer who has the gripe, not us. Consumers have the right to know (as they are currently assured with OTs and PTs) that the person has graduated from an accredited educational program and that they have a professional association and a licensing or certifying agency who can discipline them for practice violations. Until our profession gets serious about demanding the same kind of standardized education, we will be left out in the cold and probably deserve to be. So join ILCA, get active in ILCA, call on ILCA to allocate serious money (through writing grants) to pay someone who knows how to make these things happen. Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC Austin Lactation Associates LactNews Press www.lactnews.com *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html