Newsletter | March 2025

Board Election Results

District 1 (Toronto and Peel) update

College Board elections for District 1—Central (Toronto and Peel) have now concluded.

Neelam Bal and Thuy Luong were elected with 38.87% and 26.65% of the vote, respectively. Neelam and Thuy will begin their terms on the Board in April 2025.

The Board sets the strategy for the College and makes decisions to ensure the public receives ethical, competent services from occupational therapists in Ontario.

Thank you to everyone who participated.

Survey: Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Capacity

Take the survey by May 20th

The College encourages all Ontario OTs to participate in the survey from the Queen’s University and the University of Western Ontario Occupational Therapy Program Fieldwork Capacity research teams about student supervision and fieldwork capacity. 

The university educational programs report a critical need for fieldwork preceptorship in occupational therapy across Canada. Together, we are working on efforts to increase the number of licensed occupational therapists in Ontario to address the health human resources crisis. 

Currently, all educational programs face difficulties in providing students with fieldwork placements. The College supports this effort to understand the factors that can promote fieldwork participation and to better understand the challenges that make it difficult to engage in student preceptorship.  

You can contribute to developing occupational therapists in Ontario by both participating in this study and by supervising a student in 2025-26. 

You may receive this invitation through multiple sources as we work together with the universities and the Ontario Society of Occupational Therapists. Please respond only once to this survey by selecting the link below. 

Annual Renewal 2025

Renewal opens April 1 – Complete by May 31, 2025

Annual renewal opens April 1. Occupational therapists can renew their registration online for the 2025-2026 year.

All occupational therapists are required to renew or resign online on or before May 31, 2025. To renew your registration, log in to the COTO Portal.

If you have questions, we are happy to help.

Contact registration@coto.org or 1-800-890-6570 x230 for assistance.

Tax Receipts

Access your tax receipts in the COTO Portal

Tax season is around the corner! Remember: registrants can access their tax receipts through the COTO Portal.

Accessing Tax Receipts for Registrants: 

1. Log in to your profile in the COTO Portal. 
2. On the homepage, select the "Print Receipt" button. 
3. Click the arrow next to the payment you want a receipt for and choose "View Details."

If you are a former registrant, need to find your registration number, or are trying to access tax receipts for years prior to 2017, please see full details on accessing this information.

Open: 2025 QA Learning Plan

Resources for goal setting, learning, and professional development

Reminder: Learning plans are now available in the COTO Portal.

Setting meaningful goals in your learning plan can help you grow as an occupational therapist and improve client outcomes. See the following resources to help you with setting goals, continuous learning, and professional development.

Resources

• Use our resource Mapping a Path to Success: Goal Setting Made Simple to guide your goals for the year.

• Listen to our latest podcast on YouTube or Spotify for practical strategies, real examples from OTs, and discussion on why goal setting matters.

• The Ontario Centres for Learning, Research, and Innovation in Long-Term Care (CLRI) offer free courses on their website.

• Behavioural Supports Ontario offers free learning resources and courses on person-centred language to long-term care home team members and other health care professionals.

These resources can be used in conjunction with setting goals in your learning plan.

Practice Q&A

Delegation of controlled acts

You asked us: Are occupational therapists permitted to delegate any controlled acts to others?

In Case You Missed It: Case Study

Maintaining professional boundaries

📌 Due to the importance of this topic, we are sharing our new case study on maintaining professional boundaries again this month.

If you have not read it yet, we encourage you to take some time to go through it.

At some point in every occupational therapist’s career, the issue of a professional boundary crossing with a client will come up.

Boundary crossings may be small to start, but if not managed effectively, they can affect the OT's ability to provide safe and ethical service and lead to a boundary violation.

Looking for the Standards of Practice and other resources?



Resources are available here: Practice Standards and Guidance

Tip: 📑 Bookmark the page for future reference!

March Board Meeting

The College's Board of Directors is meeting on March 27, 2025.

Want to learn more about decisions that affect the profession and the public we serve? The next College Board meeting will be held on Thursday, March 27th, 2025.

Meetings are open to the public. Meeting dates and materials are posted online.

Connect with Us

March Poll and February Results

Domain F of the Competencies for Occupational Therapists in Canada expects occupational therapists to help the profession grow to collectively help society. 

In February, we asked registrants if they like the College providing information through podcasts.

We received 91 votes and here's how you voted:

• 12.1% said "Yes, I listen to podcasts a lot." (11 votes)
• 39.6% said "No, I never listen to podcasts." (36 votes)
• 22% said "Maybe, I like to get information in various formats." (20 votes)
• 26.4% said "Not sure, but I will try it out!" (24 votes)

Thank you for participating in our poll!

Do you know someone who would like to be added to our mailing list?

They can sign up here. Have additional comments or suggestions for the College email news? Send your thoughts to communications@coto.org.

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