Ontario Sports & Athletic Therapist Association is an Athletic Therapy Ontario® Registered Trade Name
Global AT Organizations
Ontario Athletic Therapists are part of a well-established global network of professional bodies. All are dedicated to the advancement of Sport Therapists, Sport Rehabilitation Therapists, Athletic Therapists and Athletic Trainers. These professional titles are all part of the same family of sport medicine specialities in England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Israel, Spain, Korea, Japan, Canada and the USA.
The AT profession was founded in 1950 in the USA with the establishment of the National Athletic Trainers' Association - NATA. Statutory regulation and licensure has been successfully achieved in every State (except California) starting in Texas in 1971. Please click to review the history of American regulation of the AT profession.
International Organizations
OSTA is proud to be part of a global network of organizations engaged in advancing the profession through certification, accreditation, advocacy, research and education. What started as a dream in 1950 by a small group who gathered in Kansas City is now a world-wide specialty within sport and exercise medicine in several countries and continents.
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Canadian Organizations
Across Canada, several provincially incorporated Athletic Therapy organizations work independently to advance the profession. The challenge is that, unlike American AT organizations involved with the NATA, where licensure and statutory regulation have been achieved in every State but one, the profession in Canada has not achieved statutory regulation. Ontario and Quebec are moving forward in pursuing regulation.
Self-regulation and statutory regulation arise from different sources of authority.Self-regulation may arise from a professional association's membership, entry-to-practice certification, and disciplinary structures. Statutory regulation, by contrast, derives its authority from legislation and creates legally enforceable public-interest functions such as protected titles, public complaints and discipline to regulatory standards. Healthcare in Canada is delivered provincially. Standards of practice are defined provincially, not nationally.
As part of its regulation readiness process, the OSTA has established a provincial practice credential that meets ISO standards for professions. It serves as a symbol of competence based on the first copyrighted AT Practice Analysis, with a corresponding Competency Framework that meets provincial standards.
The OSTA credential has been accredited by AT-REG, an independent, arm's-length organization known as the Athletic Therapy Regulation Advisory Group, incorporated in 2019 (formerly ACATA, renamed to satisfy a request by the national AT association).