We Want Your Feedback
Council approved circulating draft Standards of Practice for you to review. For reference, you can see our current Standards of Practice here.
Please use our feedback form to give us your feedback by March 2, 2023.
We will consider your feedback and, as appropriate, may recommend adjustments to Council.
About the Draft Standards of Practice
We are adding criteria to our Standards of Practice to address female genital mutilation.
Standard 3 Patient-Centred Practice
We are adding “must not procure or perform female genital mutilation” to the criteria for placing patients’ well-being first.
Standard 16 Additional Reporting Requirements
In Standard 16, we are making two changes:
- In the existing criteria, a housekeeping change to clarify that dental assistants must report sexual abuse or sexual misconduct by a regulated member of any college to the Complaints Director of the college of that regulated member.
- Adding criteria to require dental assistants to report if a regulated member of any college is procuring or performing female genital mutilation. The dental assistant must report to the Complaints Director of the college of that regulated member.
Glossary of Terms
We added a definition of female genital mutilation as it applies to our Standards of Practice.
Why are we making these changes?
The Health Professions (Protecting Women and Girls) Amendment Act, 2022 (formerly Bill 10) came into effect on May 31, 2022. It better protects the health and safety of Albertans by strengthening existing laws that ban female genital mutilation (FGM) in Alberta. It amended the Health Professions Act to prevent health professionals from performing, offering or facilitating FGM. Those changes require all health regulatory colleges in Alberta to adopt standards of practice to address FGM by May 31, 2023.
FGM involves the injury to or partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons and can cause life-long health problems. It is classified as aggravated assault in the Criminal Code of Canada.
The government understands that some health professions are very unlikely to be a part of FGM or have any knowledge of it happening. They have been clear, however, that we must create and adopt standards of practice to address it.
Your Opinion Matters
Any changes to the Standards of Practice may impact dental assistants’ practice. Your input on these draft Standards of Practice is important to us. We want to understand your point of view on our proposed changes.
After Council considers feedback from stakeholders, makes any adjustments to the draft and approves the Standards of Practice, we will post them on our website. We will also let all dental assistants know by email.