It’s hard to believe September is on our doorstep. Where does the summer go? Hopefully, everyone has had a great summer up to this point and enjoyed our beautiful state of Montana.
In June, I was fortunate to attend the Leadership Conference in Orlando along with Terri James, Kyle Zimmerman, Chris Holt, and Katie Baca. What a great learning experience! We had round table meetings with other association presidents representing almost every state in the U.S.
The NFDA does a top-notch job in hosting events and providing speakers. The most common issue in every state is trying to find help and licensed funeral professionals. There are 1,200 students enrolled in mortuary school each year, and 50% of them will not finish their courses or complete school. Of the 50% who finish, only half of the graduates will pass the National Board Exam. This leaves 300 licensed funeral directors to supply the entire United States funeral homes.
The question is: how do we attract, retain and cultivate people to become funeral professionals?
A lot of states have added additional licenses for funeral practitioners. This logic pertains to opening a position up for someone who has not gone to mortuary school or completed the NBE. There was a lot of debate and discussion over this idea, especially from practitioners in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where one must be a licensed mortician to make a removal.
Some areas of the country are hiring more part-time employees to help with funeral services, removals, and sitting visitations. Some states have gone as far as doing away with or not even recognizing the National Board Exam as a requirement to be licensed in their state.
I don’t think that is something we should ever consider; however, I believe the National Board Exam (the Conference) needs to look at the exam questions and the ambiguity in the way they are asked, as it’s very tricky. (As we all know!)
Many are not passing the exam and this is definitely a problem. There were rumblings at the Leadership Convention about this issue and leadership is looking into it.
The other part of licensing discussed was unification. The question: “Why must we be licensed in every state in order to practice there? There are traveling nurses, doctors, attorneys, etc., and they all have one unified Board Exam they take and can practice all over.”
So, there were certainly some interesting conversations that occurred at the conference. I truly appreciate the experience of being able to go and represent Montana. If anyone has some ideas on licensing or recruiting funeral professionals to our state, I am all ears!
I plan to go to Baltimore for the NFDA Convention and Tradeshow in October. I hope to see you there.
Next, we have our district meetings in November, and I look forward to face-to-face meetings and getting to visit everyone’s facilities. Have a great rest of the summer and the best part of the year is almost here – fall – football and hunting season starts, and I love it!
Sincerely,
T.J. Stevenson
