Hi Jeff,
FHT membership and CNHC registration are two completely separate and different things.
If you havent completed a sports therapy course then you wont be able to be listed on FHT as a sports therapist, which is perfectly right.
If you have done training that meets the CNHC Sport & Remedial Therapies standards then you can, if you wish, be listed under that category, you dont need a specific sports therapy qualification.
I think the case of sports therapy is this, when massage became regulated, most sports therapists registered, as this was the only thing that they could register as. When sports therapy became regulated, some didnt bother to add the separate category.
It is established that the professional associations can accept therapists who dont meet CNHC standard, most of the PAs have this in place, certainly SMA, FHT, CThA and all the bigger PAs do. The likes of ISRM have a set standard in place, which is BTEC Level 5. That is their right.
When someone who has done a course that doesnt meet the CNHC standard, but is a member of one of the PAs, they shouldnt be verified for regulation.
Examples of this are the new SMA endorsed VTCT qualifications, which have been widely publicised on here. It has been found that you can undertake a level 3 sports massage qualification at a number of schools, in around 3 days. The student automatically becomes an SMA student member, and then (according to the schools and I have no reason to doubt this) they become eligible for SMA level 3 membership. This therapist would not be eligible to be registered with CNHC, even though they have membership of a CNHC recognised PA.
I think the confusion has been (not for SMA members as they have only just got on board), for a student who has undertaken what they deem to be a 'recognised' qualification, as it is on the QCF, and then accepted for membership of a PA, they think that they can automatically get CNHC registration, and cant understand when they are refused. It has been confusing, but this goes back to the old thing about the vast difference in the standards of the training providers, and the lack of response from the awarding organisations. The PAs accept the quals, as they are QCF and meet standards, but then find that the school is actually cutting many corners which means in actual fact, the standards are not being met by the student/therapist.
This has been a problem, as the PAs then have to look at individual schools, and then say yes or no to membership, based on the standards of the school. This shouldnt have to happen, that isnt really their job, and I think that now SMA are involved in CNHC, they too are going to have this huge headache (welcome to my world guys).
So....yes, I agree it can seem confusing, and the answer is, the AOs need to police their schools, so that anyone doing a Level 3 course in massage or sports therapy, meets the CNHC standards, and if they want to register, they can.