Working Group
Terms of Reference

Role:

The first step following the approval of recognition of a new discipline is to create a working group. The mandate of this working group is to develop the discipline-specific documents:

For specialties and subspecialties:

Specific Standards of Accreditation (SSA);
Objectives of Training (OTR);
Specialty Training Requirements (STR);
Final In-Training Evaluation Report (FITER); and
Application form for accreditation of programs.

For areas of focused competence (AFC-diplomas):

Standards of Accreditation (SA);
Competency Training Requirements (CTR); and
Portfolio
Application for accreditation of programs

Membership:

The working group should consist of 6 to 8 members who are experts in their field and should follow the same membership profile as will need to be followed when later creating the specialty committee, AFC committee or AFC subcommittee.

Members of the working group should be Fellows of the Royal College (in good standing) who have clinical and educational expertise relevant to the specific discipline. Membership should include representatives from all possible entry routes. Consideration should also be made to include balanced geographic representation.

For specialties and subspecialties, the geographic representation should contain at least one member from each of the following five regions:

Region 1: British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon Territory, and the Northwest Territories;

Region 2: Saskatchewan and Manitoba;

Region 3: Ontario and Nunavut;

Region 4: Québec;

Region 5: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

During the working group phase, it is acceptable to have co-chairs

When the time comes to disband the working group and create the specialty committee, AFC committee or AFC subcommittee, the membership will change to meet the Royal College’s policy concerning the composition of the relevant committee. For example, co-chairs will change to become chair and vice-chair and in the case of specialties and subspecialties, if more than one founding member of the new specialty or subspecialty is from the same region in Canada, only one of those individuals will be appointed as a regional representative for each region on the specialty committee.

The term of office is until the discipline specific documents have been approved.

Responsibility and Authority:

Working groups are monitored by the Committee on Specialties and ultimately report to the Education Committee in matters related to the discipline.

Voting Guidelines:

Half of the working group’s voting members, including the chair, shall constitute a quorum.

Meetings:

Each working group must meet at least once per year. Meetings can take place face-to-face as well as via teleconference or web conference.