Performance Health Announces Massage Educator Award Winners

Winners of the 2016 AFMTE, Biofreeze and Bon Vital’ Educators of the Year AwardThis month, Performance Health announced the winners of the 2016 AFMTE, Biofreeze and Bon Vital’ Educators of the Year Award. This year’s award recipients are Julie Goodwin in the teacher category and Dale Alexander, Ph.D., in the continuing education category. Each winner receives a one year membership in the AFMTE, free registration to the 2017 AFMTE Conference, $1,000 stipend for travel, lodging, and miscellaneous expenses to be reimbursed at the conference, and $250 worth of free products from Biofreeze and BonVital’. “Julie and Dale truly exemplify the principles on which this award was founded,” says Lynda Solien-Wolfe, vice president, massage and spa, Performance Health. “Their lifelong devotion to raise our profession’s educational bar is not only an inspiration to us all, it benefits us all.”    

Performance Health serves as an annual partner with the Alliance for Massage Therapy Education (AFMTE), which acts as an independent voice, advocate, and resource for the massage therapy and bodywork education community.  The annual awards recognize excellence in massage and bodywork education and serves to foster a culture that supports raising the standards of success within this educational field. The recipients are also chosen based on their experience, teacher training, and how well they meet the AFMTE Core Competency Standards, which was published in 2013 and acts as a model for professional development. Goodwin is a graduate of Kent State University and the Desert Institute of the Healing Arts. She is an approved CE provider, author of Touch & Movement: Palpation and Kinesiology for Massage Therapists (Cengage Learning, 2011), and creator of the website TxPlanner: Mobile Pathology for Bodyworkers. Alexander has been teaching advanced studies in the massage therapy profession since 1986. He was originally trained as a biology teacher then as a psychotherapist, but he has sought to discover the underlying elements of neuroanatomy and physiology that contribute to and perpetuate chronic somatic dysfunction. He has also had decades of clinical experience with clients that have led him toward the discovery of common progressions associated with the aging process. Both Goodwin and Alexander plan to attend the second Educational Congress held in July 2017 in Tucson, AZ, and will share how they demonstrate their commitment to excellence in education.