OT-Europe Displaced Persons Project Group – Update

The OT-Europe project on displaced persons has been busy with the continued growth of the group. Following the 23rd ENOTHE Annual Meeting – Zagreb there was increased interest in the group and a growth of the network. Each month new examples come in from OT’s around Europe who are working with this population. A wide range of examples have already been seen, from clinical practice settings to community-based projects and a large presence in educational projects with displaced persons. Beyond Europe, our project group has connected to similar groups based in Canada and Australia, where we have begun to share resources and experiences.

We as a group have reached out to professional organizations across Europe with the request for information on the current practices within their specific country, and what position they have as a professional organization towards the role that occupational therapists could or should play to respond to the presence of displaced persons. Responses have started to be sent in to the group and these will be used to inform the report and future work of the group.

The group will meet face-to-face again in March to compile all the practices examples into our final report. The final report will review the current state of affairs for occupational therapy with displaced persons, the practice examples that have been found so far and what the future recommendations or role could be. From this document will come a more concise position paper which can be used as a communication piece to professions outside of occupational therapy. The main results of these two documents will be presented at the WFOT Congress in Cape Town, South Africa and will be presented for voting at the 24th ENOTHE Annual Meeting – Portugal.

This link below shows a map with the project examples that have been collected so far and this map will be continuously updated as new examples come in:
www.bit.ly/oteudisplacedpersons.

Please join us or forward examples to the group so we can continue to grow our network!

Nadine Blankvoort
n.l.blankvoort@hva.nl