First steps to developing an Indigenous Occupational Therapy workforce The Koori Occupational Therap

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(No Transcript)
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What is OT?

• Occupational therapy is a profession concerned
  with promoting health and well being through
  occupationOCCUPATION all things that people
  need and want to do
• The primary goal of occupational therapy is to
  enable people to participate in the activities of
  everyday life

World Federation of Occupational Therapy
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Philosophy of OT

• Client-centered
• Enabling, Empowering
• Person-environment relationship
• Culturally sensitive
• Holistic
• Doing philosophy
• Remediative preventative

World Federation of Occupational Therapy
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Aboriginal definitionof health
'Aboriginal health is not just the physical well
being of an individual but is the social,
emotional and cultural well being of the whole
community in which each individual is able to
achieve their full potential thereby bringing
about the total well being of their community. It
is a whole-of-life view and includes the cyclical
concept of life-death-life.
NAHS, 1989
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OTs Indigenous health

• Health inequities experienced by Indigenous
  Australians
• Need for health promotion, preventative
  remediative approaches
• Contribution of OT to addressing these inequities
• Health-disability-culture ? unique occupational
  needs

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OT Workforce Needs

• lt0.1 of OT workforce identifies as Indigenous
  Australian (Lowe OKane, 2004)
• Need for more allied health working in Indigenous
  health
• Victorian workforce analysis based on 11200
  workforce population ratio for allied health
  (VACCHO 2007)

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Vision of KOTS

• KOTS (Koori Occupational Therapy Scheme) seeks to
  actively encourage and advocate for
• increased Indigenous representation in the
  occupational therapy profession.
  
• Our motivation to create this scheme is borne of
  a deep commitment to the knowledge that
  Indigenous health professionals are best
  positioned to deliver meaningful and accessible
  services to Indigenous populations.

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Objectives of KOTS

• To increase the number of Indigenous OTs
• To increase awareness of Indigenous health and
  its social, cultural, political and historical
  contexts within the OT profession
• To increase awareness of the role of OT within
  Aboriginal health services

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Current endeavours
1. Increasing numbers of Indigenous OTs

• Promoting OT as a career choice
• Establishing Scholarship support scheme
• Coordinating work placements for students
• Establishing bank of OTs to mentor coach Koori
• students

Strategic planning, sustainability, funding
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Current endeavours
2. Awareness within OT field

• Publications Presentations
• Advocate for improved OT curriculum
• Indigenous health info pack
• Professional development for practitioners

Strategic planning, sustainability, funding
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Current endeavours
3. Awareness within Indigenous health

• Publications presentations
• Work with VACCHO on AHW training

Strategic planning, sustainability, funding
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Future directions
1. Increasing numbers of Indigenous OTs

• Supporting Koori students via a scholarship
  support
• scheme
• Advocating for improved recruitment retention
  of
• Koori students

Advocating for a cross-disciplinary effort to
address these issues across the allied health
spectrum
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Future directions
2. Awareness within OT field

• Advancing a national association position paper
  on
• Indigenous health
• Advocating for a review of Indigenous health
  content
• in OT curricula

Advocating for a cross-disciplinary effort to
address these issues across the allied health
spectrum
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Future directions
3. Awareness within Indigenous health

• Advocating for the availability of OT services
  within AHS

Advocating for a cross-disciplinary effort to
address these issues across the allied health
spectrum
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KEEP IN TOUCH
Feel free to contact us with any feedback,
guidance or support kots_at_annawearnetrust.org.auht
tp//www.annawearnetrust.org.au/kots.doc
With support from the Anna Wearne Trust VACCHO