Media Release
October 16 2008
OT Week awards "can do" attitude
National
OT Week is a
real cause for celebration for staff and students involved in UniSA’s
occupational
therapy program.
To launch the start of OT Week next Monday, UniSA’s School of Health Sciences, in conjunction with OT Australia SA, will host an exhibition of final-year occupational therapy student projects at the Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, City West campus.
Posters depicting the work students undertook as part of their Participatory Community Practice projects will be on display, with the winners of the best poster to be announced at a reception at 5.30pm.
OT Program Director Susan Gilbert Hunt also has reasons to celebrate – she has just received an Award for Teaching Excellence in the Australian Awards for Australian University Teaching for “work integrated learning”.
This latest award is in addition to last year’s ALTC Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and a UniSA Award for Teaching Excellence.
Gilbert Hunt said she was thrilled that her approach to teaching was recognised by these awards.
“The basis of occupational therapy is that we all have an innate need ‘to do’,” she said.
“Occupational Therapists work with people who for many, various reasons – age, injury, disability - have lost that ability ‘to do’. So it seems appropriate to engage OT students in their own learning by doing.”
The Participatory Community Practice scheme provides UniSA final-year OT students an eight-week placement with a wide variety of community service agencies.
“Occupational Therapy is a unique and diverse profession, and our graduates work in a variety of settings, from hospitals, aged care and rehabilitation facilities, through to city councils, rural and community health centres,” Gilbert Hunt said.
“The posters on display next week represent a cross-section of the organisations Occupational Therapists work with, and an excellent example of the important work Occupational Therapists do in getting people back to ‘doing’.”
What: Launch of OT Week and OT community engagement poster
exhibition
When: 5.30pm, Monday October 20
Where: Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, Level 3, Hawke Building, 50-60
North Tce, Adelaide (City West)
Contacts for interview
- Susan Gilbert Hunt office (08) 8302 2692 mobile 0421 119 129 email susan.gilbert-hunt@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
-
Vincent Ciccarello office (08) 8302 0578 mobile 0434 603 457
email vincent.ciccarello@unisa.edu.au