Awarding OT’s “can do” attitude
by Vincent Ciccarello
This year’s National OT Week was a real cause for celebration for staff and students involved in UniSA’s occupational therapy program.
Occupational Therapy Program Director, Susan Gilbert Hunt, has received an Award for Teaching Excellence in the Australian Awards for Australian University Teaching for "work integrated learning".
This latest Australian Learning and Teaching Council (formerly "Carrick") award is in addition to last year’s 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 occupational therapy students in their own learning by doing."
Central to Sue Gilbert Hunt’s approach is the "Participatory Community Practice" scheme. It provides final-year occupational therapy students with an eight-week placement in one of a wide variety of community service agencies that range from the State’s major hospitals, to the Guide Dogs Association, Minda Incorporated, the South Australian Aboriginal Sports Academy, aged care facilities and kindergartens.
"Occupational therapy is a unique and diverse profession, and our graduates work in a variety of settings, from rehabilitation facilities and city councils, through to rural and community health centres," Gilbert Hunt said.
To launch the start of National OT Week on Monday October 20, the School of Health Sciences and OT Australia SA hosted an exhibition at the Kerry Packer Civic Gallery of posters created by the students as an important record of their placement.
The posters presented an overview of each of this year’s 27 different Participatory Community Practice projects, which included Eat your way to healthier kidneys (with Kidney Health SA); Tend-A-Care Gardening Group (with Anglicare Elizabeth Mission); Making the transition to school (with the Department of Education and Children’s Services); and Faces of Fatigue – understanding effective and sustainable strategies for self-management (with the Multiple Sclerosis Society of SA & NT Inc).