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PRACTICAL TIPS FOR WORKING WITH CLIENTS WHO HAVE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

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Hello readers, my name is Martyna Gwiazda Adomako and I graduated last year (OT Bachelor’s). Where I found a job at my current position which is Occupational Therapist in a Daily Mental Health Ward. I have been working there for 1,5 years.


I have chosen this topic because I have been working in the Daily Mental Heath Department for Adults for almost a year. As I started I had some knowledge and a little bit of practice.

Although I felt like I didn’t get any advice on how to manage a therapeutic process with my patients. As I was working with this very specific group of clients. That’s why I decided to choose this topic, I believe that it might be helpful for some of the readers. Knowledge is the key to a therapist’s own safety likewise their patient.

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NEW BOARD MEMBERS AND SPOTINAR

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Hello everyone!  

My name is Aleyna, and I am currently a fourth-year Occupational Therapy student from Turkey and new Blogger for SPOTeurope.  

First, I would like to thank Kira, who has done a great job as a Blogger and is currently Event Coordinator, for her support throughout the process. She has produced precious and exciting content by collaborating and sharing thoughts, actions, and impressions hers and yours. It is with great gratitude that I now take over this work from her. 

Another new member on the board, Angela is taking on a new role (social media coordinator). She is from Spain, and just recently joined the team. She will definitely create great content with her high level of motivation and creativity.

For your questions about Social Media, you can always contact us at socialmedia@spoteurope.eu

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THE NEED FOR EMPATHY IN THE OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST-INDIVIDUAL RELATIONSHIP

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Hello readers, this is Katerina Tsanaktsi, an occupational therapy student from Greece. I’m so glad to be part of the SPOT and write so interesting articles about our job. Occupational therapy needs talented and committed workers and fortunately our community has plenty of them! I hope you enjoy reading my article and be inspired by the utility of empathy! 

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A STUDENT PERSPECTIVE: OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY IN AN INTERDISICPLINARY TEAM

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Hello everyone!
My name is Aleyna Kayım and I’m a fourth-year student in the bachelor’s program in
Occupational Therapy at Hacettepe University, Turkey.
I wanted to write a blog on this subject and share my perspective with you because I believe
that interdisciplinary approaches and the necessity of having this perspective are very
valuable in OT.
Although concepts such as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary are terms
that I have started to hear since the moment I started the department, I think that I could fully
understand it with a course related to the field during the semester. During the course
content, how different professional groups work with OT in an interdisciplinary environment
was explained with case examples.

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ENOTHE Annual Meeting 2022 in Tbilisi, Georgia

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This year’s ENOTHE annual meeting took place from October 12th – 16th in Tbilisi. Our Student Board Member Vanessa Rozalina, President Julie Valckx and Blogger Kira Hanßmann were there in Person. 

The location of the annual meeting was the beautiful old building of the “Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University”.

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From student to professional occupational therapist – tips from Emmi

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The alarm clock is waking you up and you are getting ready for your first day as an occupational therapist. Your mind is full of both excitement and insecurity. It was just short a time ago when you were sitting in a lecture and waiting to graduate. Now you have the piece of paper that proves you are a qualified occupational therapist. While you are packing your backpack you realise that besides all the joyful excitement, you are also packing some discouraging questions: Do I have enough knowledge for this job? Did I work enough during the internships? How are the colleagues and clients like? And the biggest question of all: Am I ready?

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WFOT Congress 2022 in Paris – SPOT recap

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Hello OT-students,

This month’s blog addresses the WFOT congress in Paris that took place from the 28th until the 31st of August. Three of the board members, Megan (Outreach), Ulrik (General), and I, Kira (Blogger) were able to attend this event. Firstly, we would like to thank ENOTHE for giving us the opportunity to represent SPOTeurope at such a big event. We are very grateful for it! At SPOTeurope we aim to promote students to look beyond their country’s border as upcoming OTs. What better way to do that than visit the biggest congress the OT world has to offer? The following text is a recap of that experience:

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‘Occupational Therapy in disadvantaged, marginalized and addicted populations’ – a SPOTinar Summary

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This Summary was written by Ulrik Løth Holm

The 02.03.22 we held our first SPOTinar of the year called ‘Occupational Therapy in disadvantaged, marginalized and addicted populations with Jacob Madsen.

The SPOTinar had 100 registered students and a total of 58 participants on Zoom.

Jacob Madsen is an Occupational Therapist & Researcher. He had his Ph.D. published in 2017 under the title ‘Underprivileged Citizens’ Use of Technology for Everyday Health Management’ and has since then immersed himself into researching related topics while teaching future occupational therapists at University College of Northern Jutland, Denmark. Jacob met Ann A. Wilcock at an ENOTHE conference in 2006 – and was inspired by her dedication to develop theories and contributing to research by writing books, articles and more. He believes as health professionals it is our duty to act on inequality in health.

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A take on the stigmatisation and understanding of mental illnesses

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this blog includes a personal experience report on depression

Hello everyone,

this is the blogger writing to you. Considering it’s mental health awareness month, I recently gave the question some thought on how one could describe mental health or mental illness. Who decides when your mental status is fine? Is there a “normal” mental state?

Adding to that, a friend of mine kindly agreed to talk about her personal experience with depression and the prejudices she faced. I would like to thank her for being open and honest about her experience. To clear up stigmas surrounding the subject it needs to be talked about.

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Full academization for OT – A current topic in Germany

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Why you should read the following text:

It’s about the future of OT! The topic of academization is a very important topic in the OT world. In the following, we will discuss full academization related to the situation in Germany. Other countries are well involved too, so this may be of interest to many OT students.

Why is academization important for best practice? Who is involved? What Science says. Why now?

https://www.freevector.com/graduation-hat-illustration-31227
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International Student Experience – Internship in Bulgaria

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Dear SPOT community,

Infront of the Ruse-sign (source: private picture)

We are Milena Horst, Raquel Müller, and Kira Hanßmann. We are currently studying occupational therapy in our third year at the ETOS (School of OT in Osnabrück) and University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück, in Germany.

For the past four weeks, we had the opportunity to get an insight of OT in Bulgaria, specifically in Ruse.

In the following we are going to tell you about our internship and further experiences we had.

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A student perspective: The importance of internationalisation

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Hello fellow OT students!
I am excited to present a new idea we tried out for the blog section: A certain topic is presented by any member of SPOT, to which the whole community can share their views.
Ulrik, our general board member, wrote down some thoughts he had on the topic of internationalisation and why it is so important. On our instagram feed we shared a poll, asking for your opinion on internationalisation. I quoted some of your answers further down in the blog post.
We hope this may inspire you to get active and exchange your thoughts with OT students worldwide, keep your minds open and embrace new possibilites through international exchange! 🙂

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International Student Experience: Occupation-based perspective on Social Inclusion – Iceland, Akureyri

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It is the 1st of November 2021 and 27 OT-students from all over Europe have been waiting for the date to arrive. A date that has been full of uncertainty since there currently is a global pandemic going on. It has been a challenging time. The courageous participants have been trapped behind their own boarders and having to suppress the adventurous traveler within them for the past two years. And yet, everyone who was supposed to be there is standing in the classroom at the University of Akureyri, Iceland. That is why SPOTeurope have gathered a collection of tales from the NORDPLUS course about an occupation-based perspective on social inclusion. A unique opportunity in what we can currently call a limited world. So please enjoy the company of Eline, Mirja, Thomas, Pauliin, Malin and Unnur as they share their perspectives.

Introduction by: Ulrik, General Board Member

private picture
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Two very special internships in the Netherlands!

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Hello everyone,

My name is Evelien Spoormakers and I am an occupational therapy student at Zuyd Hogeschool in the Netherlands. I’m writing this blog because I want to tell you something about the internships I’ve done and the experiences I gained there, because there are not the most obvious internships for an OT student. That’s what made this internships so interesting! First I will shortly tell you something about my first internship in the disabled care. I started this internship in September 2019.

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Reflecting before our summer break!

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General announcement

Greetings everyone,

We hope that you are doing well and enjoying your summer vacation so far!

In this month’s blog, we would love to share with you a small but comprehensive update on our actions and events as well as inform you that we will be out of office from the (already passed) 29th of July till the 22nd of August! We will still be active on our social media and replying to emails, but expect a small delay since we are all taking some time off to cool down from such a tiring and demanding year.

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My occupational therapy perspective on my Nepal trip

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Introduction

Hi all,

My name is Silvester and I am in the second year of the bachelor’s program in Occupational Therapy at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences. Besides studying, I really enjoy doing things together with friends, like playing sports, taking walks or making music.

In this blog, I will tell you about my experiences in Nepal. I hope you find it entertaining! 🙂

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Overcoming obstacles related to placement

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Introduction

Hi everyone!

It is nice writting to you, once again, and this month I have something more ‘personal’ that I want to share with you.

During the past month, I have been reflecting a lot on my previous placements for an assignment that is due 3 weeks from now and I realized that I have experienced some difficulties during these placements which I would love to share with you.

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A great start to learning about Occupational Therapy

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Introduction

Hello everyone!

It is officially the first Saturday of March which means that you are reading our newest blog 😀

This blog post is very special to me since I will be narrating to you, in cooperation with a dear colleague of mine, Aspa Argyri, the first occupational module we took when we started our studies, in 2018!

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Outcomes of student-lead research regarding the effects of COVID-19 on education

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In our OT school, it is the custom, that every first-year course does a project about professional policies. At first, our plan was to organize the national meeting of students from all over Germany, which takes place every year, in our school. But unfortunately, the pandemic made it impossible. Suddenly we had to do home office and didn’t hear much from each other. We asked ourselves how our schoolmates felt with this education and life situation especially regarding any deficits in learning and how they cope with the time alone without getting depressed or lonely. Which we thought it would be interesting to report to other students all over the world.

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Experiencing OT as a third-party

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Hello everyone!

This month I decided to give the spotlight to people wanting to talk about their OT experiences, outside of their studies. The following texts do not necessarily coincide with what we have learned in our studies, they are related to experiences linked with loved ones or acquainted people receiving occupational therapy.

if you would like to know more about it you can always contact Jennie via email: JWEBST10@caledonian.ac.uk or via Twitter (@jwebot), Akylina via email: papadopoulou50@hotmail.gr, and Martyna via email: martynagwiazda0@gmail.com

Furthermore, feel free to contact me about your ideas on the content of our next blog as well as whether you would like to be one of our guest bloggers!

Till next time, stay safe and active,
Emmanouela Kanetaki | Blogger

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An intriguing, hands-on, OT program in Croatia!

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Greetings everyone. My name is Iva Hendelja, I’m 21 years old and currently on my third and final year of Occupational therapy at the University of Applied Health Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia, which is also the only university to provide a 3 year OT program. Unfortunately, here in Croatia, you can only study OT at a bachelor’s level since there are no master’s or PhD programs yet.

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Experiencing occupational disruption as an OT student

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Hello everyone!

For this month’s blog I decided to talk about one of the most common phenomena we, OT’s, encounter during both our studies and clinical practices: occupational disruption. Even though most of you might be familiar with this term I shall briefly go through the literature so we can all be on the same page:

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An unforgetable heartwarming experience at São Miguel

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Hello fellow OT students,

My name is Ana Gaspar and I am currently waiting to start my fourth and last year as an occupational therapy student in Escola Superior de Saúde de Leiria, Portugal. The past three years of my studies have been quite a ride, let me break it down for you!

When I first discovered that I got in OT school, I had mixed feelings because it was not my first choice. I had always wanted to be a nurse mainly because my goal as a professional is to help people in need, but little did I know! When I got to learn more thoroughly about what OT is all about, I fell instantly in love with the profession and the thought of changing courses suddenly didn’t matter to me anymore.

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Patient Leadership: Both an OT’s and a patient’s perspective

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Thinking about Patient & Public Involvement and Patient Leadership as an Occupation

Hello, my name is Anya de Iongh and I’m a first year OT MSc student at the University of East Anglia in Norfolk, UK. I became inspired to study OT after experiencing illness myself which led to getting involved in patient partnership and leadership.

https://eshcru.com/ppi/

I want to talk about patient leadership, patient and public involvement and the patient voice for two reasons. Firstly, because as OTs, we need to be partnering with these people in all of our work improving services and designing research as well as creating policy. But also for the people we support as clients, patients or service users, since getting involved in these activities can be seen as meaningful for them and supporting this idea is central to our role as OTs.

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A great journey in Madagascar thanks to PSIEE!

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But first, what is PSIEE?

https://psieeunaee.wixsite.com/psiee

PSIEE is the international solidarity project of occupational therapists’ students. It is a project created by the French National Association of OT students, the UNAEE. For the last 3 years, 5 or 6 second years OT students go to Madagascar for 1 month during the summer to practice occupational therapy. Last year, the team was composed of Morgane, Marie, Yann, Océane and Anne-Claire, a group of twenty years old OT students from all over France. 

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Occupational Therapy in Wrocław, Poland

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Introduction

Martyna Gwiazda

Hello everyone,

My name is Martyna Gwiazda and I am a third year Occupational Therapy student (OT) in Wrocław, Poland. Being this month’s guest blogger gave me the chance to share a little bit of an insight about OT in Poland. I will be describing the reality of our profession in my country, both advantages and disadvantages included! 🙂

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Is it still child’s play when a global pandemic comes around?!

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Getting to know Britt and the journey of her first internship

Hello I am Britt Hoofwijk, a third year occupational therapy student, studying in the Netherlands at the university of Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in Heerlen. I have just started my first ever internship this year, which is partly located at an elementary school and partly at an OT-clinic for kids. My tasks included that I stimulate the overall development of the children during their regular school duties. Using the classic child-OT in the clinic and with a project called ‘Beweeg me te leren’ on the elementary school. ‘Beweeg me te leren’ is translated to ‘Move me to learn’. This project was made by two former teachers of mine, Jolien van Houten and Rianne Jansens, as well as by the director of all primary schools: Ron Crutzen. And last but not least my supervisor Esther Dibbets – van de Bool who is also the owner of the clinic where I have my internship.

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Early preperations for the ENOTHE – COTEC conference in Prague

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CUBEX building in Prague

On the morning of February 20th members of our SPOT Prague were gathering filled with excitement at the metro station. This day was the day when we had the chance to see the premisses of the modern and newly reconstructed congress centre Cubex, where the COTEC- ENOTHE conference will take place this September.

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Learning the differences and similarities of Greece’s and the Netherland’s OT practice and education system.

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Introduction

Hello everyone, this is Emmanouela!

This month I did a collab-blog with Tahnee Augustin and Vera Engelbert, who are both from the Netherlands and currently studying OT at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences!

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Mobility Week in Amsterdam

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This mobility week took place in Amsterdam from the 6th till the 8th of November 2019.

Introduction

Hello! My name is Marieke, I’m 22 years old and I live in Arnhem/ Netherlands. I’m currently studying occupational therapy but have a few more months left before I officially become an OT! I’m really excited and cannot wait for this big moment to arrive!!! Until then and during these few months there are some interesting things that need to be done. Two of these things are an internship in hand therapy and going to school every Friday at the HAN in Nijmegen.

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SPOT’s new blogger and the somewhat ancient history of OT in Greece.

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Greetings everyone! I am Emmanouela (or Emma for short) and from now on I will be the new SPOT blogger!

A little bit of information for me

I was born and raised in Athens, Greece and I am currently studying Occupational Therapy as a second year student at Metropolitan College in Athens. I hadn’t heard of SPOTeurope before the workshop about internalisation, that took place at the premises of Metropolitan College at Marousi Campus. It was then that, I knew I had to get involved. This experience in combination with my volunteering experience at the annual ENOTHE conference made me realise that I want to communicate more with OT students from all over Europe and expand my view of the “occupational world”!

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Moving Abroad to Work as an Occupational Therapist

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Hi All! I am Jena, you may know me as the social media lead of SPOT Europe. I have just finished my pre-registration master’s at the University of Derby in England. I moved from Canada to complete my master’s and was exited to return home after 2 years away from amazing maple syrup, my family and friends, and views like this!

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Student news: OT school in Bremen & Hand Therapy Project.

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Our school ‘Fachschule für Ergotherapie’ is the only school for Occupational Therapy in Bremen. It was founded in 2015 and is located in the northern part of Bremen.

In 2018, it got the WFOT approval and became a member of ENOTHE. We have about sixty students in three classes and four teachers as well as several guest lecturers.

To the school administration it is very important that we work and learn practically; which means that we work in projects for example in elementary schools, homes for the elderly and those with mental health conditions.

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Rehabilitation Centre in Switzerland: An OT perspective!

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Introduction…

Jelena, 23 years old, studies Occupational Therapy (grade 4) at ZUYD Hogeschool in Heerlen. She and a friend of hers, Lea Gnida, went to Switzerland to do an internship. They were both looking very forward to their trip to Switzerland. They worked as interns in a rehabilitation centre in Valens, a small village on top of a mountain with a height of about 1000 meters. The rehabilitation centre was located in a large building where a lot of people from different backgrounds are working. In this centre work a lot of different specialized teams such as: occupational therapists, physiotherapists, creative therapists, music therapists, equine therapists, speech therapists, nurses, and doctors. The first three days of the internship were mainly to get to know the rehabilitation centre and to get familiar with their treatment plans. After those three days Jelena was made fully responsible for her own clients and work. Especially in the beginning she found this very difficult. She was not used to work all by herself because she had never been put in a situation like this during her previous internships.

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Guest blog experience: OT internship in Linköping, Sweden

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About me

My name is Jurn Veenstra, I am a 24-year old Occupational Therapy student. I have started my 4th semester of my education at Zuyd Hogeschool in Heerlen. I had the opportunity to do an internship abroad and learn more about the world of Occupational Therapy (OT). I made the decision to go to Sweden’s 6th largest city, Linköping. I have lived there from the beginning of August till 11 December. In Linköping I did an internship at a university hospital. During this period, I was working together at the hospital with a multi-disciplinary team.

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UNAEE: National Association of French OT students

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The first UNAEE event of 2019 took place in Nevers, France, in March!

But first, what’s UNAEE?

UNAEE is the National Association of French OT students. Its main goals are to defend French OT student’s rights and interests, to represent them within deciding bodies of the institutions and give them opportunities in order to make the most out of their studies. The UNAEE was also created to build a network between the OT students from the various institutes in France. That is why we organize yearly events gathering OT students from all over the country! 

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International Thesis in Bali, Indonesia

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My international experience with a thesis in Bali, Indonesia

About me

My name is Naomi de Graaf, I am a 22 year old Occupational Therapy student at the University of Arnhem and Nijmegen (HAN) in the Netherlands. This year I started my fourth (last) year of education. It consists of a half year thesis (first semester) and a half year internship (second semester). Now I am doing an internship in a hospital in the Netherlands, but before that I did a thesis in Bali for 3 months. I am very excited to share my experiences with you! I was there from October 2nd till January 15th, 2018/2019.

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The FAB Program- Connecting OT students from Finland, Austria & Belgium

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Hello, I’m Tom Pauwaert from Belgium and I’m in my final year studying OT and got the opportunity to join the FAB program. 

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Greetings world from wintery Denmark!

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About me

My name is Marie, I am a 26-year-old OT student and I’ve just started my 5thsemester (out of seven, they are 6 months each) of my education at UCN, University College Nordjylland. I have been a part of SPOTEurope for about a year now or at least since last years COHEHRE conference in Belgium where I met sweet Marlies, who introduced me to the SPOT world.

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SPOT – News & Activities

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Just giving everyone an update about SPOT’s recent activities and exciting ideas for the future!

As SPOTeurope develops there will be a few role changes and a lot more opportunities for YOU to become involved in sharing your experiences! 

See below for an update from each of the SPOT board members:

(more info on each member can be found on The Board page)

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SPOTeurope board members activities, news and projects.

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Hi everyone! This blog aims to keep you up to date about SPOTeurope board activities. We know that our roles may be sometimes unclear, then here’s what we have done recently and a few words about our plans.

If you want to learn more about each member of the board check our About/The Board section.

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French OT students charity concert

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Written by Maurane, with Nolwenn and Sarah, on behalf of ATEEC.

A concert for the benefit of hospitalized children

On Friday May, 18th, the OT students association of Tours, France, organized a charity concert in a café concert named Les 3 Orfèvres. This concert took place as part of the action of Ampli Mutuelle, a health mutual, named Nez pour Sourire, for the organization Le Rire Médecin.

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Working with refugees – Projects at the Health University of Applied Sciences Tyrol – Occupational Therapy Department

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Published by Maurane, blogger, on behalf of Authors: Hartmann Victoria, Lukavsky Alexander, Röck Vanessa, Strasser Sophia

Picture yourself in our situation: you’re studying, on the weekends you’re hanging out with your friends and you see your bright future for yourself as an occupational therapist.

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