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.
Continue readingHello 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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Hello everyone!
I am Vanessa the Student Board Member (SBM) of SPOTeurope, a role which enables me to be part of two amazing boards – SPOTeurope and ENOTHE (European Network of Occupational Therapy in Higher Education).
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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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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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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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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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The first UNAEE event of 2019 took place in Nevers, France, in March!
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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My international experience with a thesis in Bali, IndonesiaMy 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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written by Marlies, SPOTeurope President & ENOTHE Student Representative
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. 
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.
Continue readingPublished by Maurane, on behalf of authors Abigail Darko, Jenny Hong, & Fatema Virani from Brunel University London, United Kingdom
Published by Maurane, on behalf of authors First Year Occupational Therapy Students from Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland.
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.
Continue readingPublished by Charlotte (site admin) on behalf of Author Orla.
OT student, Orla, outside ‘the window to knowledge’ children’s centre in Tirana, Albania
Tell us about yourself.
Hello, my name is Orla, I am Irish, and studying occupational therapy at Teesside University in the North of England.
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UNAEE is the French occupational therapy student national association. It has been created in 2006 to answer an important representation need.
Continue readingHello, we are two second year Occupational Therapy students at Plymouth University in the South-West of England. After attending the Royal College of Occupational Therapy conference in June, we were inspired to bring our learning to our local community in a creative way. This led to the development of our project ‘Sense-Aware’!
Continue readingWe are two occupational therapy students who are curious about prewriting skills of children in other countries and how other OT-students become acquainted with these during their education.
In this blog we write about a Dutch assessment which we were introduced to when we had to screen the prewriting skills of children. We will also share our experiences of this assessment with you. Finally we have some statements we would like to discuss about.
KOEK
We like to write a blog about a Dutch assessment the KOEK. The KOEK is an assessment developed by Hartingsveldt van MJ, Cup EHC, Corstens-Mignot MAAMG (2006). The name KOEK stays for ‘The Short Observation Occupation Toddles’ and is developed for children in pre-school. The English version of the Koek is the SPOT (Screening Prewriting Skills Occupational Therapy) The spot has been developed for: 5 and 6 year old children with mild fine motor problems or 5 and 6 year old children showing even milder problems or children that could not be diagnosed with DCD.
The SPOT aims in offering a guideline for observing fine motor skills in preschoolers. The SPOT is a tool for observation with the emphasis on quality of the performance. It has been developed to be used by occupational therapists to assess whether a preschooler has reached an acceptable level of writing readiness. The SPOT can be used to evaluate fine motor problems in preschoolers as well ( Hartingsveldt, 2006). For the SPOT is no special training needed but a profound study of the manual is necessary. The assessment can be done in 30 minutes.
Components SPOT:
