Changing Settings as an Occupational Therapist: What Does the Journey Look Like?

Hello readers! I am Katerina Tsanaktsi, SPOT Europe’s Social Media Coordinator and Occupational Therapy student from Greece. This blog post is about the future and sending the message that is never too late to do what you want.

Choosing our path

It’s so strange how we should decide our occupation and our studies at a very young age and how this makes a mark on us. It’s not easy to know what you like so young and that’s why a lot of times people study one thing and end up doing something else. The story tells a true story of an occupational therapist who started his career as a pediatric occupational therapist with years of experience with children and a master’s degree in child psychology, but along the way chose to change direction and work with older adults. At first, he thought he wouldn’t make it and that there were better people than him already doing it, but that didn’t let him give up and he kept trying to make what he truly wanted happen.

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International Student Experience – Erasmus Internship in Belgium

In Ghent University (source: private picture)

Hello, everyone! I’m Aleyna Kayım, Blogger of Spoteurope, and I’m thrilled to share with you today my journey through my Erasmus Internship, a transformative experience that has left an indelible mark on me. Throughout this internship, I’ve had the opportunity to immerse myself in a world of new experiences, challenges, and growth, both personally and professionally. Join me as I delve into the details of this adventure and reflect on the profound impact it has had on my life.

New journey

In Ghent University (source: private picture)

As a recently graduated occupational therapist participating in the Erasmus program, I had the privilege of undertaking a two-month internship at Ghent University’s Occupational Therapy Research Unit. This experience proved to be instructive, allowing me to delve into the processes of academic research within the field. During my time at the research unit, I actively engaged in diverse research activities, from literature reviews to data collection and analysis, working alongside experienced researchers. This opportunity not only deepened my understanding of occupational therapy principles but also equipped me with essential research skills, fostering a foundation for my future endeavors in the academic realm of occupational therapy.

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ENOTHE ANNUAL MEETING 2023 OVIEDO, SPOTEUROPE BOARD EXPERIENCE

(source:private)

This year ENOTHE held their Annual Meeting in Oviedo, Spain. SPOTeurope was present, as every year since 2014, to represent the students’ voices of Europe. This time represented in person by Bruna, Megan, Angela, and Kira, we decided to give you, the SPOT community, a small insight into how our preparations for the 27th AM looked like. And of course to what these preparations lead to at the AM.

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Universal Design and Occupational Therapy: Inclusivity and More 

Hello everyone,

I am Spoteurope’s Blogger Aleyna Kayım. In this month’s blog, as an occupational therapy student, I would like to briefly explain a core term, universal design, which is a concept that attracts my attention in interdisciplinary fields. As occupational therapy students and occupational therapists, I believe we need to explore this concept term, which contains a very inclusive and deep meaning. So let’s take a closer look at this term!

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Experiencing the “Acessible Life” Fair As An Occupational Therapy Student

Hello, I am Rabia Yaşar. I am a second-year student at Hacettepe University Occupational Therapy Department. I am currently the Activity Coordinator at miniSPOT Hacettepe.

As miniSPOT Hacettepe, we meet with our occupational therapy student friends on different platforms. We organize events together in light of our different perspectives. In addition to these, we organize English-speaking club activities called SPOTing in order to practice English. I moderated them and still doing it, and this made an incredible contribution to self-confidence in my English speaking.

I participated in the “Accessible Life” Fair held in Istanbul on December 1-4, 2023 in order to expand my network, communicate with company officials that we can work with, and meet with occupational therapy students and teachers in other schools. During the fair, I took part in the Occupational Therapy Association stand. With this task, I experienced different situations that would improve me on how to explain occupational therapy to people. In addition, I had the opportunity to meet occupational therapist teachers that I had not had the opportunity to meet face-to-face before.

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PRACTICAL TIPS FOR WORKING WITH CLIENTS WHO HAVE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

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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From student to professional occupational therapist – tips from Emmi

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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A student perspective: Technology and Digitalization in OT

Hello SPOTeurope community,

If you are a follower of our SPOT events, you may already know me, if not here it goes. My name is Bruna Bastos, I am an occupational therapist and also student of the MSc in Hand Therapy at the School of Health Sciences in Leiria, Portugal.

Today I’m writing this blog to you because I want to share with you my perspective on the use of technology and digitalization in OT.

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A take on the stigmatisation and understanding of mental illnesses

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

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

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

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!

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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Overcoming obstacles related to placement

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

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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Experiencing OT as a third-party

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: JW******@ca********.uk or via Twitter (@jwebot), Akylina via email: pa************@ho*****.gr, and Martyna via email: ma*************@gm***.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!

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

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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