MIROTS

Each year, the host University produced a welcome pack with essential information for home and visiting students, which included:

• Welcome & Travel Information (airport, flight, accommodation, train, coach)

• Insurance details

• Events, socials and activities

• Lunch vouchers and / or details about free meals

• Accessing university facilities and Wi-Fi

• Staff contacts

• Emergency contacts

• Useful Maps

• Information about Project Work

• Groups – student names, email addresses, associated staff and community organisation details

• Reading List

• Consent Forms for sharing information, video and social media pictures

• Information for Organisations and Interviewees

• Schedule for Exchange Week (academic study and social events)

• Schedule for Group Work with Room Bookings

• Schedule for Group Presentations during the Conference

Keynote speakers were organised by all partner institutions, with the aim to inspire and motivate students for their week-long learning experience.

Lund University, 2016

Keynote speakers for 2016 were chosen to introduce and deepen students’ knowledge around occupationally focussed frameworks and models. The speakers were all eminent in their field and chosen to inspire the students to think differently.

• Associate Professor Lena-Karin Erlandsson, Head of the Department and Head of the research group Occupational therapy and Occupational science. Occupational Science: fertilizer or position for Occupational therapy

• Associate Professor Dennis Persson, Associate Professor of Occupational therapy and Occupational science. Ecopation a new concept on sustainable development

• Christina Chuckman, Occupational Therapist, TillväxtMalmö. Same but different - experiences from working as an OT in new arenas.

• Catherine Svalenius, Occupational Therapist.  Shared experiences from working as an OT in Mental Health.

University of Southampton, 2017

Keynote speakers for the 2017 physical exchange were chosen to fit with the focus of preparing proposals for emerging areas of practice. During this week, students worked with a range of charities and statutory services to develop emerging placement proposals to demonstrate the ‘added value’ that an occupational perspective might offer to support socially excluded individuals, groups and communities.

• Professor Colin Grant – Vice President (International) & Dr Sara Demain Associate Professor, Head of Division: Allied Health Professions, University of Southampton – Welcome & official opening

   

• Professor Jo Adams, Professor of Musculoskeletal Health - Including harder to reach populations: why health literacy is important for occupational therapists

   

• Dr Claire Ballinger, Strategic Lead Wessex Public Involvement Network (PIN) & Mark Stafford-Watson, Patient and Public Involvement Champion, NIHR CLAHRC Wessex - Coproduction: What is it and why does it matter? A discussion

   

• Rebecca Burgos, Lead Occupational Therapist –Solent NHS Trust - Working with role emerging placements to redesign and develop statutory services

   

• Graduate experiences of role emerging placements as students at UoS:

   

  • Eleanor Fox – preparing for role emerging placements

  • Kosiwa Lokuso – opportunities and challenges of role emerging placements

  • Claire Walker – impact of role emerging placements on your professional career

National University Ireland, Galway - 2018

Keynote speakers for the 2018 physical exchange were chosen to fit with the theme of “Capturing Voices” that was set for the Galway physical exchange and also to align with the overall theme for Year 3 of the project which was that of “Dissemination”. There was also one talk (Dr Power) which aimed to give visiting students context in terms of the systems and services in place in Ireland that would affect the community organisations and people that they met on their site visits.

• Professor Brian Hughes – Professor of Psychology and Vice Dean for Internationalisation.Welcome address

• Dr Ruth Mc Menamin – Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy, NUI Galway. Patient and Public Involvement in Research

• Ms Áine Gallagher- Bright Club Galway. Using Comedy to Disseminate Research and Promote Health

• Dr Martin Power – Lecturer in Health Promotion and Director of the BA (Hons) Social Care and Mphil Social Care, NUI Galway. Health and Voluntary Services in Ireland

• Dr Lorraine McIlrath - Community Knowledge Integration, NUI Galway. Civic Citizenship, Engagement and Democratic Knowledge Sharing

• Dr Juliette Truman- Senior Lecturer in Occupational Therapy, Bournemouth University UK.Moving Beyond Traditional Erasmus: Internationalising the Curriculum for Occupational Therapy Students

The team developed a timetable of learning activities for the web exchange that covered proposed topics for each of the 5 weeks leading to the final virtual conference. During each of these discussions, students were asked to discuss the similarities and differences between the countries regarding occupational therapy practice, welfare, social and health care systems.

Virtual Conference Presentations (2017, 2018)

 During the virtual conference, students presented collaborative presentations involving all students and accessible via a live link from each institution. Presentations were no longer than 10 minutes with a further 5 minutes for questions. Each group presented a summary and synthesis of their work, drawing on their project experiences, discussions and other course materials that had relevance to their discussion.  The presentation included: summaries of the occupational needs of their identified group; examples of occupational injustices that the group  were exposed to; information on how each country attempts to meet the occupational needs; a summary of  how occupational therapists could influence these projects to reduce occupational injustices and reflections on learning and the impact on future practice.

Virtual Conference with ePoster presentations (2019)

In 2019 all 6 partner institutions engaged in a final virtual conference using ePosters as outlined in the main handbook. The poster/presentation was expected to include the poster format supplied by the web-based ePoster platform. Students were asked to consult literature and offer this in their poster and discussions. The ePoster was expected to include all the points highlighted above in the 2017 and 2018 presentations.  

The team produced a ‘tool-kit’ – a set of educational and complimentary materials to accompany Professor Clare Hocking’s Occupational Justice narrated power point.  This ‘tool-kit’ allowed each University to use the material in a way which suited their curriculum but assisted which assisted all students to prepare for either the physical or web-exchange learning activities.  It consisted of:

1.            A set of multiple-choice questions related to the narrated power point slides 

2.            Questions to encourage reflection on what occupational injustices (and with what groups) students have encountered in their training to date; how the issues were being/could be tackled and if an Occupational Therapy presence was evident; if not, how do students envisage an occupational perspective would add value?

3.            Links to the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) position statement on Human Rights (WFOT, 2006, revised 2019), encouraging students to consider how their clinical and academic training has contributed to their professional responsibility to work towards occupationally justice and social justice in society.

4.            An individual anonymised but real case study. The case study utilises quotations from contemporary research (Kearns Murphy & Shiel, 2018). The case study posed broad questions in relation to breaches of occupational injustice and Human Rights and encourages debate/discussion amongst students within their own cohorts and across international partnerships

Case Study: ‘Jim’

Jim is a 31 year old man with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. He was diagnosed 12 years ago and lived at home until four years ago when his challenging behaviour meant that he required additional support. He lives in a high support hostel with approximately 12 other residents. The hostel is staffed by nursing and domestic staff on a 24 hour basis. The following are quotations from both Jim and the staff.

Jim is capable of being independent. However, with regard to shaving he reports

“I like doing it myself. But not all the time I get the chance to do it for myself…I’m well fit to do it myself. But sure…they give it to me anyway.”

The staff member describes what happens at breakfast time

“I would generally do it because if I give him the cereal he would have it all over the place, scattered all over the table. Same with giving him tea, he’d have the sugar and he’d have it all over the place and you’d have to wipe it.”

Jim would like to be involved in domestic activities. He said

“I’m not allowed to mop the floors because if I start mopping a floor or someone were to fall or someone got hurt or something happened, they would get the blame. I’m only a patient… It’s just as well to stay away and let them do it.”

All meals are provided at the hostel and Jim is not offered any choice in what he eats. The staff decide what to order for the residents. Jim said

“They have to order stuff, and you can’t change it because when it comes over from the kitchen it has to be paid for. And once it’s paid for you have to just take it.”

With regard to leisure Jim stated

“I do go for a walk down the town alright but I’ve no one down the town to go to. If I did have someone to go to and come back at a later time I would.”

When asked about leisure, one of his relatives remarked

“[Staff]  bring him out on tours, and they probably bring them out for the weekend and day trips.”

Jim is not incapable. When he visits home he contributes to the farming chores. A relative described what happens

“He often cleans up and comes doing loads with me. If I had to collect turf he’d come along with me…He’s good now. He’s helpful, he doesn’t come over and just stand there. He gets stuck with me.”

Jim would like to have a job. He said

“I wouldn’t mind doing painting or decorating but I wouldn’t be up for heights. I wouldn’t mind doing computers, doing security somewhere, gardening or landscaping, whatever.”

Jim has a small income from his Disability benefit. However, he is not allowed to manage this. A relative explained

“He’s not very good at managing his money. They only give him €10 per day for tobacco. Before he was going through his money and he’d probably be broke before the end of the week and I had to give him a lend.”

Question to consider:

1.Is Jim experiencing occupational deprivation or occupational injustice or both?

2.How does occupational injustice differ from occupational deprivation?

3.Is the way the hostel is managed in accordance with Jim’s Human Rights?

Reference

Kearns Murphy & Shiel (2018): Institutional injustices? Exploring engagement in occupations in a residential mental health facility, Journal of Occupational Science, DOI: 10.1080/14427591.2018.1531780

Lund University, 2016

During this first exchange, the focus of the learning activities was to identify the learning needs of socially excluded individuals, groups and communities using occupationally focussed frameworks and models. Students were introduced to these through the keynote sessions described in appendix 3. Aside from community organisation visits, there were specific slots in the timetable allocated for group work, reflection and development of the final presentation and abstracts. A timetable is included to review the activities.

University of Southampton, 2017

As well as the keynote talks listed in appendix 3, students engaged in a seminar on the second day of the physical exchange related to “writing a role emerging placement proposal”. Here, a recommended template was introduced that explored the required elements of the proposal. This was regularly revisited through the week and staff associated with each group reinforced the importance of the focus of this document for the final output and presentation. Aside from community organisation visits, there were specific slots in the timetable allocated for group work, reflection and development of the final proposal. A timetable is included to review the activities.

National University Ireland, Galway, 2018

As well as keynote talks listed in appendix 3, students participated in a workshop to develop audio recordings on the second day of the physical exchange. This was the recommended programme that the students were to use for editing the podcast that they were to produce by the end of the week. This podcast was provided to the community organisations and part-presented at the end of week conference. The below timetable offers details about the learning week.

Development of professional skills and competencies Survey

1. Approximately how many weeks of field work have you completed? ___________________

2. Please tick the areas of practice you have completed (you may tick more than one):

3. Please indicate any current and/or past work experiences that are relevant to your current studies?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. What was the main influence(s) in your decision to become an occupational therapist?(please tick as many as apply)

1. Please rate the following statements on a scale of 1-4 (1=Strongly disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Agree, 4=Strongly agree)

    

1. Please rate the following statements on a scale of 1-4 (1=Strongly disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Agree, 4=Strongly agree). At this point in my education I feel equipped to:

    

1. Please select your responses to the following statements

    

1. Please rate your level of agreement/disagreement with the following statements, how have the following statements  in your program enhanced your development as a professional.