This site aims to serve as a tool for occupational therapy and occupational science practitioners, researchers, students and educators who are aiming to work with displaced persons in their specific countries.
In May 2016, during the ENOTHE-COTEC conference in Galway, Ireland, it was recognized that there was a need to build a network of OT's in Europe who are interested in working with displaced persons. This site aims to contribute to this next by providing a map and description of current practice examples, a report and position paper of OT in Europe with displaced persons, discussion forums and resources for researchers, practitioners, students and educators.
Latest News and Updates
May 16
The PREP-IP working group: Persons with Refugee Experience Education Project (Interprofessional) is hosting a hybrid forum exploring : Making the Connection: Refugee Health, Health Practitioners and Competency Building. The event will be on May 24th, 2022!
Registration for this exciting programme open here.
PREP IP (Persons with Refugee Experience Education Project – Interprofessional) aims to build a transnational and interprofessional network to strengthen the capacity of health professionals to address the health and well-being of refugees in an inclusive, equitable, and comprehensive way globally. Over the next three years project partners (hyperlink) are collaborating to create an interprofessional framework for action on online education of health professionals working with refugees, a flexible and open online course and open educational resources for rehabilitation and health professionals working with refugees. The project will also document the process of building partnership for inclusion.
May 11, 2022
The OT Europe Interest Group on Displaced Persons participated in the recent ENOTHE Action for PEACE event. Members of our team will be actively contributing to the working groups: Supporting projects in occupational therapy with refugees and trauma-informed care competencies.
If you would like to contribute to the work of these groups please contact us!
May 10, 2022
Follow us on Twitter! We have a new Twitter account and you can now follow us and see updates of our work on: @OTEuropeIGDP
For more News and Update see the archive.
Statement on Sustainability in Crisis Management in Occupational Therapy
This statement was prepared for the OT-Europe event on sustainability:
In their presentation, the representatives of the OT-Europe Interest Group on Displaced Persons stressed the need for a sustainability perspective in Occupational Therapy support for displaced persons to be based on and consider three basic human rights: Seeking asylum as a human right (as guaranteed by the Geneva convention on the status of refugees), occupation as a human right (as stated in a WFOT position statement), and health as a human right (as expressed by the Constitution of the World Health Organization). As a consequence, a sustainable approach to Social Equity requires occupational therapists to draw attention to ongoing occupational disruption, to recognize occupational disruption as unequal, to acknowledge the root of forced migration as linked to historical relations and climate change and to feel obligated to push for just occupational possibilities and responsive health services.