Czech Republic National OT News

News from the Czech Republic, 2020

As in many other countries, the Czech Republic has been affected by the COVID-19 situation and it has brought along a lot of changes. If we look at it from an occupational perspective, we see that it did not bring only bad things.

A great number of self-employed OTs had a lot of difficulties during this time. As an association, we had conducted a requirement for our government to let them be in a program Antivirus, which should financially support self-employed workers. Unfortunately, later on, we met with rejection by asking all the biggest insurance companies in the Czech Republic for granting us a way to pay OTs for distance therapies, also known as TELEhealth.

In the Czech Republic during quarantine time it was obligatory to wear face masks once you left your house. Due to the fact, that the government couldn’t secure enough of the protective equipment for its people, everybody joined together and started sewing facemasks at their homes. There has been a great new wave of solidarity and kindness among people that lost their jobs or couldn’t go and have had their daily schedule suddenly changed. They have found that helping those who need it the most is actually a very meaningful activity.

During quarantine, a lot of occupational therapists started to share their knowledge for free, made videos for their clients, and created webinars for free. We have encouraged our members to share their ideas with us and it also taught us to use more of the modern technology in our lives.

Our association created a Czech translation of a free OT Guide “A normal life has been disrupted” from Lorrae Minard of OT Australia. In March we translated OT Hints and Tips during quarantine and conducted a special newsletter from it. Also, we created two new sections on our web page. The first one conducts from recommended instructions for OTs and Healthcare providers about COVID 19, the statement from our President to the COVID 19 situation, and a lot of other resources translated into the Czech language. The second section concerns TELEhealth.

We have also launched a new project of Local Representatives inspired by the information that we had learned in the last COTEC meeting in Brussels.

We also didn’t forget to meet, while securing social distancing rules via ZOOM at our monthly Meeting of Executive and Extended Committee.

The final and little bit sad news is that we had to decide to postpone COTEC-ENOTHE Congress from this year to the year 2021, we are excited to see you there just one year later.


News from the Czech Republic, 2019

What have we been up to:

  • Recently we have published Guidelines for Applicants for the Assessment of the Occupational Therapy Field of Study in relation to the fulfilment of the WFOT Minimum Standards for Education of Occupational Therapists from 2016
  • We have convened discussion groups with selected experts and discussed future topics of the field of OT in the medical field
  • We have a new Instagram page! Follow us #ceska_asociace_ergoterapeutu
  • We have passed three selection procedures for healthcare insurance companies (in Olomouc, Prague, and Ostrava)
  • We now have 10 more members, and more are coming
  • We are looking for the new opportunities to expand our funding
  • A new working group has been established, which is focused for the field of vocational rehabilitation and prevocational assessment
  • We are currently setting up meetings with paediatric occupational therapists to have them involved in the OT education

What the future brings:

  • 31st National Conference of the Czech Association of Occupational Therapists

We are getting ready for the 31st National Conference of the Czech Association of Occupational Therapists that will take place in Ústí nad Labem on the 26-27th of September. This year’s topic is Resilience in Occupational Therapy. We presume about 120 participants from all over the Republic. The conference is organized with the cooperation of the University J.E. Purkyně -Faculty of Health studies in Ústí nad Labem. This faculty offers the bachelor’s degree education for occupational therapists, the same as other 4 schools in the Czech Republic (Prague, Ostrava, Plzeň and newly opened in Olomouc). What really pleases us, is that our Ministry of Health and the dean of the University J.E. Purkyně -Faculty of Health studies in Ústí nad Labem have accepted the invitation for this conference.

COTEC-ENOTHE Congress in Prague 2020

  • The organizing committee continues in the preparation for this big event, which takes place in Prague on the 23-26th of September 2020. More information can be found on cotec-enothe2020.com

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