Croatia National OT News Archive

News from Croatia, September 2011 

World OT Day – September 27th 2011
On the occasion of World OT Day on September 27th Croatian Association of Occupational Therapists is organizing a celebration party for all OT’s in Croatia.

Masterclass workshop ”KAWA model foundations and practical implementation in occupational therapy in Croatia”
Croatian Association of Occupational Therapists has organized a 3-day master class workshop ”KAWA model foundations and practical implementation in occupational therapy in Croatia”. Dr. Michael Iwama, associate professor from Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of Toronto, has shared his spirit, enthusiasm for OT profession and his “river”.

Dr Michael Iwama has presented the KAWA model through Croatian lenses, enabled us to use it in Croatian context. This master class workshop has encouraged and/or enabled a lot of OT’s to get a new insight and to critically evaluate our theoretical knowledge, practical skills and finally our professional work.


News from Croatia, August 2011 

Croatia became ENOTHE member – Croatian OT’s thirst for knowledge and the future of OT education in Croatia
As there is a need for development of occupational therapy education in Croatia based on ENOTHE Tuning process and in accordance with Minimum standards for education of OT’s, Croatian Association of Occupational Therapists is gathering information (curriculum content and implementation) and resources (partners, teachers) for establishing and developing new occupational therapy curriculum for Bsc, Msc and PhD level.

So, after a positive vote of the annual General assembly of Croatian Association of Occupational Therapists, we have sent our application for ENOTHE membership. There are several reasons for doing this, but the most important ones are:

  • Unifying criteria for OT education in Croatia and Europe
  • Quality assurance teaching
  • Improving mobility of students
  • Tuning and upgrading OT educational programmes.

ENOTHE has accepted our application and we become an ENOTHE member.


News from Croatia, July 2011 

OT licensing and CPD process
Croatian Health professional chamber has issued work licences for registered occupational therapists. From July 29 2011,  according to article 46. and 86. of the Law for Health Professions (Official Gazette NN 87/2009) only licensed occupational therapists can provide occupational therapy in Croatia. A licence is issued to occupational therapists for the period of 6 years, but they have to continuously work on their professional development (collect grades for participating on different courses, workshops, congresses approved by Committee for education and continuing training of Occupational therapist professional class in Croatian Health professional chamber).


News from Croatia, June 2011 

Workshop „Documenting occupational therapy practice”
Occupational therapist professional class in Croatian Health professional chamber has organized a workshop on documenting occupational therapy practice to promote the importance of record keeping as well as informing and facilitation occupational therapists in Croatia to use Guidelines for documenting occupational therapy practice. Speakers at the workshop were Sasa Radic, Bsc., Ivana Klepo, BSc,. Andreja Bartolac, Bsc., Jadranko Lisak, Bsc., Nevenka Markovic, Bsc., and Ivana Brus, Bsc. Participants of the workshop have been informed about current practice in OT documentation and the documentation approaches that OT’s use in health and social institutions. Also, lecturers have provided written materials with examples of OT documentation.

Workshop “Sitting and positioning”
Bauerfeind Croatia in cooperation with Croatian association of occupational therapists has organized a workshop “Sitting and positioning”. Bart Van der Heyden, PT, Director of European Training and Education for The ROHO Group USA was a workshop lecturer.


News from Croatia, May 2011 

Workshop “Introduction to Accessible Housing”
Being aware of the fact that today restrictions in active participation in daily activities are mostly not a result of disability but rather of societal organization (Michael Oliver, 1990), Croatian association of occupational therapists has decided to organize 2-day practical workshop Introduction to Accessible Housing. Workshop lecturer was Kate Sheehan, OT, MSc, director of OT practice. The workshop has given us a chance to encourage the OT professionals, as well as the general public to think and act on the principles of universal design.


News from Croatia, April 2011 

Annual general assembly
Due to some changes in posts of members of the Board, 2011 annual General assembly was in a way an electoral. Dubravko Jurisic, our former president has resigned due to professional and personal reasons. As we also had unfilled positions within Ethical board, elections for the new president and 2 posts in Ethical board had been on the agenda. Members of the Assembly have unanimously elected Sasa Radic for the new president of the association and Dubravko Jurisic and Mirjana Kucina (also former association president) as members of the Ethical board. Assembly has also:
-voted and accepted revisions of Ethical code (revisions were done in accordance with Codes of Ethics – COTEC Policy and Guidelines national Code of Ethics),
-decided to publish the Associations’ newsletter,
-voted on and accepted an application for ENOTHE membership.

New promotional materials – COTEC Position papers in Croatian
Croatian association of occupational therapists has translated following COTEC documents into Croatian:

  • COTEC Political statement “Occupational Therapists contribution to active ageing, health and well being in the older population”,
  • COTEC Position Statement on ”Poverty and Social Exclusion”,
  • COTEC Position paper on „The European Year of Volunteering 2011”.

Documents are and will be used for promotional, informational and educational purposes. Documents were sent to Serbian association and are available for COTEC secretariat.


News from Croatia, January 2011 

Workshop “Introduction to Accessible Housing”
Croatian association of occupational therapists is organizing 2-day workshop “Introduction to Accessible Housing”. The workshop leader will be Kate Sheehan, OT, MSc from the UK. More information you can get here.

You can apply to the workshop:

  1. Over online form or
  2. Open document Prijavni list fill empty spaces, save it on your desktop (Prijavni_list_Name_Surname) and send it to – udruga@hurt.hr

New WEB page launched
Croatian association of occupational therapists has launched a new WEB page. You can see it here.

OT promotion promotional materials (informational flyer,  poster Occupational therapy – functionality and independence, poster Do you have an occupational therapist, poster Do you need an occupational therapist) are available on the webpage


News from Croatia, December 2010 

Sensory integration therapy course
8 occupational therapists have successfully finished continuing education course in Sensory integration therapy. Sensory integration therapy course was organized by Croatian academy for developmental habilitation in collaboration with GSID Gesellschaft für Sensorische Integration Jean Ayres, Deutschland und International e.V. Lecturer is Kristiane Kull-Sadacharam, Head of Occupational Therapy Department, Kinderzentrum München, SI-Ayres teaching therapist, post-grad. Course on USC.

Ethical code revision
In accordance with the Codes of Ethics – COTEC Policy and Guidelines national Code of Ethics has been revised. It will be put in lunch on the annual assembly in March 2011.

Health professional council
Health professions council has established following legal standing documents regarding OT practice:

  • Regulation on the content, terms and procedure of continuing professional development
  • Regulation for monitoring professional practice
  • The ethical code of health professions
  • Standards of practice in occupational therapy
  • Guidelines for documenting occupational therapy practice

All of the above-mentioned documents will facilitate a better quality of occupational therapy services.

Health professions council has for the first time ensured the evaluation of continuing professional development of Croatian occupational therapists through Ordinance on the content, terms and procedure of checking the competence

Health professions council has published CPD courses for the year 2011.


News from Croatia, October 2010 

OT Skills Workshop
Croatian Association of Occupational Therapists in collaboration with NHS Trust will organize V. OT skills workshop in October 2010. Topics that are included in a workshop are as follows:
-Starting out with Stroke (Janet Ivey, OTR)
-Upper Limb assessment and treatment (Janet Ivey, OTR)
-Manual handling (Alice Hortop, OTR)
-A practical session on the use of humour (Alice Hortop, OTR)
-Vocational Rehabilitation (Alice Hortop, OTR)
-Managing Access to Occupations for Children with Cerebral Palsy (Anne Moffat, OTR, Fotini Maragakis, OTR)
-Understanding the impact of sensory processing disorder on the participation of children and young people with autism (Anne Moffat, OTR, Fotini Maragakis, OTR)


News from Croatia, August 2010 

Sensory integration therapy course
Croatian Academy for developmental habilitation in collaboration with GSID Gesellschaft für Sensorische Integration Jean Ayres, Deutschland und International e.V. has organized Sensory integration therapy course. The lecturer is Kristiane Kull-Sadacharam, Head of Occupational Therapy Department, Kinderzentrum München, SI-Ayres teaching therapist, post-grad. Course on USC. 8 occupational therapist are participants on Sensory integration therapy course.


News from Croatia, May 2010

Workshop “Occupational therapy assessment and intervention on feeding, eating and swallowing”
Croatian association of occupational therapist has organized Workshop “Occupational therapy assessment and intervention on feeding, eating and swallowing”. The lecturer was Vesna Cotic Costello, an occupational therapist from the USA. There were more than 50 participants on the course.


News from Croatia, March 2010

52nd COTEC meeting, Zagreb 19th-20th March 2010.
Croatian association of occupational therapist has organized 52nd COTEC meeting.