Article written by Suomen Toimintaterapeuttiliitto ry, the Finnish Association of Occupational Therapists

Nearly 50 OTs and OT students from all around Finland participated in the OT-Europe congress in Krakow in October 2024. Most did not know each other, and many were new acquaintances also for us at the association.

We, the three representatives from the Finnish association, wanted to get to know as many OTs as possible from all over the world. We especially wished to talk with our Finnish colleagues about utilizing the insights from the conference in the Finnish context of occupational therapy, both during and after the congress.

As we met up with Finnish colleagues between the lectures and the inspiring discussions with colleagues from other countries, we on the one hand realized the many similarities of our practices and on the other hand noticed the great diversity of our knowledge and expertise. Above all we understood that all of us participating in the congress were empowered and inspired of spending four days in a world of occupational science and occupational therapy. All of us agreed that the atmosphere at the congress was amazing and we all shared a true wish of more networking back home.

The role of an OT is demanding and requires specialization. Within rehabilitation OTs contribute to creating health and well-being to clients through enabling occupation and through a strong focus on the clients’ possibilities to activities. As it is not rare that OTs in Finland work alone, we know that developing oneself and maintaining well-being at work, as well as keeping the focus in client work on activity and occupation sometimes is challenging especially when the OT is working as a private practitioner or as the only OT in a multiprofessional team. The questions thus rose: how do we at the association keep up the wonderful discussions with OTs from all fields after the congress and how can we support OTs experience an enthusiasm and a sense of belonging, as the ones we experienced at the congress?

As we looked at these concerns from the point of view of the values of our association, we decided to invite OTs who had attended the congress to three post-congress morning coffee sessions via teams to discuss the topics together.

During these gatherings we shared observations, brainstormed ideas and discussed possibilities. We further assessed alternatives and solutions. We decided to start by focusing on bridging the gap between research and practice as well as bringing together practitioners and researchers. 

These discussions helped us at the association to identify how to better support our members, strengthen the cohesion among OTs even more and promote the development of our field even further.  We are now planning sessions to support practitioners to identify research topics, write abstracts and plans research. Our intention is to also launch a podcast about current occupational therapy research.

Most of all we now have yet another shared experience of building solutions together and a strong goal of encouraging OTs to participate in future congresses.