Skip to content | Change text size
 

Occupational Therapy course meets industry needs

23 November 2005

Monash's Peninsula campus has strengthened its commitment to health with the launch last week of its four year Bachelor of Occupational Therapy course.

Ms Rebecca Allen (left) and Ms Marilyn Pattison.

More than 140 people attended the launch, including occupational therapy practitioners, staff from Monash and other universities, professional association members from OT Australia and other community stakeholders.

The course, which will be delivered through the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, will incorporate more than one thousand hours of fieldwork education, including specialist rural placements.

It will have a strong focus on occupational therapy techniques as well as health promotion and will help develop community links in the field.

Associate Professor Louise Farnworth, who heads the course, said it was the only one specifically serving the educational needs of students from the Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland areas.

"Its location creates opportunities to develop strategic alliances and new partnerships between academic staff and those working in the field that has otherwise not been afforded," Dr Farnworth said.

"The course will also incorporate Inter-Professional Learning as one of its core hallmarks and links will be made with nursing, paramedic studies, physiotherapy and health science/social work programs at Monash Peninsula. Occupational therapy students will also join business students enrolled in the double Psychology/Business degree to learn business skills."

Speaking at the launch Ms Marilyn Pattison, Honorary Secretary to the World Federation of Occupational Therapists, said the new program at Monash offered a great opportunity for students living in Gippsland and Peninsula areas to study occupational therapy and to local clinicians wanting to participate in fieldwork.

"The students undertaking this Monash program are the future of our profession and you hold that future in your hands," she told clinicians at the opening.

"Treat it with all the care and support it deserves."

Ms Pattison also paid tribute to the occupational therapy team at Monash -- Associate Professor Farnworth, Ms Rebecca Allen, Dr. Ted Brown and Ms Pamela Kirke. The team designed the course with input from OT Australia's Victorian branch and representatives from local health service providers.