Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2019_Joomag | Page 46

REPORT CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Always improving
Helen Jowett, Rachel Orr,
Amie Martin, Leah Sheffield
and Lynette Duffield,
occupational therapists
working at University Hospital
Southampton, explain how
they set up a conference to
showcase the diversity
of the profession
U
Conference team (l to r): Amie Martin, Rachel Orr, Helen Jowett, Leah Sheffield, Lynette Duffield
niversity Hospital Southampton is a large
teaching and regional centre, as well as
being one of England’s 22 major trauma
centres.
Due to our close links with local services in
surrounding hospitals and the community we felt well
placed to set up an event with the aim of bringing
together occupational therapists working within
primary, secondary and social care, across physical
and mental health and all age groups, to share best
practice across the Wessex region, and to celebrate
100 years of occupational therapy.
A date was set for 10 April 2018, and planning
began just six months before. As a team, we had
limited knowledge of setting up a conference, from
administration, IT and finances, to catering and
marketing. It was a steep learning curve.
Our initial challenge was ensuring the programme
met the needs of the diverse audience and
sourcing presenters in a timely manner. A varied
programme was finalised after three months, with
13 presentations on a variety of topics, including:
100 years of occupational therapy; occupational
therapists in clinical academic allied health
professional roles; burns and plastics hand therapy;
case studies; moving and handling; urgent care;
housing adaptations; community paediatrics; and
occupational therapy integration.
From the start we were keen for the conference
to be low cost to the delegates and therefore made
the decision to source finances through company
representatives, a number of whom kindly supported
our event, giving us a budget for providing lunch and
refreshments. They also each had a demonstration
area to promote their products and services
during networking breaks. In addition, we sourced
46 OTnews February 2019
promotional material from the Royal College of
Occupational Therapists.
Our next challenge was to market the event.
Despite our close links with other therapy services,
we found it very difficult to identify all occupational
therapy teams across such a large area to
disseminate the information.
We found it difficult to access contact details for
teams that we do not have regular contact with,
including mental health and learning disabilities, which
was particularly challenging alongside our clinical
roles.
Unfortunately, this meant that information about
the event was not disseminated as widely as planned
and we had to rely heavily on our own personal
contacts.
However, in the end, the event attracted an
audience of almost 80 delegates across a wide
range of services, including students from the local
universities.
To ensure the day ran smoothly we allocated
various roles to people, which included organising
food and refreshments, setting up the IT and
presentations, co-ordinating social media including
regular tweets and photography, and meeting the
various representatives.
We also allocated a time keeper in order to keep
the presenters on schedule and introduced each
speaker.
As well as a wide variety of presentations there
were also many opportunities for networking
throughout the day. Delegates had the opportunity
to discuss their own experiences and build greater
relationships with colleagues between inpatient and
community settings, who they would not usually have
the opportunity to interact with face to face.