Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2020 | Page 53

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE of cerebral palsy, but the therapists also assess children with developmental delay, muscular dystrophy or unknown syndromes. Besides therapeutic interventions the service includes equipment provision, which has been accessed from the UK for the past four years through the charitable organisation Physionet (www.physionet.org.uk). During our visit, we met with occupational therapists and physiotherapists and discussed similarities and differences in practice, education, identity and the supervision process for students. One aspect of the collaboration was to see if there was potential for student placements for both physiotherapists and occupational therapists at the centre. The discussions highlighted differences between the students’ competencies in Romania and those developed by Oxford Brookes students during practice placements. A potential for future collaboration would be the development of mutually agreed performance criteria for practice placements, in order to graduate. The total hours required for graduation in Romania is lower than in the UK, which would also provide an area for future discussion and developmental work, in order to develop a more robust system for supporting and evaluating students during practice placements. During the visit at the University 1 Decembrie 1918, it was agreed to start a mobility programme to enable therapists and lecturers from Alba Iulia to visit Oxford Brookes and learn about how the occupational therapy and physiotherapy programmes are delivered, including student placement and assessment in the UK, as well as sharing their approaches to therapy assessment and intervention. So far we have welcomed Veronica Rosu, paediatric occupational therapist at The Maria Beatrice Centre, who was able to meet with students and lecturers at Oxford Brookes University and spend time with occupational therapists at the John Radcliffe Hospital and charitable organisations in Oxfordshire. We hope that the future collaboration will lead to the sharing of knowledge, skills and understanding that will enhance the practice as current practice in Romania would suggest that marking is more intuitive, rather than being linked to specific performance criteria. In the UK both occupational therapy and physiotherapy students are required to undertake 1,000 hours of practice experience and teaching experience for therapists, academic staff and students from both countries. Sally Feaver, Carol Mytton, Tim Ainslie and Liana Nagy (visiting team). Email: [email protected] OTnews February 2020 53