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OOFRAS Connect
OOFRAS connect is a space for like minded OTs to gather momentum by sharing ideas, information, and experiences around the world!
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- Name
- Location (city, COUNTRY)
- OT Role (work/study areas)
- Interest (what you'd like to network about)
- Experience (work, travel, volunteer, projects etc)
- Journey (how you have/can participate in OOFRAS)
- Email
AUSTRALIA - QUEENSLAND
Name: Clarissa Wilson
Location: Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: forensics, transcultural, brain injury and mental health
Interest: occupational justice, occupational science, occupational deprivation, pioneering OT services, cultural competence
Experience: transcultural mental health, develop refugee training, supervise refugee project, volunteer in India
Journey: Pioneered OOFRAS so OT profession is ready to respond to existing need and demand for OT services
Email: clarissa@oofras.com
Name: Jess Leggatt (nee McGarrigle)
Location: Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: paediatrics, Australian Indigenous children, acute aged care, aged care and adult rehabilitation
Interest: pioneering OT services, all things occupational, multicultural and Indigenous studies, occupational justice
Experience: Honours project involving Australian Indigenous children, published journal article, OOFRAS coordination team (volunteer)
Journey: Active member of OOFRAS coordination team, continue to share my passion and enthusiasm to help build the capacity of the OT profession to respond to the occupational needs of refugees
Email: jess@oofras.com
Name: Linda Rylands
Location: Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Multicultural sector and facilitating meaningful work roles, Mental Health and Well Being; Active involvement in OOFRAS coordination team
Interest: OT without borders, wellbeing of individuals and community through true occupational fullfillment, occupational wellbeing, occupational science
Experience: Working with migrants and refugees to gain employment using OT framework; 5 years in tradition OT mental health roles
Journey : Working with refugees and loving it! Enjoying navigating what the OT framework can offer in this area. Keen to network with any OT's looking at issues of employment, occupational wellbeing and refugee/ migrant populations
Email: lindar@mdabne.org.au
Name: Lara Moes
Location: Boonah, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Acute care & rehab for adults & elderly. EBP Project Officer. University OT tutoring.
Interest: Community development, culture & occupational roles, occupational deprivation, health promotion.
Experience: Travel through Australia, Asia, Europe & America experiencing & enjoying many cultures; assisting refugee group with self employment project
Journey: Encouraging & assisting OOFRAS as able. Awareness raising.
Email: lara@oofras.com
Name: Tamar Paluch
Location: AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Currently undertaking MOT; mental health
Interest: Occupational justice/apartheid/deprivation; venturing beyond traditional OT; health promoting nature of occupation; facilitating opportunities for social and economic inclusion for people from marginalised populations
Experience: Spent final year placement in Cape York Peninsula working with Indigenous young adults; extensive community work with young people
Journey: To promote social inclusion and the building of social capital through equal access to and opportunity for meaningful occupation - and to raise awareness amongst fellow OTs that challenging the systems that deny this, lies squarely within our mandate!!! Let me know what I can help with at OOFRAS!
Email: tamarpaluch@yahoo.com.au
Name: Nicole Boccalatte
Location: Ayr, North Queensland, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Currently completing 4yr year OT undergrad studies
Interest: Occupational deprivation, occupational justice, occupational science, CBR, sustainable development, social justice issues, mental health, spiritual care and palliative care
Experience: Recently completed a placement in Vietnam. Exposed to examples of occupational depreivation & attempted sustainable development initiatives.
Journey: I want to participate in OOFRAS via voluntary activities & networking which can open the door to new experiences for me.
Location: Australia
Email: nicole.boccalatte@jcu.edu.au
Name: Bojana Tatarevic
Location: Brisbane, Australia
OT Role: Acute/community mental health, geriatric rehabilitation,psychogeriatricsInterest: the programs for refugees and interventions/treatments (community integration but also OT mental health intervention for survivors of torture, trauma and PTSD-combat and trauma related)
Experience: work experience in mental health and geriatric rehab, interest in torture and trauma
Journey: first hand experience of refugee camps and willingness to share experience with others and contribute to refugee projects and campaigns promoting OT in work with refugees
Email: bojanaOT@hotmail.com
Name: Jeanette Isaacs-Young
Location: Woombye, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Private practice; coach, mentor, community volunteer
Interest: Keen to be able to cheer the initiative on, as it is one about which I feel very passionate
Experience: travel, refugee friends, overseas relatives, social justice networker and advocate
Journey: I was beside Clarissa when she jumped up at the National Conference in Melbourne, and conversations which led to this began,...and have been an enthusiastic bystander/supporter and cheerleader along the way. I hope to see and tell the story about many wonderful sequels to this great new venture!
Email: jeanette@lifestreamassoicates.com.au
Name: Bobbie Walker
Workplace: BMA Broadmeadow Mine, Moranbah, QLD, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Occupational Health, health promotion, work rehabilitation, soft tissue treatment, injury prevention & management, ergonomics
Interest: OT in developing countries, occupational impact of diseases in developing countries (e.g: TB, HIV/AIDS), homelessness, youth dentention, student supervision & mentoring
Experience: occupational health and work rehab; adult physical rehab; acute care (vascular); rural generalist community health (adult and paeds). Volunteer experience working with homeless people and children in detention (youth corrective services)
Journey: Keen to be involved via networking and discussion initially, but eventually hope to use OT skills in volunteer work and/or project work in developing countries and/or with refugees in developed countries such as Australia
Email: talktobobbie@gmail.com
Name: Francis Vicary
Workplace / Location: Women's Health & Wellbeing Centre Inc, Logan City, Brisbane, QLD, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Womens health, refugee health, adjustment to Australian culture by African refugees (women)
Interest: Adjusting to Australian life, occupations for refugees who are women
Experience: working with refugee women from sub-Sudanese countries
Journey: Sharing knowledge from working with refugee women (Did you know? There are no sanitary products in refugee camps and women come to Australia with no knowledge of pads or tampons!)
Email: flvicary@powerup.com.au
Name: Clara Chan
Location: Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Currently working in acute surgical caseload
Interest: Occupational science, pioneering OT services, cultural competence
Experience: Travelling/working currently in the UK, volunteer work in Africa, volunteer work with children in hospital and community
Journey: Haven't really participated yet. . . but would love to be involved. . . travelling the world has made me see lots of different things that we take for grated.. all those opportunities, basic necessitities. . .we take for granted that is so rare
Email: Clara_247@hotmail.com
AUSTRALIA - WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Name: Kristylee Sharp
Location: Perth, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Autism, paediatrics, disabilities, rural and remote therapy
Interest: International community development
Experience: Autism team, disability services, Aboriginal communities; volunteer in shanghai; china & Philippines; currently doing masters in pub health
Journey: Interested in anyway we can make this world a better place for all!! Especially using diverse OT and Public health and community development skills
Email: kristyleesharp@hotmail.com
Name: Amy Hewer
Location: Perth, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Recent graduate, with experience in rehabilitation, surgical, orthopaedics, acquired brain injury, paediatrics, refugee health and Aboriginal community outreach
Interest: Community capacity building, occupational deprivation and all things related to refugee, indigenous and international health
Experience: fieldwork placement working with refugee children in an intensive language centre, volunteering through ASeTTS (association for services for torture and trauma survivors) with refugees, 3 months in India (including volunteering at an NGO providing education and vocational training)
Journey: Let me know anything I can do guys! I am on a constant mission to spread the word about OOFRAS and encouraging other people to understand the role that OTs can have in refugee health. I heard about OOFRAS from Clarissa back in the early days of the web site and it is amazing how much I have heard and seen about it since – good on you guys!
Email: amy_hewer@yahoo.com.au
AUSTRALIA - NEW SOUTH WALES
Name: Joan O'Donnell
Location: Sydney, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Occupational Rehabilitation
Interest: I specialised in neuro before going into health admin and being a Quality Coordintor in both private and public sectors. I have a research Masters of Science (Medicine) from Sydney Uni; thesis "Outcome Following Intracrebral Haemorrhage" My main areas of interest/concern are social justice and the environment. I am an active member of the NSW ALP due to disgust over the "children overboard" affair.
Experience: I graduated 20 years ago from Cumberland College (Sydney) After attending a small country high school, I was an exchange student in Sweden - I learnt how hard it was to integrate into another culture without language fluency
Journey: Typically, I get involved in too many organisations etc but please let me know if I can help with such areas as "quality", outcome measurment or lobbying. Keep up the fantastic work!!!!
Email: joan.jlf@bigpond.com.au
AUSTRALIA - VICTORIA
Name: Jess Siede
Location: Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Community Mental Health
Interest: OT role with refugees and asylum seekers, occupational justice, community development
Experience: 3 month placement in Aboriginal community in Cape York (Hopevale), volunteer work in South Africa, friends who are refugees (from Afghanistan, Sudan & West Papua)
Journey: If there are any other Melbourne OT's who are working with refugees or interested in starting some kind of discussion/action group or just to network please contact me :)
Email: jsiede@hotmail.com
Name: Rose Cuff
Location: Melbourne AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Adult, child and adolescent mental health for 20 years. For the past eleven I have worked specifically doing project work with families where a parent has a mental illness. This has included developing peer support programs for primary school aged children, developing/providing professional development and resources. eg www.easternhealth.org.au/champs.
Interest: Am interested to learn/do more about the effects of trauma on children including the often cumulative negative effects of parental mental illness, disadvantage, isolation etc
Experience: Managed projects within adult mental health settings for past 10 years; presented professionally at loads of conferences/workshops throughout Australia; currently contributing to policy within Victorian department of Human Services; participate in local Oxfam activities and volunatry organisations.
Journey: My colleague attended WFOT and thought I should know about OOFRAS (knowing me as she does)! Feel I have the capacity now in my personal and professional life to contribute to this organisation.
Email: Rose.cuff@maroondah.org.au
Name: Sarah Lindeman
Location: Geelong, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Currently in 1st year Occupational Therapy & Science course.
Interest: Any OT work experience opportunities! :)
Experience: Traveling to vietnam in January for a month.
Email: slin@deakin.edu.au
Name: Judith Long
Location: Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Occupational rehabilitaiton. medicolegal assessments, OHS, management
Interest: I heard Clarissa at WFOT and was inspired to do whatever I could to help, interested in talking to other OTs re promoting basic OHS in developing countries
Experience: Travel, long standing family connections with newly arrived refugees from the 1970s and now with Sudanese families, daughter working in economic development in Cambodia
Journey: Healthy sense of social justice but not sure of the direction, but about to retire and intested in either volunteer work here in Melbourne (I live in the inner western suburbs where there is large newly arrived African population), have considered working/ volunteering overseas after this year, interested in meeting up with other Victorian OTs to discuss what we can do.
Email: longj@vic.chariot.net.au
Name: Natalie Smith
Location: Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Peadiatrics, Community Development, Leprosy, Disabilities in Developing Countries, Cross-cultural OT work
Interest: Refugee Health and Refugee issues
Experience: 3.5 years paediatrics in Tasmania, 1 year amputee war victims in Sierra Leone, 8 years prevention of disability amongst people affected by leprosy in Nigeria
Journey: I am interested in OT and refugee health, and in working more cross-culturally in Australia
Email: natsmith2004@yahoo.co.uk
Name: Theresa Kirwan
Location: Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
OT Role: Community rehabilitation. Also doing masters in public health part time.
Interest: Human rights issues
Experience: I've been a member of the OOFRAS group in Victoria for the past 5 months or so
Journey: New member to OOFRAS Victoria - discovering the possible contributions I can make
Email: tckirwan@gmail.com
UNITED STATES
Name: Yda J. Smith
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
OT Role: Instructor in OT program, University of Utah
Interest: Community OT services, occupational justice, role of OT with refugee populations, service learning project concepts
Experience: Guest instructor in Vietnam at physical therapy school on four occasions. Partner in community-based program for refugees at the apartment complex where they live, development of OT student fieldwork opportunities with refugees, supervisor for OT student research projects with refugees.
Journey: Looking forward to communicating and collaborating with others interested in this work.
Email: yda.smith@hsc.utah.edu
Name: Mary Black
Location: Chicago, USA
OT Role: Occupational Therapist at "The Marjorie Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture", a community-based treatment center providing a range of clinical, case management and legal-related support services. We primarily serve asylum seekers representing 50 plus countries.
Interest: Rebuilding new communities with refugees in the host country, exploring income generating projects maximizing asylees existing skills and strengths (particularly when asylees are waiting for work authorization and are yet ineligible for any govt assistance), promoting understanding of the impact of displacement, PTSD and acculuration on occupational roles, and promotion of occupational therapy's role with refugees, aslyum seekers and survivors of torture within our professional education.
Experience: I have worked with refugee survivors and asylees for about 15 years through the Kovler Center and partner programs in Chicago. Recently (this year) began work in Kigali, Rwanda with development of Family Centered Psychosocial Program for parents and children identified as HIV positive.
Journey: This is my first experience with OOFRAS and congratulations to all of you that got it going. It looks wonderful! And it is needed! I look forward to making connections with other OTs locally and internationally to share ideas. I am so glad that issues of occupational justice are in print now and at the forefront of OT conferences. I think OOFRAS can help keep that momentum going. Thank you.
Email: marypatblack@yahoo.com
Name: Lindsey Wetteland
Location: Dover, NH (school) and Orlando, FL (home)
OT Role: I am a graduating OT student about to enter the professional masters program
Interest: I am interested in occupational justice and volunteering. I feel very priveledged to have the life that I've had, almost too much so. I believe those of us with the ability should help others and be the voice of those kept silent.
Experience: I am currently embarking on research in the New England area (USA) to study the impact of stress on occupational repertoire. I would have liked to have done this study in a more...diverse environment, but I could not arrange a contact.
Journey: I joined OTION about 6 months ago to look for volunteer opportunities (with refugees and in developing regions) and to see what OTs are doing out there. I found the link to OOFRAS through the otion site. Networking networking networking *smile*
Email: lindseywetteland@gmail.com
Name: Jennifer Willard
Location: New York City, NY USA
OT Role: School-based practice (ages 5-12); early intervention independent contractor (ages birth-3); adult inpatient rehabilitation
Interest: I'd like to learn more about working/volunteering in Africa, and possibily elsewhere down the line, within refugee communities or with orphans; low-tech adaptive equipment; ensuring cultural awareness/sensitivity and it's importance in effective OT practice; community programs; health policy making; what efforts are in place to promote OT practice and to ensure its relevance
Experience: I'm a novice as far as this goes. I've traveled quite a bit, but never for work or to volunteer. My interest is new and I've only recently discovered WFOT, OTION and OOFRAS. I'm very excited to know that there seems to be an experienced community of people who share my new interests and with whom I can now network.
Journey: As I'm planning to go to Africa next summer to volunteer and learn in a refugee or orphan population, I would like to network on OOFRAS. While I do like what I currently do, eventually I'm looking to work within this field in a role that more fully satiates my interests in culture/cultural awareness, health policy/politics and well being/prevention. This trip would be a first step in figuring that out.
Email: jennifer.willard@gmail.com
AFRICA
Name: Juliet Hiuhu
Location: Kenya, AFRICA
OT Role: Paediatrics and mental health.
Interest: I'd like to put my OT to use in the various refugee camps in Kenya. I am currently in the process of writing to organizations in country that deal with refugee issues.
Experience: I have experience in care of the elderly as well as paediatrics and mental health.
Journey: Hope I can get as much information on this area of OT practice as well as pass on any information I gather here.
Email: juliet.wambui.n@gmail.com
UNITED KINGDOM
Name: Glen Charlesworth
Location: Leeds, England
OT Role: MSc Occupational Therapy student
Interest: Forensic mental health, occupational science, transgression and change in occupational patterns, marginalised communities
Experience: Work as health support worker in forensic mental health service, practice placement in prison setting, undergraduate degree in psychology
Journey: Currently working on masters dissertation re. occupational experience of refugees living in UK. Willing to participate in any way that can help develop OT skills, knowledge and resources.
Email: glencharlesworth@hotmail.com
CANADA
Name: Meghan Dewhirst
Location: Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, CANADA
OT Role: paediatrics in regional centre and outreach to small Aboriginal and Inuit villages
Interest: community based rehab, multiculturalism, sustainable programming, occupational justice and occupational deprivation
Experience: lived in India, Phillippines and Poland as a child; spent two months volunteering in the Himalayas helping to establish a program and train community health workers in paediatric rehab.
Journey: I am currently working with children in small artic communities in Canada and am planning on returning to India Nov08 to follow up with the program there. I would love to keep traveling and helping to establish sustainable rehabilitation programs around the world.
Email: Meghan_Dewhirst@gov.nt.ca
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