Practice Development

We are fostering a global quality of practice that is relevant and sensitive to context and culture.

The Practice Development programme was created to support and provide resources for the large number of occupational therapists working in established and emerging areas practice. The programme area leads projects on evidence-informed, collaborative, interdisciplinary practice to move the profession forward in addition to working with many of the World Health Organization priorities.

The Practice Development programme promotes competent, ethical occupational therapy, which is inclusive, sensitive to local culture context and human rights. It maintains and enriches existing areas of excellence in occupational therapy practice and is pro-active in promoting evidence-informed, collaborative emerging areas of practice. The programme area ensures continued relevance of minimum competencies for occupational therapy practice.

An overview of Practice Development projects:

WFOT Position Statements have been developed on the Role of Professional Organisations in Monitoring Practice, Occupational Therapy in Driving and Community Mobility, Occupational Therapy and Rehabilitation, Occupational Therapy in Obesity in Childhood and Adolescence, Occupational Therapy and Mental Health, Occupational Therapy and Community-Centered Practice, Occupational Therapy and Assistive Technology, Occupational Therapy and Human Rights (revised).

A project plan is in progress developing a comprehensive, conceptually coherent overview regarding work and occupational therapy.

A Master Project Plan has been completed to develop the WFOT Quality Evaluation Strategy Tool (QUEST) that defines an international set of valid and reliable indicators that describe quality occupational therapy in an interdisciplinary practice context. Work on the development of QUEST was undertaken by an international WFOT expert working group. Using QUEST, occupational therapists can choose to evaluate occupational therapy service quality using their choice of measures that represent areas of greatest priority to them. In addition to a detailed user guide, short online instructional videos and an online course regarding QUEST are available on the WFOT website. Dissemination and marketing activities are continuing.

A project plan is in progress developing Innovation Change Agent Narratives (ICAN), which are a collection of exemplars highlighting advocacy, policy, and program development from different regions of the world. This project is an expansion of the WFOT Advocacy Toolkit and will include a live growing registry (repository) of narratives as a way to recognize global and local efforts to support the occupational therapy workforce to advocate, lead change and innovation across all system levels (individual, family/group, local regional, nation community, government/political).

A Master Project Plan is in progress describing how the WFOT can support the priorities areas for action in World Health Organization’s World Reports on Disability and Health & Ageing.

The Occupational Therapy International Online Network (OTION) is an online platform for occupational therapy communities to interact and share of knowledge, resources and skills.