Happy OT Week 2020!

OT Week is always a good time to sit back and reflect on the year that has been.

At OT Driver Education our passion is in educating and supporting driver assessor OT’s both in Australia and around the world. The education and training landscape has looked very different in 2020 with all face to face workshops cancelled, and for many months our clinical practices were put on hold due to social distancing restrictions. Like any good OT, we adapted and pivoted our business and focused our attention on building our networks and supporting the OT’s that have supported us over the past few years.

The needs of driver assessor OT’s have been very different in 2020. For much of the year the focus of many clinicians was not on improving their clinical skills, with many of us unable to assess our clients or work on their rehabilitation programmes for many months. The focus at OT Driver Ed during this time has been on supporting and building networks for driver assessor OT’s during the early months of lockdown and restrictions, and moving to support driver assessor OT’s to rebuild, recover and re-engage as restrictions lifted and assessment procedures were adapted to allow assessments to recommence.

During 2020 we have:

Run a free webinar programme, with 9 webinars on a variety of clinical topics presented to over 100 participants between February and October.

Facilitated two online zoom meetings which allowed over 85 driver assessor OT’s from across Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to come together to debrief, plan and support each other through the various stages on the pandemic and the impact on our clients, our clinical practices and our businesses.

As the northern states have moved out of lockdown and assessments have been able to resume we facilitated the development of a Risk Assessment for Driving Assessments and a Guide to Resuming Driving Assessments which were shared with the wider driver assessor OT community through OT Australia.

Moving forward we have developed On The Road Again, a regular online networking event for OT driver assessors where an amazing sense of community is developing. This is a forum for sharing success stories, seeking support and advice, and has been successful due to the commitment of a group of OT’s who are passionate about supporting the future of this unique area of OT practice. It was lovely to see everyone’s smiling faces today as we came together to celebrate #OTWeek2020.

We are looking forward to continuing these innovations into 2021 but are also looking forward to resumption of our face-to-face workshop programme in 2021 with some exciting new additions to the programme.

#thisisOT

#OTWeek2020