Developing competencies for occupational therapy education and practice

Developing competencies for occupational therapy education and practice
Nils Erik Ness
Programme Coordinator Standards and Quality
World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT)
Associate Professor, HiST, Norway

Developing competencies for occupational therapy education and practice
Competencies
What are competencies?
Why are competencies important?
How to develop competencies?
OT competencies
Resources

Greetings from the World Federation of Occupational Therapists
- the key international representative for occupational therapy and occupational therapists

represents 69 member organisations worldwide and over 350,000 occupational therapists

Occupational therapy is the only health profession that has international quality assurance process for entry level education of its practitioners;
WFOT Minimum Standards of the Education of Occupational Therapist
&
Program Review Process

The Council of WFOT 2010

The Executive Management Team

Professional Competencies
are now in the process of being developed for most professions and disciplines all over the world
A search on the web will give many hits also related to health professions

This presentation is relevant for all health professionals but the examples are related to occupational therapy

WFOT view on competencies
is included in the following documents available from www.wfot.org:
WFOT Minimum Standards for the Education of Occupational Therapists (2002)
WFOT Entry-level competencies for occupational therapists (2008)

WFOT recommends that local/national context should influence the educational programmes
Competencies should be adapted to each local/national context

However competencies should include the following areas:
The person-occupation-environment relationship and its relationship to health
Therapeutic and professional relationship
Occupational therapy process
Professional reasoning and behaviour
The context of professional practice

2. Defining OT competencies
3. Developing OT Education(Guidelines, curriculum)
1. Identifying baseline
International standards (WFOT, WCPT) and National Standards
International standards (WFOT, WCPT) and Local/National context and needs
Local/National context and needs

What are competencies?
Why are they important?
How do you develop competencies?
Were is knowledge on developing competencies?

Competencies are
abilities to successfully carry out skills and perform profession-specific tasks and duties
abilities to perform work to a set standard in employment
the end product of an educational programme, or how learners are able to perform at the end of an educational process

Competencies
Represent a dynamic combination of knowledge and understanding, interpersonal and practical skills, ethical values and responsibilities and abilities
Are actions that need integration of knowledge, skills and attitudes

Why Focus on Competencies?

Why Focus on Competencies?
Common description for the practitioners and the educational programs
Education Competencies Practice
Set learning objectiveand standards for practice

Why Focus on competencies?
Maintain and enhance professional standard
Easier to understand the different roles and expertise of different professions (eg PT, OT, rehab therapist and rehab physician)
Support transparency for clients, employers and other stakeholders
May be used as baseline for evaluating individual competencies and educational programs

Guide design of national guidelines, curriculums and educational programmes(e.g., Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK and more)
Make it possible to have different content or sequence of subjects (different curriculums, but still the same competencies)

Support moving from teacher-centered and subject-centered education towards learner and competence-centered education
Put emphasis on learning outcomes
Support transparency during learning

Key themes of competencies for health professional(Rodger et al 2009)
Competencies are more than the execution of a set of specific, technical skills; It is also:
judicious and reasoned application of intellect to meet the expectations of the client and work environment
sufficient insight to regulate own practice
a relative term dependent on the context

Developing OT competencies
Since competencies reflect practice and are the outcome of educational programmes they should be developed in cooperation with academics and practitioners

The European Tuning Project
has developed a common methodology for all disciplines/ professions
This methodology has been followed to develop European competencies for Occupational Therapy by COTEC (OT practicians) and ENOTHE (OT academics)
The work was coordinated by the European OT Tuning Group (representing ENOTHE and COTEC)

The European Occupational Therapy Tuning Project
Based on critical study of earlier work by:
WFOT (Hocking & Ness 2002)
College of OT’s in the UK (Turner 2004)
Australian Association of OT’s (Ford & Tonkin 1994)
Canadian Association for OT’s (CAOT 1998)
European Curriculum Guidelines (Howard & Lancee 2000)
Standards of Practice (COTEC 1996)
Focus groups (annual meetings of ENOTHE and COTEC)

Online Questionnaire for all European occupational therapy practitioners, academics and students (Tuning methodology)
Open feedback process from COTEC and ENOTHE, e-mail and consultation with experts
Feedback from employers and client groups
Validation meeting with stakeholders (international experts in health and education)
Parallel meetings with the medical, nursing and physiotherapy professions

European OT competencies are described in 6 categories:
Knowledge of occupational therapy (5)
OT process and professional reasoning (9)
Professional relationships and partnerships (5)
Professional autonomy and accountability (5)
Research and development in OT/science (6)
Management and promotion of OT (5)

Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists
Profile of OT Practice in Canada (2007)
The concept used for developing the profile is based on the competencies framework for medical specialists produced by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada: the “CanMEDS Roles” (Frank, 2005).

Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists
The profile outlines the seven main “roles” of the occupational therapist:
1. Expert in Enabling Occupation
2. Communicator
3. Collaborator
4. Practice Manager
5. Change Agent
6. Scholarly Practitioner and
7. Professional

Issues and dilemmas to consider when developing competencies

Competences are the aims that are guiding all five areas in WFOT Min Standards
Philosophy and purpose
Curriculum content and sequence
Educational methods
Fieldwork
Educational resources
Educators

Competencies are often grouped under headings, but have common content in different standards

OT education should prepare competencies in following area:
Person-environment-occupation-interface
Collaboration and partnership
Enabling occupation and participation
Professional reasoning and behaviour; ethical, clinical/practical and scientific
Local and international orientation

Competencies are:
complex (an integration of knowledge, skills and attitudes), but should still communicate clearly
related to contexts (eg. consider if the health professional (OT, PT) should work in hospital or primary/community settings or both)

Competencies are:
described with an active verb, as a performance, behaviour or skill (eg. apply, collaborate, disseminate, demonstrate)
the core of the professions roles, duties and strengths (and does not include every single detail of a curriculum)
often related to national priorities
in line with international standards (WFOT, WCPT)

Consider
the number of competencies (not few, not too many)
difference between technical –prescriptive competencies (including verbs like: shall, should, must) and enabling competencies that allows flexibility and some variations of practice (Rodger et al 2009)

Consider also
Regular update/revision of competencies in view of national health needs and development
Competences formulated as a continuum to be developed through life; this continuum might be operationalised with specific learning outcomes at certain steps(1st, 2nd, 3rd year, Bachelor, Master, Doctoral level) (eg European Tuning system)

Competencies
Learning
outcome
Bachelor
Learning
outcome
Master
Learning
outcome
Doctoral

Helpful resources
WFOT Minimum Standard for the Education of Occupational Therapists (2002).
(available in different languages)
WFOT Entry-level competencies for occupational therapists (2008)
Online order from WFOT shop https://www.wfot.org/wfotshop/ or WFOT secretariat; admin@wfot.org.au

Helpful resources
The Reference points for the Design and Delivery of Degree Programmes in Occupational Therapy
(ENOTHE and COTEC 2008)
Introduction to Occupational Therapy
Summary of the OT TUNING process
Application of competencies (Including designing curricula and ideas of approaches to learning, teaching and assessment including fieldwork)
Includes bachelor, master and doctoral level
Challenges and trends for the future
Download book from http://tuning.unideusto.org/tuningeu/, scroll down to bottom of page, click third book from left

Helpful resources
European Occupational Therapy Competences(ENOTHE and COTEC 2008) translated into 20 languages:
http://www.enothe.hva.nl/tq/tuning_line2.htm

Helpful resources
Profile of OT Practice in Canada (CAOT 2007): Download from http://www.caot.ca/default.asp?pageid=36
Sylvia Rodgers et al (2009): A comparisons of international occupational therapy competencies: Implications for Australian standards in the new millennium, Australian Occupational Therapy Journal vol 56, issue 6 372-383.

Helpfulresources
More information on Tuning process:
Tuning Educational Structures in Europehttp://tuning.unideusto.org

Thank you
very much

Developing competencies for occupational therapy education and practice

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Developing competencies for occupational therapy education and practice Presentation Transcript