New Year, New Start......

Happy New Year to all our blog followers! I know this may seem a bit late in the month but things have been a bit hectic here over the last few weeks. Christmas and New Year saw a fall of snow that hasn't been seen here for at least 20 years. Things got so bad that the university closed for a day and had to close the car parks for 3 days as the ice was treacherous. This also impacted on some student assessments and unfortunately a few exams and vivas have had to rescheduled.
You know the old saying "be careful what you wish for"? Well we certainly got a white christmas - and very pretty it was too - but a nightmare for getting back into the routine of everyday life. Some staff who live out into the wilds of beyond were snowed in for a couple of weeks overall. Thank goodness we are all technologically literate - we were able to continue working for most of that time and had access to each other through emails and skype - even through the virtual classroom for meetings etc.

Well we are back to "normal" now and into the assessment period where we are busy marking both undergraduate and post graduate students' work and making any last minute preparations to the next semester.

This new year starts with a couple of additions to the team in the form of Honorary Professors. We are pleased to confirm here that Dr Katrina Brannigan (PhD, BSc OT; Reader in Occupational Therapy University York St John) and Frank Kronenberg, (BScOT, BA(Ed), International Guest Lecturer in Occupational Therapy; Spirit of Survivors Occupational Therapists without Borders; Coordinator,WFOT Community-Based Rehabilitation Project; and Lecturer, Hogeschool Zuyd, Netherlands). have been awarded an Honorary Professorship with the university and will be engaging with us and our students on a number of exciting projects and/or events over the coming year - more details to follow - watch this space!

Heather Davidson has also worked hard to get Andy Burnham, the Cabinet Secretary of State for Health and MP for Leigh, into the university in a few weeks time to give an inspirational address to students and professionals relating to the importance of leadership within Health and Social Care referring to his own journey and experience of leadership.

Our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes are busy recruiting for the next academic year to start in September 2010. If you would like further information on undergraduate or postgraduate programmes please click on them for further information. Of course our new MSc Psycho-Oncology begins in a few weeks time also.

Sarah and I will be running another webinar about the MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy online programme - possibly in May. So if you fancy joining us in a virtual reality and discussing the programme and how it works we would love to "see" you. We will be confirming details nearer the time - again watch this space.

So, apart from the usual new year resolutions to eat healthier, get fitter etc etc I will endeavour to write more blog posts to keep you upto date with the comings and goings within the academic year.
Please feel free to let me know what you would like to see more of in terms of discussion and generation of ideas etc.
Here's to a good 2010!!

Do you want a PhD?

Graduate Teaching Assistantship / PhD research student

University of Salford, Faculty of Health and Social Care

The Directorate of Occupational Therapy, within the Faculty of Health and Social Care is seeking to appoint a Graduate Teaching Assistant /PhD Research Student. The position will involve working with academic staff in a range of teaching, learning and assessment activities to support undergraduate student learning, relating to occupational therapy, for 180 hours per academic year. The remaining time will be devoted to a PhD research programme.

The proposed research topic is

‘Being on the receiving end of allied health therapies: the narratives of service-users receiving long term care in the community.’

The scholarship is worth £13,290 per year (2009-2010 levels) over three years. It is available to United Kingdom and European Union students.

Applicants must possess a good honours degree in Occupational Therapy and be able to demonstrate the potential to complete successfully a higher degree by research. This is an excellent opportunity for those wishing to complete a PhD whilst gaining teaching experience in Higher Education.

Applicants should submit a PhD research application form (including a summary research proposal) and a covering letter that evidences experience of, and commitment to, university teaching and learning at undergraduate level.

Applications close on Friday, 5th February 2010.

For further information contact:

Dr Jackie Taylor

T +44 (0)161 295 2383

Email: j.taylor[@]salford.ac.uk

Debbie Whittaker

T +44 (0) 161 295 2398

E mail: d.s.whittaker[@]salford.ac.uk

Reflections on Romania - the Second Visit

Where do I begin? The facts are usually a good place to start, 2 lecturers, 2 undergraduate students, a recently graduated student and a representative from an Arts Charity spent 4 days in Timisoara, Western Romania looking at how collaborative links could be developed with an Art Therapy Centre and other institutions within the area. During the visit the students had the opportunity to run groups for some of the children that centred around the concept of identity. A there ends the easy part to report. The visit became a very intense role emerging placement with each stage challenging the fundamental principles of OT and the fundamental beliefs of us as a team. We met very welcoming people, some who were directors of their institution, who would have been more than happy for us to 'do' activities with their children and it was apparent this is what they thought OT would do. We also saw several other 'professionals' 'doing' occupational therapy and acknowledging that they used the principles of OT. And yet they were asking for OT, they want the profession to develop and be recognised within their country, so the questions that this posed to us are'what would 'true' OT do that would be different?' 'Why should a country invest money into a separate profession when it would appear to be incorporated within others jobs?'
Thank fully we came to some positive answers to those questions but it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of others.

Education in a changing environment

Hello, just a quick visit to talk about our latest conference attendance. Sarah and I attended the University of Salford's 5th Education in a Changing Environment conference last week both as delegates and presenters.

The Key note address was given by VC Professor Martin Hall who raised some very interesting points on open access of information and the importance of sharing knowledge and expertise as opposed to the current models of intellectual property rights. Interesting points indeed which we will be following closely in terms of how this may impact not just on article publication but also on blogging in the future.

Our poster presentation was on the use of Negotiated Assessments within the MSc Occupational Therapy online programme. In summary the poster explained how we enabled the students to design their learning to their own specific cultural and professional situations and the evaluations the students made on this process. We are hoping to do more work and evaluations on this aspect of the programme this year.

Secondly, we ran a workshop on the use of web 2.0 and social networking sites to enhance student learning. Participants came both from within the university and also from as far afield as Hong Kong and Denmark. Discussions were held as to the value of these applications with specific consideration of professionalism, creating and managing an online identity and some of the ethical dilemmas that may exist in this area. Sarah and I intend to build on this further with more work in the area of building and managing an online identity as a healthcare professional.

Both inclusions were well received and we look forward to engaging in more work in the future within the topic areas.