December 8 Public Health Measures Announcement
The delivery of health services is not included in the latest public health measures government announced relating to the closure of personal and wellness services. However, continue to defer service delivery or offer services remotely/virtually whenever possible for the ongoing safety of yourself and the clients you serve.
Refer to the Safe Delivery of OT Services During a Pandemic practice guideline (November 27 version) to review the requirements when proceeding with service delivery either virtually or in-person.
AHS is Recruiting Contact Tracers
Back in March 2020 over 100 OTs signed up for the emergency roster for the pandemic. Since then much has changed across the province for health care providers, so Alberta Health Services (AHS) is asking anew for people’s availability to assist, in this case specifically with contact tracing.
Further details can be found on the Ian Martin recruiting site: Covid-19 Case Manager – Contact Tracer (Phone-Based) – Ian Martin
Note: As indicated in the FAQs about the COVID-19 Pandemic ACOT is permitting any hours worked as contact tracers, or any other tasks/duties an OT is assigned/deployed to do in support the pandemic response, to be counted as practice hours for currency.
UBC Inclusive Campus Study
The message below is from the Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy program at the University of British Columbia. If you are interested in participating in their optional study, please contact them directly at inclusive.campus@ubc.ca for the consent form.
Dear Fieldwork Educator,
We would like to invite you to participate in a study that investigates the barriers and facilitators to the inclusion of students with disabilities in health and human service professional programs. In particular, we are interested in the accommodations of fieldwork settings in ten health and human service programs (Audiology, Speech-Language Pathology, Dental Hygiene, Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Psychology, and Social Work).
Our research project is entitled, “Strategies for increasing accessibility and equity in health and human service educational programs: national perspectives”
We would like to invite you to help us better understand those barriers and facilitators by taking part in our study.
Who is eligible to participate?
- Current fieldwork educators who have supervised at least one student requiring accommodations within the last 5 years
- From one of the ten health and human service programs we are targeting
We have provided a consent form which you should review before participation. If you are eligible to participate, and consent to do so, we kindly ask you to complete an online survey. The survey will take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. Once you complete the survey, you will also have the opportunity to participate in an optional 60-90 minute focus group interview, if you are interested. Here is the link to the survey:
https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1ImLCtG13c80s9n
Reimbursement: Reimbursement of $30 will be received for those who will participate in the focus group interview.
Confidentiality: Confidentiality will be strictly kept. Please contact the research team directly and not via affiliated educational programs. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to email us at inclusive.campus@ubc.ca.
Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you. On behalf of the NFRF team,
Tal Jarus, Professor, Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
Operations Update
Please be advised that our offices are open by appointment only as per public health orders. Rest assured we are readily available by email and phone and look forward to connecting with you.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about today’s update.