UQ provides grassroots support to disabled children in Vietnam

31 July 2014

University of Queensland students have built an outdoor play area to help disabled children in Vietnam enhance their motor skills.
The team of students and staff from UQ’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences has raised funds to create a grassed area at The Futures School in Hue, Vietnam.

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Head of the School Professor Louise Hickson said students on clinical placement at the school were concerned that its outdoor area was unsafe.
“It was filled with dirt and rocks and was not conducive to safe outside activities and play for children with complex needs,” Professor Hickson said.
Students and staff worked with the school and the Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy Office of Genetic Counselling and Disabled Children to install AstroTurf, providing a soft surface for safe play and a dedicated area for the children to develop gross motor skills.
The team of six students, led by Clinical Educators Teresa Quinlan and Allison Mandrusiak, spent four weeks at the Hue school on an interprofessional intercultural placement program.
Another six students and a clinical educator completed a four-week placement in Timor Leste in partnership with Antipodeans Abroad at the end of June.
“These placements are an opportunity to support our future health professionals to work in teams with people of different cultures, while providing much-needed support to these communities,” Professor Hickson said.
“We are building a workforce of health and rehabilitation professionals who have a good understanding of global health services and an awareness of the impact that they, as health professionals, can have in these communities.”

UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

About UQ Occupational Therapy School
The UQ Occupational Therapy School offers a two-year graduate-entry Master of Occupational Therapy Studies program designed for students who have a bachelor’s degree and wish to gain qualifications to register as an occupational therapist. This program focuses on the practice of occupational therapy, interdisciplinary clinical studies in child health, psychiatry, and pathology, and directed study courses in the first year. In second year, management, research, and advanced clinical practice is covered.
About UQ Physiotherapy School
The UQ Physiotherapy School offers a learning environment and has assessment requirements designed to facilitate the advanced and intensive learning appropriate for a master’s-level program. The Master of Physiotherapy Studies introduces graduates to the profession of physiotherapy and its key concepts in intensive mode during an initial summer semester.
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