Description
This session will be presented by Rulaine Smith and facilitated by the Partners at the OT Link
Rulaine Smith completed her B(OT) degree at University of Pretoria. She holds Postgraduate Diploma’s in Vocational Rehabilitation and Health Sciences Education. Rulaine held a bursary from the South African National Defense Force and began her career in Psychiatry at Military 1 hospital where she later became Head of Department. She went on to lecture in the field of Psychiatry at the University of Pretoria and then The University of Witwatersrand. She was awarded the Wits School of Therapeutic Sciences “Mentorship Award” for 2020, demonstrating her passion for development and mentorship of young OTs. She has co-supervised Master of Science students and has co-authored publications in mental health and higher education. She furthered her passion for Mental Health Occupational Therapy by participating in an international lecturer exchange program with Goteborg University, Sweden and has presented at local and international conferences to this end. Rulaine also has experience in vocational rehabilitation and medico-legal work.
Rulaine is currently serving as Deputy Director for Occupational Therapy within the Johannesburg District Specialist Mental Health Team. She fully supports a collaborative, integrated approach to mental health service delivery and uses her role within the District Specialist Mental Health Team to actualize this philosophy.
Jennifer Hooper (MSc(OT)) has worked in the public health, private practice, and NPO clinical settings covering general practice, paediatrics (medicine and surgery, neurology, psychiatry, learning and development) and medico-legal functional capacity client loads. She has also taught in the under graduate OT programme at WITS University and at post graduate level predominantly in the fields of neurological rehabilitation and paediatrics. Jennifer’s passions include: teaching and learning; working with families and children towards realising their goals and happy, healthy living; multi-disciplinary, quality service delivery based on sound evidence-based principles; activities(!) and the magic of the task-orientated approach.
Lauren Michell (MSc(OT)) has clinical experience in community, spinal cord rehabilitation, wheelchair seating, sports classification and medico-legal functional capacity evaluations. She worked as lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand predominantly in the field of adult physical rehabilitation. Lauren is passionate about return to work and vocational rehabilitation, particularly in the field of spinal cord injury and this formed the basis for her Masters dissertation. She values evidence-based practice, sound teaching and learning principles and goal driven therapy.
While her interests lie mainly in Adult Rehabilitation, Lauren brings her passion for mentoring young graduates and her years of experience to assist in answering broad questions and facilitating discussion across a range of topics in this session.
