Despite the current conflict in Ukraine rehabilitation leaders in the country are doing all that they can to forward workforce development initiatives to strengthen rehabilitation services. As part of ReLAB-HS, Physiopedia recently organised a two day workshop in Poland to facilitate collaboration towards overcoming workforce challenges in Ukraine.
ReLAB-HS is responding to identified global workforce development needs to strengthen the rehabilitation workforce which is key to functioning health systems. An international rehabilitation education and training toolkit (IRETT) that includes courses and resources is being developed to support education and training initiatives. The tools will be globally relevant so that they can be adopted by anyone but will be accompanied by guidance to facilitate adaptation to any specific local context. Needs based workforce development activities targeting regulation, curricula strengthening, clinical skills training and advocacy will be implemented in multiple countries with a focus on creating opportunities for sustainability and scale.
Historic and and recent changes to rehabilitation related legislation in Ukraine has presented many immediate challenges for stakeholders that are already delivering education and also working towards professional regulation. The workshop in Poland presented a unique opportunity to implement initial versions of the IRETT tools that support these two key themes for workforce development.
Day one discussions focused on the challenging regulation matters and an action plan was created for a working group to forward activities towards professional regulation. On day two the program reflection tool was used to explore the strengthening of academic curricula towards approval with international professional associations. One participant concluded that the day had “changed [her] vision for education in Ukraine” another reported that the event had “really given [her] structure to technically support education in Ukraine”.
This has changed my vision for education in Ukraine.
In attendance were representatives from 4 universities, both physical therapy member organisations, and the Ministry of Education and Science who had all travelled from Ukraine. Members of the Momentum led SRSHS project were also present to facilitate coordination between the two USAID funded projects that are working in Ukraine. Attendees online included the Ministry of Health, the occupational therapy organisation and the ReLAB-HS country coordinator.
To provide maximum access for all participants a complex arrangement of laptops, microphones and headphones combined with online interpretation through a Zoom meeting was used to allow English and Ukrainian speaking participants to speak in their own language and be understood by all. Both remote meeting participants and participants in the room were able to access this live translation, which facilitated full understanding and participation.
As a follow up to this meeting a community of practice will be initiated to take the regulation action plan forward and to continue collaborative efforts towards curricula strengthening. The Physiopedia team are very much looking forward to working alongside this very talented and motivated group of individuals in Ukraine to strengthen the rehabilitation workforce.
This work is supported by the USAID funded Learning Acting Building for Rehabilitation in Health Systems (ReLAB-HS) project and is not possible without the generous and committed contribution of the Leahy War Victims fund.
ReLAB-HS is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is implemented under cooperative agreement number 7200AA20CA00033. The consortium is managed by prime recipient, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.