Every day occupational therapists and speech and language therapists work collaboratively to provide excellent, impactful and evidence based assessment and intervention. The COTEC-ESLA Collaboration for Impact Award was established in 2022 in order to highlight and celebrate this interdisciplinary work in clinical practice. COTEC represents more than 205,000 occupational therapists while ESLA (the European Speech and Language Therapy Association) represents 50,000 speech and language therapists across Europe.

 

The response to the call for applications for this award was overwhelming, particularly as it is the first time hosting this event. We are delighted to report that four finalists have now been shortlisted for the award. Our independent, four-person evaluation panel remarked on the high quality of applications and the diversity of the interdisciplinary work submitted.

 

All four finalists will present their project in our upcoming webinar taking place on March 30th at 17.30 CET. During this webinar, an overall winner of the COTEC-ESLA Collaboration Award will be announced. We do hope you can join us for this event and to hear more about the wonderful work of our finalists which is summarised below.

 

FINALISTS

 

  • Finalist 1: Joana Lopes, Catarina Cavaco and Marina Moreira (Portugal) – Project: An intervention program for children with autism spectrum disorder: caregiver empowerment and satisfaction level
  • Finalist 2: Chrissi Kotretsou and Ntzelepi Maria (Greece) – Project: Video Peer Training: A Co-Design and co-production project with young people living with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorder
  • Finalist 3: Mary Stylidi and Ali Al Hayek (Greece) – Project: When Duty Calls on Praxis: An Interprofessional Integration of Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy via Telerehabilitation on Occupational Balance, Well-Being, Intrinsic Motivation and Quality of Life in Syrian Internally Displaced Children in COVID-19 Lockdown
  • Finalist 4: Rachel Moore and Niall Kirrane (Ireland) – Project: Working collaboratively to support a 55 year old transgender woman with life-long communication needs, severe dyslexia, anxiety/depression, and reduced occupational participation, in the context of recent gender transition.