Country members/Belgium/news
News from BELGIUM July 2011
The registration organized by the Ministry of Health will start in October 2011 and already 6391 OT’s have participated to a survey: 4712 Dutch-speaking and 1679 French- speaking. Result of this survey concerning practice, study, continuing education,… will be available on national and regional websites.
Both regional websites are giving valuable information about registration, private practice, courses organized and also facilities such as purchase of books at good price, car stickers,….
Dutch-speaking regional association:
REVA 2011, a fair being organized every 2 years took place on May 5-6-7. This year, one day was organized as a “study day” with an academic session and a reception due to the 40th anniversary of the Flemish OT association and 20th anniversary of the workgroup ‘Antwerpse Geneeskundige Dagen’. COTEC and WFOT were promoted using posters and promotion was made for the next COTEC congress in Sweden using flyers.
Website: All PowerPoint presentations of events organized by the Flemish regional association are available (for downloading) on the website: at this moment “winter meeting”and “uiteenzettingen REVA”.
On the last Friday of September will be held an OT meeting. This year, the first edition will be on September 30th.
Courses being organized in fall : ‘AMPS’, ‘specialist-OT in rheumatology’, ‘OT method in cognitive rehabilitation’
French-speaking regional association:
A new website will soon be available with new possibilities for the “working theme groups” to share information between members of the group directly on the website, a brand new library, the “advantages” of the regional association, information regarding the registering process and the inscription to the social security system…
Different projects are also on their way such as a day of information regarding private practice
The regional association also supported study days: this spring “Ergo tous Azimuts” (held every 2 years) and 2 other study days are in preparation for the fall.
This report has been made by Marlies Suetens, Anne Ledoux and Claire Valentin.
Belgian News September 2010
In 2010, the Ministry of Public Health decided to start a procedure of registration of the occupational therapists, with the help of the national federation and of the two regional associations. The registration is aiming at giving an official status for all the medical profession and at establishing a profile of the practice, employer, studies, continuing education,….
The procedure is composed of 3 steps:
- The Ministry of Health asks all the occupational therapists to fill an inscription form on Internet to give their name and internet address to create a directory
- The Ministry will contact all the occupational therapists from the directory in order to participate to a survey. This survey is due to start in September. The professional associations will have access to the results of the survey and benefit from the collected data.
- Beginning of 2011, the registration process will start and the Ministry of Health will contact all the occupational therapists listed in the directory. The registration is aimed at giving to each occupational therapist, which fills the requirements to practise, an identification number. This identification will be needed to practise in Belgium
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In August 2010 more than 5.300 occupational therapists have already filled in the inscription form on the website of the 2 regional associations and are listed in the directory for the next steps.
Therefore, the Belgian occupational therapists living abroad are invited either to fill the form now to be involved or to register later on if they want to come back in Belgium to practise :
Registering is an insurance to be able to practise if you want to come back in Belgium.
On the website of FNBE-NBFE, AE and VE, the requirements to practise in Belgium are updated and foreign occupational therapists can find all the information needed : www.ergobel.be , www.ergo-ae.be , www.ergotherapie.be