World Report on Disability 2011 - launched
posted: Friday, June 10, 2011
World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT)
9th June 2011
The World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) unequivocally supports the World Report on Disability (jointly published by the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, 9th June 2011).
This milestone publication seeks to address the issues of disability, rehabilitation and inclusion. The report includes a review of the best available scientific evidence, input from disabled person's organisations and professional non-governmental organisations, including the WFOT. The document provides a significant impetus to once again bring disability issues into the mainstream and further progress the participation of persons with disability in everyday life activities.
WFOT supports the Report and its relevance and pertinence to the occupational therapy profession. Professor E Sharon Brintnell, WFOT President stated:
'The World Report on Disability is a monumental achievement of pairing a comprehensive and global picture of the disability experience and human rights as a fundamental part of everyday life for persons with disabilities globally. A congratulatory note is so little in recognising the magnitude of its impact for the entry-level education of occupational therapists and other health professionals. Embedding human rights in their curricula as a basis to evaluate every aspect of practice is a powerful tool in the identification of gaps in thinking, actions and policies relating to the disability experiences. The utility of this report to all comes in its clear and strong articulation of disability as a multidimensional phenomenon and its under-one-cover integrated amassing of the evidence in all its forms of what must change. The World Federation of Occupational Therapists is at one with the Report's recommendations and will start working immediately with its 69 member organisations to alert educational programs and practitioners around the world to its content and existence.'
The World Report on Disability can be accessed at http://www.who.int/en/