5
NFPS joins HSPnet British Columbia
T
here have been exciting changes
happening within the National Field-
work Placement Services (NFPS), as
they have recently become a placing agency
with Health Services Placement Network
(HSPnet), for the province of BritishColumbia.
On average, the NFPS receives up to
200 student applications per year, with a
significant number of requests for B.C.
placements.
HSPnet-BC is used for many sites which
fall within specific health authorities, including
Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island Health
Authority and Vancouver Coastal Health.
In the past, NFPS had originally operated
independently, approaching approved sites
within the province to recruit placements.
More recently, an increasing number of sites
within the various health authorities asked
for placement requests to be made through
HSPnet and NFPS began to work collabora-
tively with individuals within the health
authorities to match placement requests
using the database.
In the fall of 2013, at the request of the
Committee on University Fieldwork Educa-
tion (CUFE), NFPS agreed trial test a move
from a seasonal session placement system to
a two-date calendar session. This led to
requests for HSPnet being submitted en
masse. Representatives from HSPnet-BC
approached NFPS shortly thereafter with an
opportunity to become a placement agency,
enabling NFPS staff to input requests
directly.
Management company, Megram Con-
sulting Services, opted to make the financial
investment for the service and staff training
to better serve the needs of occupational
therapy student applicants.
For the January –August 2014 calendar
session, NFPS received 66 requests for sites
that use HSPnet. To date, 13 placement
requests have been matched.
The collaboration between NFPS and
HSPnet-BC has been a very positive, including
the elimination of third-party step of submit-
ting applications to a specific health authority
for application entry. Now NFPS can input
their own requests directly into the system.
While this has increased administrative
work, NFPS is able to update, confirm,
and decline requests and correspond with
destination coordinators, making placement
offers a smoother process.
PLAN A TRIP!
Join Occupational Therapists from across the globe
at these upcoming events or explore their websites:
Pasadena, California
oT association of California annual Conference
october 16-19, 2014 |
Sugar Land, Texas
Mountain Central Conference 2014
November 6-9, 2014 |
Birmingham, United Kingdom
The occupational Therapy Show
November 26-27, 2014 |
The collaboration between NfPS and hSPnet-BC has been a very positive.
