Next Steps: If you are interested in volunteering to serve in any of the below projects provided by HVO (Health Volunteers Overseas), then please click the “Sign-up” button at the top of this page and contact Emily Dalton - e.dalton@hvousa.org - or visit the HVO website.
Locations:
- Episcopal University of Haiti, Léogâne, Haiti
- The new project in Haiti will be conducted online and will seek to enhance the capacity of the Department of the Sciences of Rehabilitation of Léogâne (FSRL) to educate and train physical therapists and occupational therapists. Volunteers might serve as instructors for courses for the bachelors’ PT and OT programs, mentors for FSRL staff through co-teaching, and providers of faculty development opportunities.
- Volunteer faculty will include licensed physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech language therapists, or other related content or clinical specialists – with specific expertise - and a minimum of three to five years clinical or teaching experience. Experience in similar settings will be crucial, as well as a willingness to collaborate with local experts and faculty-in-training. French fluency is desirable but not necessary. Assignment lengths are variable.
- The Inspiration Center Belize City, Belize
- The new project in Belize will improve the knowledge and skills of the current cohort of physical therapists, medical providers, and medical students through the delivery of informal continuing education. Volunteers may be asked to provide didactic lectures, clinical instructions, and demonstration workshops in Belize or online. Areas of practice to emphasize include, but are not limited to, back and neck pain; stroke management; pain neuroscience and management/trauma-informed care; neurorehabilitation; prosthetics and orthotics; pelvic health; home health care; exercise and physical activity instruction.
- Volunteers for this project should be licensed (or retired) physical therapists with content expertise specific to the unit being taught. Volunteers should have experience teaching the content being presented. Assignment lengths are generally one to two weeks in-person, variable online.
- McLain Association for Children in Tbilisi, Georgia
- This online project, in partnership with McLain Association for Children in Tbilisi, aims to foster collaboration among interdisciplinary team members in rehabilitation (speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, physicians, and nurses), as well as to update their knowledge and skills in treating adult and pediatric patients with neurological problems. In addition, the project seeks to elevate the position of PTs, OTs, and SLPs to that of professionals in Georgia. For now, volunteers will deliver the education and training online, with in-person visits possible in the future.
- Some examples of volunteers’ activities include sharing assessment and treatment techniques, building their Georgian colleagues’ clinical reasoning skills, and discussing how to find, analyze, and apply evidence-based practice. Those with expertise in the following topics are especially needed: neurologic conditions, orthopedic, and spinal cord injury.
*Begin the volunteer process and learn more by contacting Emily Dalton - e.dalton@hvousa.org - or visiting the HVO website.
APTA and HVO have had a strong and collaborative relationship since 1995. Over the course of this time, nearly 1,000 PTs have completed over 1,500 overseas assignments, site assessments, and e-learning assignments. APTA and HVO are committed to improving society, through their coordinated efforts, in the United States and abroad.
Health Volunteers Overseas is a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve global health through education of the local health workforce in resource-scarce countries. HVO volunteers build local capacity by empowering health care professionals in resource-scarce countries with knowledge and skills to address the health care needs of their communities. HVO volunteers are trained health care professionals - physicians, nurses, dentists, physical therapists and others - willing to donate their time and expertise to work side-by-side with their colleagues overseas. Since 1986, HVO staff and volunteers have collaborated with a variety of health institutions to design, develop and implement each HVO project, working toward better patient care around the globe in trauma care, child and maternal health, essential surgery, cancer care, rehabilitation, and more.