Kirrily Manning is an Occupational Therapist (OT) who graduated from the University of South Australia in 1994. Kirrily currently teaches at both an undergraduate and masters level at the school of Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Speech Therapy within Curtin University.
In 2005, Kirrily started volunteer work, assisting children with disabilities in orphanages in Ukraine, later setting up a student international placement program for Curtin University. Go Global Ukraine facilitated Australian occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech therapy students to work in these same orphanages with a focus on upskilling staff in therapeutic care practices. Kirrily has taught at Curtin since 2006, and although the Go Global Ukraine program was suspended following the outbreak of war in 2014, she has continued to independently travel to Ukraine to follow up the work commenced.
Kirrily has now been working in Ukrainian orphanages for 14 years and is passionate about the development of occupational therapy internationally. In 2018, she collaborated with the World Federation of Occupational Therapy (WFOT) to establish OT as a profession in Ukraine training the first group occupational therapists. She is an international member of the Ukrainian Society of Occupational (Ergo) therapists and facilitated the inaugural professional development training session of the society last year.
Kirrily, together with the support of AFUO, will be working to bring a Train the Trainer program to Ukraine to help further establish the OT profession. This model works to ensure that there is a strong base of Occupational Therapy specialists and educators who can continue to train new individuals coming into the profession.
Our Cocktail Night kick starts the fundraising efforts for this program. Kirrily is the keynote speaker talking about her experiences in Ukraine and this new program.
When: 22nd June 2019, 6pm start Where: 3-11 Russell St, Essendon Tickets: $20 donation
TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE NOW: bit.ly/AFUOCocktail
