User:Pamela Kipps Hansford

Born, raised and trained as a physiotherapist in Cape Town, I worked in the UK & USA for 5 years before returning to work in Spinal Cord Injuries at the Conradie (with Pat Davis), in Day Hospitals and at Red Cross Children’s Hospital while my children were small. I completed a BA in psychology and English through University of South Africa (and SACHED) before working at Vista Nova School (for 7 years from 1980 with Hannah Evans as my mentor) and starting a practice (1987). In this practice we work as agents for change in a psycho-social educational framework using principle based action learning with a person in the context of the family and their environment.

I have had the good fortune to be exposed to integration and complex dynamic systems (not merely traditional PT divisions) throughout my career. Structure, function and interaction with the world have all been fully integrated from my training with Miss Roper at UCT (and Paula Wilson’s anatomy dissection), first job in Cape Town (with Pat Davis at the Conradie) and then at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London (where Truda Wareham had us in at 7am for training, once a week for spinal and once for neurology training)

In this practice we work as agents for change in a psycho-social educational framework using principle (and evidence) based action learning with a person in the context of the family and their environment. The goal is to enhance quality of life by enhancing quality of posture, movement and performance skills in order to enable people of all ages to build confidence through experience of success and thus to empower them to deal confidently with their particular demands, challenges and opportunities of daily living.

The people I work with (teachers, leaders, colleagues and clients) influence my learning profoundly, so living in Cape Town in South Africa has been a huge advantage. Firstly, we have the challenge of numbers to demand creative solutions and secondly, where else in the world would we have had the best from around the world teaching us and presenting alongside us at congresses? How would I have learnt from Peter O’Sullivan that that the core system functions easily, efficiently and automatically at <5% effort and from Paul Hodges about anticipatory movement and and supporting ? And had the opportunity to present at WCPT congresses in London, Washington & Yokohama as well as IFOMT in SA, Norway and Austria, contribute a chapter on adolescence in The Person as Patient (Elsa Ramsden) and take part in WCPT-A’s CBR workshop which formed the basis for WCPT’s CBR position paper. Thanks too to other dedicated PT’s, in particular the national, private practice and special interest groups for their drive and the universities for sharing resources (eg for Kay Shepard her approach to qualitative research, to Ina Diener with her evidence based practice focus and to Sheena Irwin Carruthers who kept SA in WCPT, kept neurodevelopmental therapy alive through her teaching, brought teachers out here and taught and inspired us.

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This User is a member of the Musculoskeletal / Orthopaedic group This User is a member of the Neurology group This User is a member of the Paediatrics group This User is a member of the Pain group