WCPT President Emma Stokes said: “Today, WCPT committed to being a founding member of the GRA. We were part of the small team that worked to ensure its foundation.
“Physical therapy and physical therapists are key to the delivery of rehabilitation. Since our own foundation as an organisation we have advocated for rehabilitation services. Today, we commit to global collaboration to ensure the peoples of the world will receive timely, quality and person-centred rehabilitation without financial hardship.
“We do this because a global collaboration has the potential to ensure support for WHO’s Rehabilitation 2030 Call for Action and can impact in ways that are far greater together than on our own.”
The GRA is an outcome from the World Health Organization’s stakeholder meeting, Rehabilitation 2030: A Call for Action, held in February 2017. Since that time WCPT has been working with colleagues from other stakeholder organisations to develop an international body to further the development of rehabilitation around the world.
WCPT CEO Jonathon Kruger said: “The establishment of strategic alliances and partnerships is a key way in which WCPT helps to amplify the impact and support the work of our member organisations internationally.”
The mission of the GRA is to advocate for the availability of quality, coordinated, and affordable rehabilitation through system strengthening according to population needs. It will work as a strategic partner with World Health Organization (WHO).
The GRA will be a platform for united advocacy and awareness-raising to strengthen rehabilitation in health and social systems around the world. Many organisations serve this goal through working to improve accessibility to services, quality of care, the building of rehabilitation workforce capacity, and strengthening of data collection.
The GRA will aim to further these efforts through raising the profile of rehabilitation and strengthening networks and partnerships.
The inaugural Global Rehabilitation Alliance board:
- President – Thierry Regenass
- Vice President – Emma K. Stokes
- Vice President – Christoph Gutenbrunner
- Secretary – Karsten Dreinhofer
- Treasurer – Jan Monsbakken
- Members at Large – Stephanie Clarke, Pierre Cote, Isabelle Urseau
Founding members of the Global Rehabilitation Alliance:
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
- Dementia Alliance International
- Global Alliance for Musculoskeletal Health (GMusc)
- Humanity & Inclusion (HI)
- International Council of Nurses (ICN)
- International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
- ICRC MoveAbility Foundation
- International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO)
- International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (ISPRM)
- International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS)
- World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT)
- World Federation for NeuroRehabilitation (WFNR)
- World Federation for Occupational Therapy (WFOT)
- World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC)
