Every registered occupational therapist in Australia carries the same annual obligation, and most of the confusion around it comes from a single misunderstanding: there is no external body handing out credits for attendance.
What the Board actually requires
The Occupational Therapy Board of Australia sets a minimum of 20 hours of continuing professional development per registration year. That is the whole requirement. There is no approved provider list, no accreditation body sitting between you and your learning, and no Australian organisation that scores an activity for you. CPD is counted in hours, and the hours are yours to judge and record.
CPD here is self-directed. You choose activities that address gaps in your own practice, you record what you did and what changed as a result, and you keep the evidence in case you are audited. An event organiser cannot award you anything. What they can do is give you something worth attending and the documentation to prove you were there.
This distinction matters when you are choosing between sessions. Anyone promising you a fixed tally for turning up is describing a system that does not operate in Australia, which tells you something about how often they work with OTs here.
Why assistive technology is worth your hours
Prescribing decisions age quickly. Products change, funding rules change, and the gap between a demonstration video and a device in a client's hands is wide enough to swallow a plan review.
Time spent handling equipment tends to pay back faster than time spent reading about it. You learn what a smart lock sounds like when the battery is low, how a voice assistant handles a speech pattern it was not trained on, and which devices fail in ways your client will have to live with. Our guide to trialling assistive technology before you buy covers the same ground from the participant's side.
If your recent CPD has been weighted toward assessment and reporting, hands-on product work is a reasonable way to balance the portfolio. The 2026 changes to OT assessments have pushed a lot of practitioners in the opposite direction.
The two hours our session provides
We run a smart home assistive technology session for occupational therapists at our Leederville office. It provides two hours, and they are earned differently:
- 1.0 contact hour for the time in the room, handling the equipment
- 1.0 self-directed hour for the course materials and short assessment you complete afterwards
Your certificate states these separately, because only the time in the room is a contact hour. Merging them into a single figure would misrepresent what you did, and an auditor reading your portfolio would be right to query it.
The room holds five people. That is the whole room rather than a scarcity tactic, and it is deliberate: five is roughly the number who can each get their hands on a device without waiting.
What happens in the room
You handle the equipment. Smart locks, lighting, voice control, door automation and the sensors that sit behind fall detection, set up in a working home rather than on a trestle table.
Nobody presents a sales pitch. Ask for a quote afterwards if you want one, and if you do not, you will not hear from us about it. We also do not pay for referrals and do not intend to, because you are a prescriber and any payment from us to you would be a conflict you would need to disclose to your client.
Booking a seat
Two sessions are running at C1A 15/212 Carr Place, Leederville:
- Tuesday 29 September, 1PM to 2PM AWST
- Thursday 1 October, 5PM to 6PM AWST
Both are free. You can book a seat on the session page, or email info@innogreen.net.au if neither time works and we will tell you when the next one runs.
Support coordinators and care managers ask about this regularly. The room is built for prescribers, so email us instead and we will place you in a session set up for coordination rather than prescription.
If you are newer to this area of practice, what to expect from an OT assessment is a useful starting point before you attend.