Juanè Raats

Juanè Raats grew up in a small town in the Boland named Porterville and matriculated at Porterville High School in 1999. In 2002 Juanè worked as an Occupational Therapy student in Belgium, Gent.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy in 2003 at University of Stellenbosch. On 23 November 2004 Juanè Raats   Occupational Therapy was founded in Bloemfontein.

In 2007 she graduated in Certified Infant Massage therapy at IAIM and graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma in Hand Therapy from University of Pretoria, 2007/2008.

In 2010 the first satellite Practice was established in Bethlehem, Frankfort and Reitz and ran for 4 years until it closed in late 2014.

In 2012 she completed Integrated Learning Therapy and in 2013 GAP therapy.

In 2014 she completed Sensory Intelligence Therapy and in 2015 in accredited Total Contact Casting therapy.

In 2015 the Practice/business branched out to Kimberley where it started off a satellite Practice. Now the Kimberley Practice is a full running Practice on it’s own. 

In 2016, Juanè graduated in International Certified Lymph and Wound Therapy at ILWTI America and is a Certified Fitter for JOBST pressure garments. 

Juanè extended the business initiative to a Hands-on Centre.

In 2017 she commenced with Focal Dystonia and Motor Control Therapy and in 2018 Juanè collaborated with Lymph Education Africa as a co-instructor in ILWTI and LEA for presenting and teaching the Certified Lymph Therapy courses and operating as a certified fitter for Juzo.

Also, in 2018 she graduated with an International Certification in BOBATH Neuro Development Techniques from IBITA. In May 2018, The  Female Entrepreneur Magazine hosted an article on Juanè’s astounding business. This proved to be a major inspiration for Juanè and resulted in an increased focus on business development. In 2019 she completed her International Certification with Lymph Training Academy UK in FG-MLD Lymph Therapy and a course in Driving Assessments. Driving Assessments also currently forms part of her business portfolio. In February 2020 Hand’s-on Centre was formally registered as an Incorporated Business. In November 2020 she obtained her certification in Modern MLD from ILWTI.

In 2022 she completed her Workwell Functional Capacity Evaluation V2.0, Workwell Post Offer Employment Testing Design & Implementation, and Workwell Introduction to Functional Job Analysis. In 2023 she completed her Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA).

The Practice received the Best of Bloemfontein Award for Occupational Therapy in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The Occupational Therapy Support Centre (OTSC) was established in 2021. Since then, she has started to conduct several Training Courses for Occupational Therapists and Somatologists. In 2022 she started to lecture part-time at CUT for the Department of Somatology. In 2024 she partnered with the Beauty Therapy Institute (BTI), by lecturing Short Courses for Somatologists and Beauty Therapists. Going forward from 2025, lecturing and training, local and abroad, will be her main focus.

In her free time, she enjoys visiting her friends, reading and she loves traveling. She loves animals and has two dogs which she adores. She enjoys being part of charity events and sings and plays in a local band that does a lot of charity drives. She enjoys composing her own music.