What a fabulous day today is for us occupational therapists and the people that we work with.
It's World Occupational Therapy Day 2023!
The theme for this year is “Unity through Community”. This theme resonates deeply with our profession as it promotes our role in working together with others to facilitate participation and community interaction. As occupational therapists, we collaborate with many groups and communities for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole.
This year, I am celebrating by sharing examples of the amazing work I have done with my clients over the years. Feeling connected and part of a community can play a huge part in our identity, providing us with a sense of purpose, satisfaction, and overall well-being. To protect anonymity and confidentiality, I have changed the names of my clients.
Let's Meet Alexis
Alexis is a lovely lady with a learning disability I have been working with. A huge priority for her was creating routine and spending time outside of the home she shares with other residents. I've written another blog post on the work that we did together, which you can find here. But in a nutshell, I supported her to obtain a role in a local library. This role has given her the opportunity to meet others, develop her social skills, learn from others, and spend time in a place that she loves.
Let's Meet David
Next, is David, a young man in his early 20's who sustained a brain injury. David had a keen focus to extend his social network but found this incredibly challenging due to his social anxiety and cognition. We worked collaboratively with a speech therapist, exploring different groups and organisations that he would feel supported and confident to attend. With lots of graded work, supported communication, and self-management guides, we got him to a local meet-up group and a men's football group.
Let's Meet Roland
Lastly, we have Roland, a gentleman experiencing Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS) and changes to his mental health. Following his injury, Roland was unable to return to his previous job, a role he had been in for 20 years. This was incredibly difficult for him, with a huge part of his life upturned. We spent a long time exploring options that would provide him with the same satisfaction and explored options in the community to volunteer at a local green gym and participate in a local health walk.
We started with the health walk, and to begin with, this involved meeting with the group at the end of their walk due to Roland's reduced physical tolerance and anxiety around talking with others. We worked on conversation starters, building tolerance in functional activities at home, and gradually walking further on the walks. Eventually, this turned into him walking the full distance and even becoming a walk leader.
I hope these stories illustrate how occupational therapy supports unity through community. And just for a bit of fun trivia, did you notice the name choices? They were from one of my favourite TV series in recent times - Schitt's Creek!
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