What is Occupational Therapy?

In September, Becky had the pleasure of travelling up to Edinburgh to attend the Royal College of Occupational Therapist's Specialist Section - Independent Practice Conference. The theme for the day was building up excellence in independent Occupational Therapy. It has inspired us to finally get started on writing some blog posts to raise awareness of hot topics in OT and children's acquired brain injury; and where better place to start than: "What is Occupational Therapy?"

Occupational Therapists are historically not great at describing what they do! Most people only begin to understand the role when they need an Occupational Therapist. One of the speakers at the conference was Jonathan Godwin, retired escapologist. He reflected on his experience of occupational therapy following a spinal injury in 2021.

"Magicians have things in common with Occupational Therapists... they do things that people think are impossible. [The Royal College of Occupational Therapy] should be called the Royal College of Magicians"

Most people think of occupation as referring to paid employment but in the old days, occupation referred to all the things that we need and want to do, and that is where the term is derived from. Today Occupational Therapists work with neonates all the way through to centurions, enabling them to participate in the things that they need and want to do in the home, community, work, and everywhere else in-between. HOW we do that depends on multiple factors. Occupational Therapists use their wealth of knowledge in the art of 'doing, being, becoming and belonging' to carefully tailor their interventions for each client.

Let's consider the occupations of a child or young person throughout a typical day. It could include engaging in washing and dressing in the morning; it might be working in school to explore the options on how they record their schoolwork. It could be managing fatigue, to get through the day so that they can go to football club after school. As children get older and move towards their teenage years, we tend to start thinking about working on independent living skills such as preparing meals or managing money. For some young people that really will be independent. For others independence might look slightly different and here at participate, we don't focus necessarily on being completely independent. We acknowledge that as beings we we are interdependent on one another. What's important, is that we are able to engage in the activities that are meaningful to us, and to a level that we are satisfied with and that gives us meaning, purpose and a sense of belonging and joy

If you think Occupational Therapy could help your child then send us an email, we'd love to chat more about what we can offer.