ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

During the very long social justice debate that preceded the revised AOTA Code of Ethics there were repeated claims that social justice represented a Core Value of the occupational therapy profession.  Those claims have been thoroughly addressed here  and here .  In these entries and several other previous entries information was presented to support the claim that American influences are germane to understanding the driving forces behind the formation of the profession. In my ongoing readings related to this topic I was comparing textbooks and am developing some new questions.  I am very curious about information that was recently edited out of the new edition of the Occupational Perspective of Health, 3rd ed (Wilcock and Hocking, 2015). In An Occupational Perspective of Health, 2nd ed., Wilcock (2006) discusses the driving forces leading up to the formation of the occupational therapy profession.  She explains that changes occurred as Ruskin and Morris' id...

I want to share a message about authenticity in therapeutic relationships. Jim was a 40 year old man who participated in  a day treatment program in a rural community.  The program itself was conceived and nurtured by Jim's parents along with other parents who were desperately trying to find non-institutional program options for their children.  Jim had cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability.  He attended that community program as a school child and eventually 'graduated' into the adult day treatment program.  The program grew from providing services to just a few children to several hundred people with developmental disabilities of all ages.  The program was an act of love, gifted by parents to their children.  That is the best way I can think to describe programs that developed this way. I am not sure how aware Jim was of all that.  He was mostly focused on relationships with people and he had no disability in that social arena. ...

*This represents MY Summary and opinions on this report: As part of the process of gathering data to inform decision making regarding the entry level degree required for occupational therapy practice, the Accreditation Council on Occupational Therapy Education conducted a survey . In summarizing these statistics, categories of respondents were combined to simplify analysis.  Also, in summarizing agreement or disagreement, categories of 'strongly agree' and 'agree' were combined as were 'strongly disagree' and 'disagree.' That survey was open between March 13, 2015 and closed May 15, 2015.  There were 2,829 respondents.  The generalized categories of respondents were OT practitioners (50%), OT students (19%), OT academicians (29%),and employers (3%). The overwhelming majority of respondents (71%) agreed that the OT profession should embrace a single entry level.  This opinion was similar across all categories of respondents. When asked if the bo...