Occupational Therapists Driving Societal Change

Abstract

and in a host of United Nations documents on human rights, professional education, and ecological concerns that impact daily life. Arguing that human rights need to be put front and centre to occupational therapy education, we approached WFOT for funding to support an IAG working party to rework the Minimum standards. What eventuated is a vision for educational reform to support the radical paradigm shift required to truly engage in occupation-based, client-centred practice. In addition to producing occupational therapists imbued in occupation and its relationship to health, which is the focus of the current standards, we envisioned practitioners skilled in recognizing and responding to occupational injustices in every practice context. To achieve that, we proposed a new standard: that all educational programmes state their commitment to contribute to societal change. That is, students, educators, and practitioners would be very clear about what occupational therapists bring to the task of making their society more inclusive by addressing the needs of its most vulnerable members. One aspect of achieving that goal will be making the environmental component of all major occupational therapy models more explicit, in order to attract funding from outside the health services. Depending on the context, a commitment to improving the lives of vulnerable people might focus on the profession’s tradition of working with people with disabilities to reduce barriers to education, employment, housing, and health services. In other contexts, it might mean redressing the negative impact of colonialism, which is plainly visible in statistics for life expectancy, incidence of preventable disease and injury, poor health outcomes, high rates of poverty, addiction and imprisonment, and low educational achievement of indigenous peoples. In the United Kingdom (UK), it might mean practicing ‘social occupational therapy’ that makes a point of attending to the occupational injustices associated with growing up in poverty, intergenerational unemployment, homelessness, and human trafficking. Whatever the focus, the intent is that occupational therapists champion their expertise in bringing an occupational perspective to deep-seated societal issues. Communities and governments should have no doubt about the contribution occupational therapists are making to achieving a fair and inclusive society.