Maintaining Occupational Balance after the Transition from Student to Practitioner
Date: 10/11/2015 Host: @emmjacq
Thanks to Emma Carter for this weeks chat and Nikki Duffy for supporting.
Maintaining Occupational Balance after the Transition from Student to Practitioner.
The OTalk on 25 August highlighted some interesting themes around the challenges faced by new graduates as they start out in their qualified roles, as well as some useful strategies to manage these. Now, as the majority of new grads are a few months in, the day to day demands of roles may be more familiar but the pressure to perform and achieve may be ever increasing. Clouston (2014) identified that the current UK healthcare climate of doing more with ever decreasing resources, often creates a state of occupational imbalance for occupational therapists whereby work-life is regularly prioritised over other important personal and leisure occupations. As new grads begin to acclimatise to their new settings, what strategies can be used to ensure that occupational balance, and overall wellbeing, is maintained.
Questions:
1. As OTs, do you find that work pressures impact your occupational balance?
2. If so, what is the cause of these pressures? Are they environmental, cultural or personal?
3. What strategies have you used / considered using to manage these pressures?
4. What would be your top tips for new grads to prevent occupational imbalance?
5. How, as OTs in practice, could we work to lessen the demands placed on us whilst still demonstrating our value in healthcare settings?
Reference Clouston, T.J., 2014. Whose occupational balance is it anyway? The challenge of neoliberal capitalism and work–life imbalance. British Journal of Occupational Therapy 77 (10), 507–515.
OTalk 