Blog Posts

Yesterday  was my day off. I’ve had an extremely busy few weeks and for the first day in 2020 I was taking a break . ‘Well earned’, I thought when I sat down with a coffee watching Loraine on ITV, and there she was chatting to Katie Piper about the #FebYouary challenge. I hadn’t heard of this before but I liked the idea of a month to highlight self care. I’m always telling people “you can’t give from an empty cup” but in reality I think my cups overdrawn and I need to set up a repayment plan! I’m a “ spoonie” which basically means I have a chronic health issue and I need to balance my life carefully to ensure I have enough energy to do what needs doing, and prevent running on empty. I am also an occupational therapist who doesn’t always practice what she preaches, although I do try.

listening to Katie and Lorraine chat about finding time for you, and their participants sharing how they plan to engage with this, made me think about occupational therapy and how what we do influences our health and well-being. I hear lots of stories about health professionals neglecting their own health and well-being, stressed, overworked, feeling responsible, feeling like you have to be indestructible and hold it together for everyone else – this made me wonder what everyone else Is doing to manage their self care? I’m going to take the opportunity to engage in the #FebYouary challenge to re focus on some of my own needs and life balance. I shall tweet about this from my twitter account @GillyGorry and I would like to see other occupational therapists join in.

if you would like to join the challenge please use the hashtags #febYouary #Otalk #occupationaltherapy I will gather up the tweets at the end of the month and add to the blog.

https://www.itv.com/lorraine/health/febyouary-katie-piper-joins-lorraine-to-make-the-month-all-about-you

https://www.thebraincharity.org.uk/whats-on/news/691-what-s-spoon-theory

This week OTalk’s own Carolina Cordero @Colourful_OT will be hosting here is what she had to say.  

Research posters are a popular way of presenting evidence, allowing us to summarise findings in a way that invites people to respond to the research and to ask questions. As live tweeting of conferences becomes more popular, a particularly eye-catching or memorable poster also makes it more likely that the results of a study will be widely shared through people posting photos to social media (for example this one: witter.com/felly500/status/1064840703010893826t), giving OT researchers the chance to both communicate important findings and to promote occupational therapy as a profession.

With this in mind, I wanted tonight’s research chat to be a space for thinking about what makes a good poster in occupational therapy and sharing practical strategies to make posters that present our research in the best possible way.

Tonight’s questions are:

1. Have you ever presented a poster at a conference? How did it go?
2. What software do you use/would you use to make research posters? (e.g. Powerpoint, Publisher, Canva)
3. What do you see as the difference between a good and bad research poster?
4. Is poster design something that was covered in your education as an OT? Should it have been?
5. Have you ever seen an OT conference poster that stood out to you as innovative or unique? What was it?

Post chat update

Online transcript from HealthCare#Project 

PDF of Transcript #OTalk 4th Feb 2020

The Numbers

682.563K Impressions
201 Tweets
42 Participant

#OTalk Participants

This week RCOT’s very own Stephanie Tempest @setG75 and Julia Roberts @RCOT_JuliaR will be hosting check out what they had to say here.

RCOT’s Julia Roberts and Stephanie Tempest are leading the work to update two key RCOT resources: The Professional Standards for Occupational Therapy Practice, Conduct and Ethics alongside the Career Development Framework: guiding principles for occupational therapy.

For the first time the new Professional Standards have been combined with the Code of Ethics so we will have one resource instead of two. In the new Professional Standards, we want to publish a resource that acts as an essential ‘go to’ reference point to support day-to-day decision making – not a document that you only refer to when there is a serious incident or complaint. 

In the uplift of the Career Development Framework, we want to make sure the new resource gives our profession the language to showcase to others the unique knowledge and skills that we bring to all career levels.  And to ensure it continues to help us to plan our own learning, development and career opportunities.  

We are working on reviewing these resources together to make sure they align and harmonise. But they are different. Where the Professional Standards underpin the work that you do, the Framework supports you to identify the next steps for your learning and careers. They will only be effective if people feel they are useful and choose to use them, so we would like to discuss the following:

1. In what ways do you use or could you use the current versions i.e. the Professional Standards, the Code of Conduct and Ethics?
2. In what ways do you use or could you use the current version of the Career Development Framework?
3. We know not everyone uses the resources – why do you think that is?
4. What supporting resources could we develop for the new publications to help people use them across all settings, sectors and at every career level?
5. The consultation for these resources is open until Friday 7^th February at the following link and we’d really value hearing from you: https://www.rcot.co.uk/news/contribute-two-key-rcot-practice-resources

We look forward to you joining us on the 28^th Jan 2020 8-9pm #OTalk

Stephanie @setG75 and Julia @RCOT_JuliaR

Post Chat Update

Online Transcript from HealthCare#Project

PDF of transcript #OTalk 28 Jan 2020

The Numbers

1.507M Impressions
298 Tweets
35 Participants

#OTalk Participants

This week Fiona Page @FionaPageOT is hosting this is what she had to say

I am Interested in facilitating a conversation about what Professional Identity is and what it means to us as Occupational Therapists. We work in such a wide range of settings; with a wide range individuals and groups. We cover a wide range of conditions and situations within our practice.        As individuals and within the wider profession what does it mean to be an Occupational Therapist. 

Has our individual professional identity changed since we qualified and started within this profession? Where and how will our professional identity develop in the future?

This OT Talk coincides with a time when final year Occupational Therapy students are starting to think about making their next steps. So this is a valuable topic to reflect on as an experienced professional, but also important for those more recently or soon to be qualified, as our professional identity will change and evolve with them.

The questions for consideration are:

1 What does professional identity mean to you?  What internal and external influences are there for this?

2 How has this identity changed since you qualified or started training? 

3 How does our professional identity need to develop in the future? What will the opportunities and challenges be?

4 What wider skills do we need to develop as part of our Professional Identity?

Fiona Page, Senior Lecturer, University of Derby

Post chat update

Online Transcript – HealthCare#Project

PDF of Transcript #OTalk 21 Jan 2020

The Numbers

2.026M Impressions
542 Tweets
83 Participants

#OTalk Participants

This week Amy Wright  @OT_South is hosting here is what she had to say

For people with significant cognitive disabilities there is a potential lack of opportunity to trial and to develop electronic assistive technology (EAT) use to enhance participation.  People might use a single switch to operate lighting, telly, music, their favourite toy or a bubble machine at their friends birthday party! 

Evidence is weak, service provision is inconsistent.  In 2010, Professor Jim Mansell produced his ‘Raising our Sights’ report which highlights the importance of assistive technology (AT), the need for appropriate funding and research.  Assistive Technology also features in the PMLD link ‘Core and Essential Service Standards for Supporting People with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities’.   

The WFOT have a position statement on OT and AT, stating that ‘assistive technology provision is a core competency within OT practice’.  https://www.wfot.org/resources/occupational-therapy-and-assistive-technology.  However, not all OTs have knowledge of EAT or where to go for help and guidance in assessment and provision, to enhance occupational performance and improve quality of life for individuals.  And where do the equipment and resources come from?

Last month I helped to run a study day led by @zoeclarke77 and https://communicationmatters.org.uk/.  OTs attended alongside other professionals, technology suppliers and parents.  Presentations were given to share practice and workshop style consultations took place.   Discussions concluded that more needs to be done to improve services for people with cognitive disabilities, to allow them to use EAT for increased autonomy and reduce the level of assistance required to participate.  Professionals need to promote equitable access to EAT, to enable participation and well-being of a persons with disabilities. One suggestion was to get talking on twitter and so here I am leading this week’s chat!

Chat Questions:

1. What is current practice in your area? How are people identified as needing EAT (electronics assistive tech such as a single switch to turn on TV)?
2. What needs to happen next to enable OTs to develop flexible and locally specific strategies to increase access to high quality, affordable assistive technologies for people with cognitive disabilities?
3. What barriers and supports are there using EAT for people with cognitive disabilities to enhance occupational performance and reduce their level of dependence on others? 
4. What examples do you have where EAT has enhanced participation for an individual or group?

Post chat updates:

Online transcript from HealthCare#

PDF of trancript #OTalk Transcript 14 Jan 2020

The Numbers

944.212K  Impressions
335  Tweets
61  Participants

#OTalk Participants