Blog Posts

This session was the final keynote for the COTSS_Older People and what a way to end.

Maggy Piggot provided us with an inspiring personal insight into her journey with dance from an aspiring ballet dancer as a little girl through negotiating the charges of getting up close and person in the tango to becoming a member of a The Sage Dance Company 

This story was intertwined with perspectives on the role that dance played during a period of ill health which led ultimately to an early and unwanted retirement. Maggy described the impact of this unexpected transition into retirement on her in terms of things like loss of role, identity and purpose and physical well being. She talked about how dance helped her to navigate her way through this period of change.

She described how she became involved in Open Age (Maggy is now a Trustee). Open Age is an organisation working across Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham which aims to:

enable anyone aged 50 or older to sustain their physical and mental fitness, maintain an active lifestyle and develop new and stimulating interests.

Through a number of dance classes Maggy joined with Open Age she became involved in a number of performances and she shared with us a video of a performance in Trafalgar Square she took part in as part of the Big Dance Festival in 2016. You can watch the performance here . The dance was created by Akram Khan and participants ranged from 14-86 yrs old.

In terms of her personal story Maggy finished by telling us about her more recent experience of auditioning and, after a 3 month probationary period, being accepted into the Sage Dance Company, a community dance company for people over the age of 55. Find out about the company and watch a video of their work here. 

What an amazing journey.

In the final stages of her presentation Maggie went on to talk more about the potential positive impact that dance can have on physical, emotional and social wellbeing and in a lovely way linked her presentation back to the opening keynote of the specialist section conference by highlighting the potential of dance to contribute to 2 of the 3 factors identified by Anna Dixon from the Centre for Ageing Better as contributing to a better later life health and social connection.

She also talked about how dance is being recognised at a policy level and I’m sharing a slide which demonstrate this and the final slide with references for anyone who wants to follow this up further.

It feels only right to end with one of the quotes that Maggy used

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. (Nietzsche)

Written by @lynnegoodacre

Reference: De Las Heras. CG. Geist R, Kielhofner, G, and Li, Y. 2003. The Volitional Questionnaire. Version 4. University of Illinois at Chicago: Chicago, IL.

Contact Email Address: rachael.coates2@nhs.net

Blog shot by @Helen_OTUK

Two research studies focussing on engagement in leisure activities.

Angela Gregory  and Heidi von Kurthy  “An exploratory study of skilled participation in embroidering”. 

This was a presentation of a masters study carried out to understand the experience of skilled participation in embroidery.  Qualitative methods were used to understand the topic from the perspective of the participants. Findings suggested embroidery provided an emotional release for participants, also that participants described meaningful occupations existing within the meaningful occupation of embroidery as shopping for material could bring as much pleasure as the actual embroidery.  A powerful relationship between participants and embroidering existed and participants appreciated the sensory qualities of embroidery.

Angela and Heidi described the “power of crafts” and suggested we need to reconsider the term “creative activities” to acknowledge the complexity and gradability of craft. As craft enjoys a resurgence within society maybe it’s time it gained more focus within occupational therapy research?

Helena Rampley “Exploring the meaning of creative writing as a meaningful occupation and its influence on wellbeing and identity”.

Helena had focussed her masters research on the use of creative writing as a leisure activity, distinct from a therapeutic or work activity. Helena interviewed individuals who wrote regularly and she used IPA to focus on the meaning of writing for individuals. She let her participants choose their own pseudonyms, which was a nice touch. Her analysis identified the themes of “writing as an escape from reality”, “creative and communicative freedom”, “writing as intrinsic to sense and self”, “vulnerable identity of writer” and “strategies for coping with vulnerability”.  Helena concluded that writing was a “serious leisure activity” because it had the potential for negative experiences and these were common with participants despite them choosing to continue to pursue creative writing in their leisure time. It had resonance for me with academic writing – I continue to do it, despite often not enjoying it and finding it detrimental to my mental health until it’s all finished and in print!

The two presentations fitted very well together and were both informative and engaging. As I sign off my final blog, I just want to say thanks #COT2017 for a great conference.

By Laura Di Bona @SheffOTCA

Asylum seekers and refugees face significant occupational deprivation and barriers to integration, access to healthcare, a stressful lack of clarity around their status, poor housing conditions, prohibitions on work and restrictions on how they can spend their small allowances.

The team at York St John University wanted to explore the value and meaning of a drop-in service in Stockton, which offers social and emotional support to asylum seekers and refugees, and to explore the occupational preferences of service users.

Final year students at York St John are offered opportunities for involvement in real-world research. Ten students were involved in this project, and the presenters highlighted the diversity of their research team as one of the project’s strengths. The students also undertook cultural awareness training ahead the project, which was crucial to aid understanding of how people tick in their own environment.

On an initial visit to the centre, the team found a hectic, chaotic, crowded, but fundamentally joyful, multicultural environment, which offered services including a clothing and food bank, English classes, sewing machines to adapt clothing, opportunities for social interaction, hairdressing, crafts and volunteering. This initial visit was an informal opportunity to establish rapport. A gatekeeper then took the task of selecting people to take part, who had free choice on participation.

Two team members travelled up each week to interview two participants: a format deliberately chosen to avoid replicating the feel of a Home Office interview. Two of the researchers could conduct interviews in Urdu: removing the language barrier and need for a translator.

The interviews resulted in hours of rich recorded content from 7 women and 11 men, ranging in age from 31 to 60. The strongest theme to emerge was the sense of community and integration. The need for meaningful occupation also arose: opportunities at the drop-in centre were highly valued. Another key theme was altruism – the research highlighted how people in vulnerable situations themselves were driven to help others after receiving assistance.

One of the surprising insights was the impact of the taxi drivers who transported people from the Home Office centres to the drop-in, who had been a font of knowledge for many of the interviewees.

Those being interviewed also identified areas they wanted to develop, such as better support for women with children. They were not asking for help, but wanting to progress their own community, make a contribution and have productive activities on offer.

Future plans include further research with a focus on support for women and children. This will be achieved with the involvement of an advisory panel of women from the drop-in, to identify occupations that might be beneficial, and to run them.

The presenters highlighted the relevance of the Kawa model for working with this population. The model was specifically designed to consider the needs of those from collectivist cultures.

Key for me, was the researchers’ overriding focus on a philosophy of research ‘with’, not ‘on’ people, and their desire to coin the term ‘compassionate research’, where research is carried out in collaboration with participants, for their benefit.

Written by Beverley Goodman
1st year pre-reg MSc student at the University of Essex
@BevG_studentOT

This session was used for people to give feedback and ideas about a new document, which is due out in September about Occupational Therapy in prisons. This is as part of the RCOTs campaign ‘improving lives, saving money’.

The session was used to show some of the draft copies of the document and Karin Roman, Professional Practice Manager RCOT, gave a brief overview of the point of the report and the recommendations included in it, as well as the rationale behind the recommendations.

It is due to be a short document that currently has 2 recommendations on it so far. Karin spoke about the importance of speaking the language of the commissioners and writing in the language of commissioners, which is partly why the document is being kept short – to help us get a foot in the door, which we can then use to explain our role in prisons further.

We can have a diverse role in prisons. One recommendation which I found really interesting was the suggestion that we, as occupational therapists, could be involved right from the beginning, in the design of current and future prison estates, to help minimise potential environmental risk. This appealed to me as a new and innovative idea and an emerging area in occupational therapy practice.

Karin then passed over to Lisa Jamieson, an occupational therapist working currently in a prison. Lisa then spoke about her work life in HMS Grampian. There are 15 prisons in Scotland and only 2 occupational therapists currently working in them, so it is still a very new and emerging service for Scotland.

Lisa argued that she is not a mental health occupational therapist, as she was employed to be, but is in fact a ‘prison occupational therapist’ whereby, in a non-traditional setting, she is able to use her full scope of core therapist skills.

Lisa takes an occupational approach in engaging her service users, which allows her to access the co-morbidities that other health services have been unable to unearth. She currently uses MOHO as her model of practice, and some of the assessments spanning from this. Lisa spoke about how she feels proud that she is delivering a service which is so valued that often she is being used in a consultant role, to give her ideas and advice about other services. She also revealed her figures over the year. Attendance to her service is around 88% and she spoke about how 100% of service users felt that the occupational therapy service was excellent or very good. Lisa also shared a quote which was said about her service, which I think we could use in all aspects of occupational therapy: “Occupational therapy is so far outside the box, you can’t even see the box, and that works here”.

After Lisa had shared her insights, there was a small time for discussion. Karin asked if there was anybody in the room currently working in the prison setting, and although there was a small contingent, the majority of the people in the room were like me, completely new to this area. We therefore discussed if we felt the recommendations made sense and would be clear enough for others who are not working in the field.

Overall, it was another fantastic and informative session and I am looking forward to the new document being released in September, showing the value of OT in prison settings.

Written by Katie Gabriel