This week Hannah Spencer @hspenceruk is hosting along with @CPD_RCOT – Check out what they have in-store below and join in live on twitter 8pm Tuesday 31st Jan 2023.   All members of our occupational therapy workforce, irrespective of background and/or characteristics, should feel valued, respected, and supported to develop their talents to the full. Within and beyond our profession, however, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence shared by individuals, in particular those from underrepresented and historically marginalised groups, which has highlighted inequity and injustice ..read more

This week our host is @FocusOnFairness a project supported by @ElizabethCasso1 The Focus On Fairness Observatory is an arm’s length project of the Elizabeth Casson Trust exploring diversity, inclusion and equity within the profession. For our second Observatory event held on 11th January 2023, we invited attendees to explore what support minoritised occupational therapy graduates starting their careers. Individuals with varied experiences attended, including newly qualified occupational therapists, representatives from clinical practice, universities, bodies such as RCOT and the HCPC, as wel ..read more

Dyslexia and Occupational Therapy – This chat will be hosted by Sharon Hardman @SharonOTUClan   During my Occupational Therapy (OT) pre-registration training I was diagnosed with specific learning difficulties, more commonly known as dyslexia, 3 days before the UK went into the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020.  This was a huge shock to me as I had already achieved 10 GCSEs, 3 A levels, BA (Hons) degree and Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and no one has noticed my dyslexia.   According to Dyslexia Association (2022) “dyslexia is a lifelong condition, which ha ..read more

This week Alice Hortop @LaughingOT is hosting with @Ruth_Hawley on the OTalk account for support, read all about it here…………….. Welcome, thank you so much for reading this blog and hopefully coming to the #OTalk on how we can embrace belong centred practice. Belonging centred practice is the subject of my PhD at Brighton University with Dr. Rebecca Twinley, Dr Channine Clarke and Professor Gayle Letherby of Plymouth University with supported funding from the Elizabeth Casson Memorial Trust. This is an interesting topic to explore, below is a short introduction to whet your appetite and you wil ..read more

This week’s chat will be hosted by @SamOTantha.  I personally prefer not to set resolutions, mostly because I try and quickly fail to stick to them. But I do like to reflect on my previous year and think about what I want to achieve in the upcoming year. In 2022, I discovered that the research process is not as simple as I had originally thought. For every answer I thought I had found, the more questions I unearthed. For every output I dreamily planned, I quickly realized there were many barriers and steps that are required before you can even begin a new research project. 2022, was about ..read more

Wow what a great year, we hosted 50 tweeter chats dedicated to occupational therapy this year – Check out links to every topic below. Thank you to all those who took part this year, you are all amazing, OTalk is nothing without your continuing support. The OTalk Team wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New year. We are really looking forward to what 2023 will bring, and already have topics planned for Jan and Feb 2023. If you would like to host a chat in 2023 please apply here. OTalk – Tuesday 13th December 2022 8pm – “Patient and public involvement in research and in practice – how can we ge ..read more

This week Jay Webster will be hosting this is what they have to say to get you thinking about this weeks topic. Patient and public involvement (PPI) is a term that has been used a lot when talking about working with people but I’m trying to use it less to reduce acronym use and confusion, after all, we’re not talking about insurance or medicine for heartburn.  For this #OTalk, however, due to character restrictions, PPI can be used freely when talking about public involvement Public involvement means working with people, often called public contributors, rather than doing things to, for ..read more

This weeks OTalk Research is being hosted by Dr. Malabika Ghosh, Principal O.T for Cognition & Clinical Academic Fellow – Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, NHS Foundation Trust. Senior Lecturer, Institute of Health, University of Cumbria here is what they had to say……… Person-centred practice is a commonly used term across occupational therapy education as well as clinical practice. Person-centred or client-centred practice is advocated as the core of occupational therapy practice (Hammel, 2013). As a profession we pride ourselves in using meaningful occupation to ensure our practice is occu ..read more

Now, you might have seen the title of this post and thought to yourself, “what on earth has market research got to do with occupational therapy?” I promise I haven’t lost the plot, hear me out… What happens if you have an idea for a new service or perhaps a new assistive device, or maybe you’ve seen what you think is a ‘gap in the market’. How do you find out if your idea is unique or even if it’s viable? The answer to that question, is, market research.  Market research is used to gather data on the market. Simply put, market research gives you the information you need to make good busin ..read more

The Alchemy of Good Interventions: Developing a Creative Health Quality Framework  Occupational Therapy has a long history of using creative and cultural activities as part of diagnosis, treatment and recovery in a variety of settings. Recent years have seen interest in how cultural activities can improve health and wellbeing grow with bodies such as The World Health Organisation, Arts Council England, The Baring Foundation, Museums Association and NHS England all putting out reports and policies to support this work.  Our unique perspective and use of creative activities makes the p ..read more