“I qualified in Glasgow and in 2004 thought I had done my dash with OT, after nearly 10 years. I was and am still in New Zealand. I loved OT and it meant so much, so before giving away my Profession I felt I needed to be sure it was OT that was not working for me. I saw an ad in the local paper about adult education classes and attended night school for 4 weeks. The class was called…
My name is Awele Odeh and I’m based in East London/ Essex border. I’ve worked as an OT for 11 yrs. In 2007 I decided that I needed to rejeuvenate my passion for OT (we’ve all felt this way, I know), so I invested in a new set of skills and I studied to become an NLP Master Practitioner. This then developed into further study and I completed my diploma in Psychotherapy in April 2010.(I really enjoyed learning- and learning…
“I did it!” These words came spontaneously out of my mouth on Christmas Eve 2014 when I left the office of the mental health team for the last time. My career with the NHS began in 2003 when I started an Occupational Therapy (OT) degree at Sheffield Hallam University. Prior to that I had been a support worker for a private Brain Injury Rehab company and I always liked the idea of health care outside the NHS. I also had…
As a newly qualified OT, I took on a huge challenge developing a brand-new role for an Occupational health, health and wellbeing service. The idea was to provide telephone based intervention for teachers who were absent from work with mental health and/or physical challenges. My intervention packs focus on stress, anxiety, fatigue management, lifestyle coaching, condition management and work-life balance. I felt as if I had been thrown into the deep end, trying to make sense of my learning from university and rummaging through reflections from past placements.…
Book Review: “The UnSelfish Spirit:Human Evolution at a time of global crisis” by Mick Collins, reviewed by Maggie Jeffery I’ve been a closet OT all my life but way back in the 60’s inadvertently trained as a nurse instead. Since then the challenges that life produces have drawn me time and again to awareness of the vital importance of balancing ‘Doing’ as well as ‘Being’. Psychosynthesis training in fact included the old song – ‘Do, Be, Do, Be, Do’. How…
“Mindfulness and Yoga Skills for Children and Adolescents: 115 Activities for Trauma, Self Regulation, Special Needs and Anxiety” a book by Barbara Neiman Unique exercises in yoga, meditation, guided imagery and somatic explorations fill this comprehensive skills guide. This book is brimming with tools and stories supporting critical life skills for families, classrooms and therapy sessions. Holistic strategies include: • Meditation to support body-mind-spirit connection • Yoga pose adaptations for Autism, sensory processing & special needs • Trauma sensitive guided…
Eva talks about her contribution to “The Occupational Therapist’s Guide to Sleep and Sleep Problems” and her interest in “sleep” as a vital domain in OT. “Edward Norton playing the narrator in Fight Club says: ‘When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep…and you’re never really awake’ and look where his insomnia got him! Hollywood aside, we all have experienced at least one night’s bad sleep (or no sleep at all) and the affect it had on our daily lives.…
This is a summary of an educational project I am implementing in a health promotion course for OT students. I am really interested in how to best prepare our students to “do OT differently!” This project involves teaching empowerment through coaching strategies. The students will experience coaching for self-assessment, learn a few tools from motivational interviewing and coaching, and practice them in a community setting. I am eager to see how this experience resonates with them in terms of their…
I have been very fortunate to experience both traditional and non-traditional approaches to my work as a role emerging (RE) OT. I have always been fascinated by the concept of colour as a therapeutic medium, and for 25+ years have attended training courses to explore this concept. I graduated in 2000 with BSc (Hons) OT and completed a ‘basic grade rotation’ before being offered a Senior II post. Simultaneously I was developing myself as a self-employed therapist using ‘complementary approaches’,…
Jill Maglio founded CircusAid in 2016. Jill is a certified occupational therapist and the director of Holistic Circus Therapy (HCT), a registered and accredited private practice that combines occupational therapy with circus arts to address the unique health and well-being needs of individuals and communities. Jill has been researching circus and occupational therapy for over 12 years in Australia, Europe, South East Asia and the United States. Upon the completion of a Master of Occupational Therapy Practice degree from La…
