Marking World Occupational Therapy Day - Friday 27 October | News

Friday 27 October is World Occupational Therapy Day. The day was first marked on 27 October 2010 with the aim to promote and celebrate the profession internationally.

The theme for World OT Day 2023 is ‘Unity through Community’, which aims to highlight the role of OTs in collaborating with other colleagues to facilitate participation and recovery. 

Occupational Therapists (OTs) are highly valued members of our multi-disciplinary teams at the North London Mental Health Partnership.

To mark World Occupational Therapy Day, Ruth Crowley, Senior Occupational Therapist at the Partnership, explains the role of Occupational Therapists and how she came to this profession.

“Occupational therapy, from my own perspective, is the oil on the cogs of the wheels of life. This means we support people to live the life they want to live by using various strategies and approaches to compensate for or accommodate functional deficits, whether they be physical or mental. 

“After careers in hairdressing, hotels, media, and management consultancy I chose to train as an Occupational Therapist at the age of 40, completing a four-year part-time course.  While I was training, I worked for a Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords, not in healthcare. OT was a fascinating degree and appealed to my interests in medicine, people and problem-solving. 

“I currently work in an acute adult psychiatric setting and having worked in the past with older adults in acute psychiatric wards. In these roles, I have helped people with their function (when they have psychosis, anxiety or depression). I have also had an ‘organic’ role, working with people with dementia, including on dementia assessments.

Occupational Therapists are holistic practitioners who work from the social model of disability. This means focusing on the person not their disability.  We use occupational engagement in meaningful activity to support people’s recovery and rehabilitation and help them maintain their independence and function.  OTs have a science-based degree and can work with people from birth to death across the whole spectrum of physical and mental health conditions and in various settings. These range from the NHS and in private healthcare, to schools, prisons and workplaces , making recommendations for reasonable adjustments.   

“People can confuse our job with that of Occupational Health advisors who help prevent work-related ill health and advise on fitness for work, workplace safety, the prevention of occupational injuries and disease.  

“OTs are holistic workers who are trained to observe, assess and grade activities.  We break down and analyse activities in the following skills areas:physical, interpersonal, psychological and cognitive.  We plan interventions at the ‘just right’ level so that each person can maintain their independence and function.  We are the only professionals trained to assess the environment in this respect and our theoretical approach is based on the social rather than medical model of disability, which is used in nursing and physiotherapy. 

We focus on activities of daily living. These include ‘personal’ activities like washing, dressing and feeding and ‘daily’ like shopping, cooking, cleaning, managing correspondence andfinances.  These fall into three key areas of occupation which, when balanced, can support our wellbeing.   

• Self-care: Bathing, dressing, feeding.
• Productivity: Work, volunteering, attending development courses
• Leisure: Engaging in exercise, making friends, engaging in hobbies, developing new interests.

Following assessment we set goals and make plans with the client so that they can achieve these goals.  We then evaluate the goals and make adjustments as and when required.

In brief, we support people to maintain their function throughout their daily life and help them stay independent.