About Occupational Therapy and OT Week
Every year in November, the Royal College of Occupational Therapy runs ‘OT week’. This is a way to celebrate and promote the good work of the profession.
The 2023 theme is occupation, which aims to spark conversations about this topic. It is a very difficult word to describe because when people think of it many often think of a job. In the past when I was a new occupational therapist working in a hospital I went to introduce myself to this lady. The reply I got was “Oh don’t worry dear I don’t need a job I’m retired”. I’m not the only one who has experienced this reply. That’s why the profession wants to help us understand occupation and occupations better.
The best way to explain ‘occupation’ is to think of the word ‘job’. Occupational Therapy is more about the job of living. Occupational therapists assist people of all ages in managing their daily activities. We usually only ask for help from an occupational therapist when we have problems. It is a profession very much under the radar of most people.
What is a child's job?
It might seem hard to imagine a child with a job in the traditional sense. An occupational therapist would think of a child’s job in terms of what brings meaning to their life. Children learn through play, school, hobbies and spending time with friends.
To help a child learn at school our ethos is to make sure any activity done is fun. Through play we can help children be engaged, willing to learn and acquire new skills.
Showing our creativity
As an occupational therapy company, we are proud to be occupational therapists. To help do ‘our bit’ to promote the profession we decided to create a poem for you. We often ask our students to write acrostic poems, but we don’t usually use two long words. For Halloween, some students recently made a poem from the word ‘Spooky’. In our handwriting club, the students chose ‘Guy Fawkes’ and came up with some great sentences.
Our acrostic poem helps you to understand how occupational therapy and handwriting are a perfect match.
O – Often a misunderstood profession.
C – Covers both physical and mental health.
C – Children is what we specialise in but OTs work with neonates, older people, end of life care, people with learning difficulties and more.
U – Under the radar, a profession rarely in the media.
P – Protected title and every two years we have to maintain our registration.
A – Anything that matters to you, matters to us.
T – Transformational.
I – In World War I the profession became known for helping soldiers with injuries overcome everyday challenges.
O – Opportunity to get to know people and make a real difference in their lives.
N – Never a dull working day.
A – ADL, a common abbreviation used by OTs which stands for activities of daily living.
L – Logical, we are often very practical people who are great problem solvers.
T – There is more than one way to teach handwriting. It doesn’t have to involve boring worksheets and repetitive writing. The way that we do it means many students do not even feel they are in a lesson. Often they get disappointed when we say it’s time to stop.
H – Helping a child improve their self confidence. Many feel writing is something that is not for them. This is untrue. We help give them the confidence to write all of their wonderful ideas down rather than them revising what they write because they do not want to write a lot.
E – Extraordinary results are what we seek.
R – Real or Fake News is one of the students’ favourite games.
A – Attention to detail is the key to mastering handwriting. We teach the students how to review their own work. Occupational therapists are trained in task analysis. Here at Help with Handwriting, we break any writing activity down into easy to achieve bite sized steps. This avoids any feeling of overwhelm.
P – Privileged to see the smile on a child’s face when they look at their handwriting and like it.
Y – Yes we can help anyone. (As long as they want to work on their handwriting!)
We hope that we’ve helped you understand a little bit more about occupation, occupational therapy and handwriting in this blog post.
If you wish to speak to us about getting handwriting help for your child, you can either book a discovery call or go to our handwriting solutions page. If you are curious about us as a company, click on our About Us page here.
