Ten Years of OTalk #OTalk is a weekly Twitter chat that has been running for ten years, designed to enable discussion about occupational therapy and the broader academic discipline of occupational science. Run by volunteers, the #OTalk Twitter chats take place on Tuesday evenings between 8pm-9pm (UK time) and are suggested and facilitated by members of the #OTalk community (for example occupational therapists, students and researchers). Each host produces a blog post to introduce their topic and then leads the chat by asking a number of questions to start the discussion. To follow and engage in the discussion, search and use the hashtag #OTalk on Twitter.
W
e caught up with Kirstie Hughes from the OT team to find out a little bit more about the history of #OTalk and what the future holds.
How did #OTalk begin? The idea of #OTalk, or #OccChat as it was first conceived in 2011, had intended to be a way to bring occupational therapists together. Back then Twitter was still a new platform, but the founding team saw its potential for global connection, with this in mind the first #OTalk was held on 25 October 2011, the week of World OT Day. Many said it would never take off, or didn’t understand why the team felt there was such a pressing need to connect, but the team carried on. Week after week they showed up, hosted and chatted, and over the weeks more participants joined and the word spread. In our ten years we have gone from a single digit of followers to a thriving community of over 22k occupational therapists, students and practitioners. 16
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How has #OTalk evolved over the years? By 2013 our following had grown and the community had started to find its voice and were taking hold of some of the topics we had been discussing and really running with them, even asking for new things. In response to this we introduced a Journal (Media) Club to allow a space to review and discuss academic journals and other media within the community. This was also the same year #OTalk was mentioned in the Francis Report, as a way to promote professionalism. From here we started to grow the team with our student intern role and get more active within the profession, presenting at conferences and events. 2016 was the busiest so far for the team. We had an editorial published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy, received a shout out from Julia Scott in the RCOT Annual Conference Plenary Speech, as well as a mention in that years Elizabeth Casson Lecture from Wendy Bryant. This was the year we also launched #OTalk Research which saw a subset of
