MAKING OT KNOWN Advocating for the profession is a vitally important aspect of occupational therapy, and it’s an opportunity to be fun and creative
O
ne of the largest challenges faced by occupational therapy as a profession is advocacy of the profession as a whole. There is a drive to bring more public understanding of what occupational therapy is, bringing it to a similar level of recognition that other allied healthcare professions seem to enjoy in the public eye; physiotherapy is an excellent example of an adjacent profession which enjoys a high level of recognition in the public eye, being portrayed with relative accuracy in the media on a semi-regular basis, in both fictional and news media settings. Promoting occupational therapy isn’t just about promoting the service itself - although this is a vitally important aspect of promotion - but also involves allowing people the opportunity to get to know occupational therapy as a concept. What does an OT do? What do you have to do to qualify as an OT? You of course know the answer to these, but does the average member of the public? Many people might not even know an OT personally! Advocating for OT as a profession is something that anyone can do, regardless of practice area. Leaflets are the classic way of bringing attention to something. If you’ve ever been to Edinburgh in August, you will know how vital leaflets are to selling things to the public: Edinburgh Fringe shows live and die on their marketer’s ability to get leaflets out to people on the street, bringing huge crowds in to see shows they might never have even heard of in the first instance! Of course, you’re advocating for occupational therapy, not a tight ten-minute set of knock-knock gags, but the marketing aspect is similar. Leaflets are fantastic because you can carry them around with you, they’re relatively cheap and easy to produce, and all you need to do to get them is know your way around a printer.
60
www.
-magazine.co.uk
Leaflets are fantastic because you can carry them around with you, they’re relatively cheap and easy to produce, and all you need to do to get them is know your way around a printer
