6 minute read
The history of a growing profession
It was 1971. Australian rock band Daddy Cool’s classic song Eagle Rock was topping the charts when the first cohort of students signed up for an inaugural degree at the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT, now the University of South Australia, UniSA). This year marks 50 years since the Occupational Therapy Program began. With the theme of this edition being “This is OT”, we thought it a golden opportunity to share some of our history, values and contributions.
The Occupational Therapy Program’s story reflects common themes in our profession: willpower, advocacy and lobbying. Before it started, a small group of unflagging women – led by Cecilie Bearup (OAM) – created the South Australian Occupational Therapy Association in 1963, and succeeded in having the program approved and created. It secured registration status for the profession in 1974. We owe them such a debt of gratitude.
The program started at the Parkside Mental Hospital (later Glenside Hospital), a large and busy psychiatric hospital where Ms Bearup began work in 1963 upon her arrival from England where she trained at the London School of Occupational Therapy (State Library South Australia, collections. slsa.sa.gov.au). This alliance may explain some of the early values of the program, as occupational therapists were closely connected to the deinstitutionalisation processes of later years. For example, one of the long-standing academic awards, the Marjorie Black Prize, honors students who gain the highest grade point average
Angela Berndt, Acting Dean of Allied Health Programs, Occupational Therapy Program Director, UniSA
First graduating class of 1973.
in courses with psychosocial components. Although not an occupational therapist herself, Marjorie Black created Marjorie Black House to offer security and social inclusion to people with long-term mental-health issues who were exiting psychiatric hospitals.
Fast forwarding a little in our timeline, the program re-settled in the Bonython Jubilee Building of SAIT/UniSA. Decades of students have studied in this building, which was formerly the School of Mines (and therefore has very few female facilities – an irony lost on no one). In the late 1970s and through to the early 1990s, however, the benefits of being in that building were the industrial-level workshops used for wood or cane work. Many hours of detailed activity analysis, making and adaptation practice occurred in those basement spaces. We also had the joy of being near the Botanic Gardens where, due to Ms Bearup’s foresight, we undertook gardening therapy and horticulture classes on-site.
Moving along, the program grew and matured. Due to the small size of the profession in SA, we benefited from the arrival of occupational therapists from across the world, including Canada and the UK, while we also began to grow our own. An instrumental academic in our program was Professor Ann Wilcock, best known for her contribution and international leadership in occupational science. We were lucky to be the first home of the Journal of Occupational Science, which started in that same basement as a $2 shelf company with a volunteer workforce. But perhaps less known is Prof. Wilcock’s clinical background, which was stroke rehabilitation. Always a scholar, Prof. Wilcock (Ann Ellison, as she was then) co-wrote her first text as a new occupational therapy graduate with Peggy Jay and Elizabeth Walker, entitled Help Yourselves; a handbook for hemiplegics and their families (Butterworth, 1966). I was privileged to have had Prof. Wilcock as my neuro rehabilitation lecturer. I recall vividly one of her key messages, that was less about rehabilitation and more about equity and justice. She told us (and I paraphrase from memory): “One of the worst combinations to experience is to be old, female and a stroke sufferer. Your outcomes will be poor because you won’t be prioritised for treatment – not because of your stroke, but because of your age and your gender.” A powerful call to action for a generation of young occupational therapists.
In 1991, the State Bank of SA went bankrupt. The debt and social impact was staggering. A cohort of students faced the prospect of unemployment and the population was enormously impacted. However, only a
Top left – Prof Esther May, Prof Ann Wilcock and Sue Gilbert Hunt cutting our 40th birthday cake. Bottom left – the graduates photo. Right – Miss Cecilie Bearup.
few years earlier, Adelaide had hosted the 2nd International Conference on Health Promotion, which started from the position that health was both a fundamental human right and a sound social investment. The conference urged governments to promote health through linked economic, social and health policies. This combination of
social forces, coupled with the innovative mind of Susan Gilbert Hunt, led to the beginnings of the Participatory Community Practice (PCP) courses in the program. As a result, participation through an occupational therapy lens and bottomup approaches to meeting community need have formed a core pillar of our ethos for 30 years. Sue discourages the use of the term “role emerging” and encourages us to reflect – looking back and forward – to ensure our profession is always responding to community need. That is, the core values remain true, although the context might change.
The photo wall in the Bonython Jubilee Building sadly only captures the graduates from 1999 onward. However, a scan of the faces and recollection of those who came before, shows our profession increasingly reflects the society in which we live, with more diversity. We are proud to report that in one cohort of our graduate entry master program, we achieved a 50/50 ratio of males to female students. But we hope to achieve more deeply as part of our UniSA RAP to grow Aboriginal allied health graduate outcomes.
The UniSA program has produced entrepreneurs, scholars, advocates, innovators and quiet achievers, and has always been a contributor to the wider profession through OTA. The occupational therapy program UniSA has had eight heads of school/program directors over its 50-year history. Of those eight, four have been honoured with the Occupational Therapy Australia Sylvia Docker Lecture Award: Cecilie Bearup in 1982, Peggy Farrow in 1995, Prof. Ann Wilcock in 1999 and Susan Gilbert Hunt in 2017.
I am an occupational therapist because I believe in our values and the power of occupation for health and well-being, rehabilitation or recovery. We are growing a new generation of research and clinical scholars, whose challenge is to grow our evidence base. I’m a true believer but also a healthy sceptic, knowing some of our truths may need to be left behind as we continue to mature into our second century of existence.
The history of a growing profession continued
It is 2021, the profession and our program is embedded with solid roots from which to flourish. I remain passionate about our profession because of the stellar role models I have had the privilege of knowing. I am honoured to be the eighth academic lead of the UniSA program, and to uphold its values and traditions including participation, engagement and occupation-based practice.
About the author Dr Angela Berndt Is a graduate of the UniSA / SAIT program, class of 1987. She is UniSA Occupational Therapy Program Director, recently Acting Dean of Allied Health, was past President of the Occupational Therapy Australia Board of Directors and was awarded the Honorary Life Membership of OTA in 2021.
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