CEO’s Report

Samantha Hunter | OTA CEO

As we welcome in another summer, the team at Occupational Therapy Australia took the opportunity to come together to celebrate another year of growth and change, and a little less challenge than the previously chaotic COVID years.

Whilst less chaotic, it has been incredibly productive and fruitful as our growing team continued to build on our previous successes and initiate new ideas.

This year, we built on the work of the previously commissioned white paper –Thinking Ahead, the Future of Occupational Therapy and Mental Health in Australia and adopted recommendations for developing a career pathway. This started by commissioning two foundational modules creating the beginning of a pathway to develop the necessary skills required for mental health endorsement. We also launched our inaugural Leadership Program aimed to stretch our cohort from expert clinicians to reflective and reflexive leaders, and it was such a joy to bring members together and give them the time and space for new ideas, frameworks and learnings about leadership as well as connect them with some really impressive members of the profession. We are excited to add this to our programs again in 2024.

We celebrated connecting again – in real life – in Cairns! I am always in awe of the impressive sight of over 1,000 OTs converging in one place to learn, laugh and dance together. Despite the longer distances and rising cost of living and doing business, our industry partners turned out in droves to support OTA. I can’t wait for our third OT Exchange in Perth next year, and for the inaugural OTA Oration, a new initiative to celebrate our profession and hear from a clinician at the vanguard of their practice.

As both a member association and a peak body, our advocacy work remains a major focus as we continually seek to build influence and impact across multiple policy and funding scheme fronts. The NDIS Review, Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide and a multitude of Aged Care Reforms have seen our Government & Stakeholder Relations (GSR) team working incredibly hard alongside our dedicated volunteer members who sit on our National Reference Groups and provide feedback and case studies, quantitative and qualitative data and evidence-based research we reply upon to advocate strongly for the profession. This year we have substantially grown our GSR team and rightly so, given the vast array of issues and the volume of submissions we are being called to respond to. At the time of writing, we await the release of the NDIS Review and the government relations and media advisors are ready to address and respond to what will possibly be a very challenging report and recommendations.

We very proudly wrapped up our Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and commenced working toward the next stage, Innovate. Our Journey toward Understanding continued with the Association supporting the Yes campaign. Despite this not bearing fruit, we are deeply committed to being the best ally we can be, and actively moving forward in supporting our First Nations voice and reiterating our commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

After a hiatus in being able to connect as a group, our Board and Divisional Chairs convened at National Forum to discuss the state of the nation, our commonalities, as well as the specific opportunities and challenges some jurisdictions face. We are very grateful for the work of the Divisional Councils, having their fingers on the pulse of local and state/ territory opportunities and issues.

The Board continued throughout the year to work on deeply listening to members and a wide array of stakeholders as they formed a new strategy. This new strategy will be accompanied by a framework that continually assesses our operating environment, ensuring we don’t set and forget. It aims to deliver true strategy in action and is another opportunity to demonstrate our ability to flex and adapt, as both an association and a profession. The deep reflection, broad conversations and future forecasting has also led us to reflect on our history as an association and a profession. We have looked at the values that underpin not only who we are as an association but also who we want to be as we grow and each year shine more brightly, boldly and confidently in the allied health landscape. So, we are excited that next year our members will start to see the that emerging – a bright, bold and confident association with a clear direction.

Once again, it has been a great privilege to serve the members of OTA and lead the team that delivers the benefits of belonging and a wealth of support, advice and advocacy to our members. We growing as an association, and through careful financial management we have kept a stable rein on membership pricing with only a 2% increase in over six years. OTs now enjoy the lowest association membership cost of all the registered allied health professions, and I am grateful to each of you who invest in providing a voice for the profession. As my team often hear me say “if we don’t speak for OTs, who will?”

I am once again indebted to the Board of Directors for their intelligence, enquiry and insights, and the ongoing collaborative commitment to our common goal.

And finally, on behalf of the association and our staff, an enormous debt of gratitude and heartfelt thanks to outgoing President and Chair Professor Carol McKinstry. Carol has spent the maximum time available as Chair of the Board of OTA. Fortunately, we have retained her wisdom and wit on the board for a further term as a general board member.

I am incredibly grateful to Carol for her leadership, her wisdom and her sage advice. Carol has demonstrated the ability to keep us all on track and to cut through to the critical and important issues, to see the nuances and the greys in what might sometimes seem very black and white. She has always held the very best interests and intentions of the association and our members and is a fierce advocate as well as a cheerleader for us all.

Wishing all of you a safe and happy festive season.