Wednesday 11 December 2013

Tonight! Be a Fire-starter at SHOUT!

Keith at the COT conference 2012


Tonight SHOUT welcomes inspirational speaker Keith Norman, back by popular demand! 

Don't miss this opportunity to stoke your inner passion for OT and career development with Keith's talk:

 “Be A Fire Starter: Using Occupation to Develop Self-esteem, Confidence and Enthusiasm” on Wednesday 11th December 2013.

Keith qualified from Sheffield Hallam University in 2011. He joined a private hospital group as an Occupational Therapist in March 2012 and worked at a men's rehabilitation hospital for approximately 18 months before joining Irwin Mitchell LLP, one of the UK's largest law firms, as a Client Liaison Manager. In this role Keith represents clients with a range of acquired conditions including spinal injuries, amputees, traumatic brain injuries, lung cancer and cerebral palsy. Before qualification Keith worked as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities, as a rehabilitation assistant for a private company treating Brain Injury in the community and as a Senior Lecturer in Vascular Biology at the University of Sheffield.

Keith is an old friend of SHOUT, and his presentation on moving beyond mindfulness by being what you do was very well received earlier this year. In his latest talk Keith takes a critical look at the concepts of self-esteem, confidence and enthusiasm, explores how we and our clients can experience more of these phenomena and invites us to consider the role of occupation in the development of these attributes. You can follow Keith on Twitter @beingyourdoing.

The talk will take place in Robert Winston Building. Registration and light refreshments are from 5.30pm in the reception/cafe, with the talk starting at 6pm and finishing before 7.30pm. Costs: £2 for students and BAOT members and £3 for non-members.

As many may be aware, the BSc Occupational Therapy course has just gone through a re-approval process and there will be a talk to introduce the new programme which all are invited to attend. This will take place at 4pm before the SHOUT event also in the Robert Winston Building, in room F518 which we hope will be of interest to you.

Hope to see you there!

Tuesday 12 November 2013

TRAMm Team Talk at Tomorrow's SHOUT!



Join us at SHOUT tomorrow night for our hotly anticipated interactive event with the TRAMm Team! 

On Wednesday 13th November Sarah, Deb and Roe will be speaking about their TRAMm Model and providing attendees with the chance to learn how to use the TRAMm tools. For clinicians and students alike, this is a great opportunity to find out more about this popular and user-friendly model and try out for yourself whether TRAMm can make your CPD recording easier and more effective.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a mandatory requirement of the Health and Care Professions Council and has been embraced by the College of Occupational Therapists. The TRAMm (Tell, Record, Activity, Monitor and measure) Model aims to provide a framework to guide both individuals and organisations, and enable them to maximize the potential of CPD. 

After a short overview of the model, you will be able to explore the application of the TRAMm Model, Trail and Tracker to your practice using the tools available. Opportunity for feedback and discussion regarding its future research and development will conclude the workshop.

About our speakers:
Sarah Lawson, a community occupational therapist with Chester West and Cheshire council who joined the TRAMm development group in 2010, is the lead designer of the TRAMm Tracker and TRAMm Trail. 

Deb Hearle is an occupational therapist and experienced educator and manager as well as Interprofessional Education Lead and Associate Director Undergraduate Studies at Cardiff University and has acted as mentor to the TRAMm design team since its inception as well as more recently joining the core TRAMm development group. 

Roe Morris, a community occupational therapist with Cheshire West and Chester Council, was the co-ordinator of the original TRAMm Model design team and remains part of the core TRAMm development group. 

The TRAMm team will also be joined by Gill Smith, a third year SHU occupational therapy student, who will briefly share a student's perspective in using the model for CPD.

Visit the TRAMm website http://www.trammcpd.com/ for more information. 

To book your place at this popular event email shout.event@gmail.com and your place will be confirmed.

The talk will take place in the Robert Winston Building at our Collegiate Cresent Campus. 
Registration and light refreshments are from 5.30pm in the reception/cafe, with the talk starting at 6pm and finishing before 7.30pm.Costs: £2 for students.

We hope you can make it and we look forward to seeing you there!

Wednesday 6 November 2013

What is OT? Find out during OT Week 2013!




What is OT?? That's the question buzzing around Sheffield Hallam Collegiate Campus and local community this week as SHU OT students launch #OperationStealth to generate interest in finding out more about OT, or occupational therapy, during OT Week 2013.

The students, some of them SHOUT members, have set up OT in the Spotlight to promote OT and they've been out and about sneakily planting #WhatIsOT? cards to create a trend on Twitter - search the hashtag and discover for yourself!

Check out their video and get inspired to find out #WhatIsOT:


You can follow @spotlight_ot on Twitter and find them on Facebook: http://www.youtube.com/user/OTinthespotlight
Don't miss their fantastic personal video clips on their YouTube site sharing what OT means to them: http://www.youtube.com/user/OTinthespotlight








Tuesday 22 October 2013

Gail Mountain at SHOUT tomorrow: Acute care for older people



Join us tomorrow night, Wednesday 23rd October, for our second event of the season "Acute care and older people" with Professor Gail Mountain.

Professor Mountain is Professor of Health Services Research (Assisted Living Research) at the University of Sheffield. She is the Director of the SMART Consortium and Principal Director of the KT-EQUAL Consortium which is engaged in the transfer of knowledge from research to benefit older and disabled people.


Professor Mountain is also an occupational therapist, practicing for 13 years before becoming involved in research. Her research interests, which reflect her occupational therapy background, are focused on improving the quality of life of older people through provision of appropriate interventions, good design and by facilitating participation.
To book your place at this popular event email shout.event@gmail.com and your place will be confirmed.

The talk will take place in the Robert Winston Building on Broomhall Road at our Collegiate Campus.
Registration and light refreshments are from 5.30pm in the reception/cafe, and the talk will start at 6pm and finish before 7.30pm.
Costs: £2 for students and BAOT members and £3 for non-members.


We hope to see you there!


And here's what we got up to last time with speaker Chris Mayers...




We had a fantastic evening with the wonderful Chris, and here is some of your feedback:

What did you think of the talk?

"Excellent and informative talk - Chris gave a full definition of spirituality and how it relates to OT"

"It was lovely to explore spirituality from a humanistic view rather than a religious one"


"It gave me hope that this sort of work can happen in OT"


"I learnt that it's important to be mindful of the client’s horizontal and vertical spirituality - different perspectives of spirituality"


"I studied philosophy of religion previously and found the link between spirituality and occupations. I found the definitions and assessment interesting"


What will you take into practice?

"I will think about my service user’s spirituality – remembering to discover what gives them a buzz!"

"The significance of quality of life – individual values. It is important to recognise a service user’s individual needs and the importance of assessing the significance of beliefs and values"


"The reference to the evidence base which identifies a correlation between meeting spiritual needs and better health"


"I will remember that the person has a spiritual core to acknowledge and will validate this as a ‘signpost’ to discovering their purposeful activities"


"Using questionnaires in practice – enabling my practice to be more client centres"


Sunday 20 October 2013

SHOUT attends ENOTHE Conference 2013 in York



On Thursday and Friday, pairs of SHOUT members attended the ENOTHE conference in York. We were delighted that our work - a new poster demonstrating how membership of SHOUT helps to develop citizenship qualities - was accepted to the conference. We enjoyed the opportunity to share what we do and the skills we acquire through SHOUT with European delegates.

This year’s theme, “Citizenship”, infused every aspect of the event and one word could be heard over and over again in lectures, asked in questions, discussed in workshops, murmured over coffee…. 

Participation

Speaking about the occupational therapy (OT) viewpoint on citizenship, Jytte Rotbol began Day Two of the conference with her keynote address, highlighting participation for people with mental health problems. Recovery is more than recovering from illness, she said, but recovering work roles, social roles, finding belonging in society through participation. Activity is one of the prerequisites for a “good life”, she explained, an essential component of a good society. But she cautioned that what one person thinks is a good life, may not be for another – this unpredictability of activity is a human condition , she said.

Although this unpredictability sounds challenging, I feel this is part of the beauty of OT – we cannot predict or prescribe activity as one-size-fits-all. We have to work with each person on an individual basis to get to know what matters to them, what makes them tick, what unique activities / occupations are the key to their health, wellbeing and participation in society. This takes time and might even feel emotionally “risky” - we can’t find safety in a tried and tested medicine, instead we have to take the risk of getting to know someone, giving something of ourselves to them in order to help them share something of themselves with us. This two-way conversation, a partnership, finds a way forward based on activities identified by each person as having true meaning, enabling participation in their own lives and in society as citizens. As Jytte said, "action creates relationships".

#ENOTHEyork conference tweet

Hetty Fransen presented joint work on OT’s contribution to citizenship. The team included SHU lecturer Nick Pollard, described as having “a brain the size of a planet” – I have a feeling that any OT students who have been taught by him may agree! The presentation was stunningly illustrated with artwork by Peter Doig. While working on the project in Edinburgh, the team came across Doig’s exhibition, noticing a "doing" element to his work. Inspired by this, Hetty encouraged us to “do it”, to “do” citizenship.

By artist Peter Doig


“There are no foreign lands, it is the traveller only who is foreign” 
Robert Louis Stephenson

The team’s journey around citizenship led them to find congruence between citizenship terms such as restricted participation and occupational science terms such as occupational injustice. Citizenship is a fundamental principle of OT, said Hetty, linking to human rights and social inclusion.

#ENOTHEyork conference tweet
How do we enact citizenship, she asked, as citizens of the world? Social change has greater effectiveness, Hetty said, when we as practitioners engage in doing rather than doing to people. Remember that you are a citizen first, she said, then an OT. She asked the question “should we be citizen-centred?”.



#ENOTHEyork conference tweet
“OTs like participation” Hetty said, opening up the value we place on this word to critical debate. What if a person does not participate? Are they still a citizen? Are there “good” and “bad” citizens, she asked? This highlighted the power relationship between state and individual or client and therapist or between cultures. Defining and categorising people according to the level to which they participate with us, with their world or with society can be disempowering. It made me think about how easy it is as an OT to judge a client when they do not participate in therapeutic activity, how labels such as “unmotivated” can be carelessly used. If citizenship is about human rights, the right to be included and to actively participate, does it allow room for the right not to participate and yet still be respected and equal?
#ENOTHEyork conference tweet

For OTs to enable citizenship and participation, Hetty advised that we need to think strategically: get involved on a political level, form an idea and be part of the solution!

#ENOTHEyork conference tweet

After these two thought-provoking lectures, the rest of the day was spent in workshops or mini-lectures. In Debbie Kramer-Roy’s session “Emancipatory OT research and practice with marginalised ethnic minority clients” I learnt how action research is consistent with OT principles and occupational justice, helping people to participate in action and bring about change as co-researchers. Artwork and photography were shown to be beautifully expressive and inclusive ways for co-researchers to participate in research. A piece of work created by a Pakistani mother (and British citizen) whose child was disabled depicted the pressure she felt under, like a vase that might one day crack, and her struggle with belonging, inclusion and participation in society due to the stigmatisation she and her child faced.

This was a really strong learning point for me: the client is always the expert. The artwork expressed more powerfully and clearly than I could ever articulate in words, the depth of emotion, pain, strength and determination of the mother and the deep examination she had made of her life through the painting. I wish I had taken a photograph of the work to share, it was so moving. 

The workshop concluded with discussion about participation in OT education and it was wonderful to hear the lengths an OT school in Antwerp had gone to in overcoming cultural barriers that had prevented a group of orthodox Jewish women from participating in university study. The lecturer explained that it was a process of collaboration, of finding solutions, and then making these adaptations available to all their students.

#ENOTHEyork conference tweet
The day ended with a discussion between students about how to create an international student forum. I felt humbled that my ability to participate in the discussion was only because of the excellent language skills of the other students who spoke such good English. It was a privilege to spend time in the company of OTs and students from countries across Europe and it struck me that I have a very UK-focussed OT outlook. 

Clockwise from top left: Austrian students, German students,  Kramer-Roy workshop with Tiska from Amsterdam and Morel from Bordeaux, Student forum discussion

It seems to be rare for OT students to meet with their colleagues in other countries but very much needed if we are to learn from each other. The collaborative working skills we are learning at university could be harnessed to help us bring about a forum that would reinforce our collective identity as OT students and European citizens whilst celebrating and learning from our cultural and practice differences, thereby participating in each other’s development. SHOUT will be keeping an eye out for how this unfolds and hope to be involved in the forum in future years...

Thank you #ENOTHEyork, you were wonderful.