SHU's Claire Craig Delivers Final SHOUT Event for 2012

With the festive season nearly upon us, we're getting ready for the final SHOUT event for 2012. This Wednesday, 12th December 2012, our very own Sheffield Hallam lecturer, Claire Craig, will be speaking about her two passions: design and OT.

Claire will be joined by her colleagues Professor Gail Mountain and Professor Paul Chamberlain from Lab4Living (www.lab4living.org.uk) to talk about 'Why Design and Occupational Therapy Go Together' and sharing some of the exciting work they have been doing.

The Lab4Living creative partnership brings together research expertise spanning the fields of health, rehabilitation, engineering, ergonomics and user-led design, to create environments and propose creative strategies for future living in which people of all ages and abilities are enabled and empowered to live with dignity, independence and fulfilment.

Their approach adopts a holistic, human-centred one rather than focusing solely on medical or social care provision and at the same time addresses issues of identity, individuality and spirituality.


To book your seat at this popular event please email shout.team@hotmail.co.uk and, unless you hear from us, please assume your place is booked.
 

The talk will take place in our usual venue - The Robert Winston Building on our Collegiate Crescent campus. 

Registration and light refreshments, including some seasonal treats, are from 5.30pm. 
The talk begins at 6.00pm with a comfort break at around 6.30pm. SHOUT events usually finish before 7.30pm.


Costs: £2.00 for students and BAOT members, £3.00 for non-members.


Following the event we will hold an informal reflection session - Wind Down Wednesday - at a pub on Ecclesall Road. Join us there to discuss and tweet your thoughts on the talk content and how it may
impact your practice.


More about Claire....


This summer we had the opportunity to interview Claire about her work at the university and Lab4Living. Over a quick cup of coffee before dashing off to a meeting, she discussed her research, talked about the thrill of receiving the Fellowship Award at this year's COT Conference and offered advice for students on evidence gathering.
  

Claire's projects

Claire is involved in the Active Aging project with Professor Gail Mountain, a community-based multi-million pound control trial intervention - the idea came from American research and has been translated for European use. 

Claire is also involved in the Euro-Education: Employability for All project, which looks at the role of OT education and aims to promote social change amongst disadvantaged groups in relation to work. Claire and an international team hastily wrote the bid for the £250,000 teaching grant over a weekend in Berlin - despite the exciting sounds and smells of the city drifting in through the hotel window, she regrets that there was no time to sightsee... 

And, as if that wasn't enough, Claire is working on Engaging Aging: practice-based research methods using art as a method of data collection, using photography or children's drawings. It is an expression of what people have told them about their environments and their experiences, using critical articfacts to embody this. This project is now expanding to reach everybody, using the principle of "A Museum in a Box" to take the exhibiton Europe-wide, as Claire explains in more detail in the interview. 

But what if it doesn't work?

Despite her huge success, Claire says that not everything has worked in the past but that she believes its important not to be overcautious in OT and not to worry if sometimes things don't work out as planned. 

"We're inventing the history of OT as we speak! It's an emergent profession, we're not there yet... but that's what is exciting about OT. We're not stuck like other professions." 

The future

Claire says that what excites her most is seeing students take up this baton of enquiry, development and research. "Students are the future, its my privilege to teach and encourage."

See tomorrow's blog post for our full interview with Claire....

Happy OT Week!

This week has been OT Week, an opportunity for occupational therapists across the UK to celebrate and promote OT to the public and talk about the difference it makes to people's lives. Here at SHOUT we like to be active in sharing our passion about this wonderful career and the way it helps people to overcome barriers in their lives and do the things that matter to them. So join us for our next evening seminar this coming Wednesday to hear how OTs help people with mental health problems find their way into work.  

"It works! The role of occupational therapy in employment support for mental health services" with Jennifer Fraser, Keeley Cassinello, Michael Russon and Michelle Cook on Wednesday 14th November 2012.

To attend this event about vocational rehabilitation, email the shout team shout.team@hotmail.co.uk to book your seat. Registration and light refreshments are from 5.30pm, and the talk begins at 6pm. Students and BAOT £2, non-members £3.

And here's what we got up to at Colette Beecher's talk on Cognitive Rehabilitation Techniques back in October...

SHOUT Tonight: Colette Beecher on Cognitive Rehabilitation Techniques

Tonight, SHOUT is back in its usual space in the Robert Winston Building with a talk by SHU lecturer and OT practitioner Colette Beecher on Cognitive Rehabilitation Techniques at 6pm.

About the talk: Cognitive rehabilitation principles can be applied to clients with cognitive impairment as a result of neurological disease, or trauma. Cognitive rehabilitation models guide the therapist to select appropriate assessment and interventions. The therapist needs to identify if the client has the potential to improve or due to the nature of their condition may need a more compensatory/adaptive approach.

Aims of the session:
· To explore cognitive rehabilitation techniques
· To explore new models of cognitive rehabilitation
· To explore current intervention resources 

Registration and light refreshments: From 5.30pm and the talk begins at 6.00pm with a comfort break at around 6.30pm. SHOUT events usually finish before 7.30pm.

Costs: £2.00 for students and BAOT members, £3.00 for non-members.

And that's not all!....

Wednesday Wind Down follows at Graze pub on Eccelsal Road for a drink and an opportunity to reflect on the session. We'll be tweeting our thoughts to our SHOUT twitter followers....

We hope to see you there!

And here's what we got up to at the last event with speaker Bob Collins on Themes in Recovery....

An Inspiring Profession

On Monday the SHOUT Team helped support a listening event hosted by the Trent Regional Group of the British Association of Occupational Therapists at Sheffield Town Hall, focusing on membership engagement. As the day came to a close and the rainy night drew in, we sat around the vast table in the conference room talking and feasting on the left over cakes and sandwiches.

Naomi Hankinson, Chair of Council at the College of Occupational Therapists, posed the question: what inspired us all to choose occupational therapy? And so, one by one, we shared our personal stories of how we came to OT and the people or events that had moved us...

Both myself and another student felt a shiver run down our spine as we heard the OTs talk about how they had been drawn to a profession that made such a positive difference in people's lives. Some came from healthcare backgrounds, others had been school students who simply knew that they wanted to help people - all valued the practical way that OT could help people live and enjoy their lives. For those of us around the table that were students, we had varied reasons for choosing OT from the inventive ways an OT can help someone with a physical disability to the mentoring role an OT takes with people with mental health problems, piecing lives back together step-by-step.

Why didn't several of the students pick physiotherapy instead of OT, Naomi asked? A response came back: because OT is more beautiful. 

Treating a person as the unique, extraordinary person that they are, respecting the valuable place they have in society, and enabling that person to do what it is they choose to do is so human and so beautiful. Occupational therapy, more than any other profession it would seem, allows people to live, beautifully. What an inspiring path we have chosen.

Today! SHOUT's First Evening Seminar of the Academic Year

We're back! Autumn brings a new term and a new schedule of SHOUT events. We've worked hard over the summer to pull together a varied line-up of talks by academics and health and social care professionals.

Later today SHOUT holds the first evening seminar of the academic season with Bob Collins on "Recovery Themes in Mental Health".

Come and join us in the Mary Badlands Theatre at our Collegiate Campus from 6-7.30pm, meet students and local clinicians and hear Bob's experiences of working as a Recovery Co-ordinator at Bradford and Airedale Early Intervention Team.

The session will explore the holistic and personalised nature of recovery and the important role of occupational therapy in facilitating social reconstruction. Bob's work focuses on optimising social and occupational recovery for young people following a first episode of pyschosis. A locally developed tool, presented at this year's COT Conference in Glasgow, will be introduced as a structure for the OT process; the "LifeChart" is an assessment, goal setting and action planning tool which emphasises a strengths-based and solutions-focussed approach, as well as providing evidence of personalised recovery outcomes.

Not to be missed!
Registration and refreshments open at 5.30pm.
Entry is £2 for students and BAOT members. Email the SHOUT team to book a seat: shout.team@hotmail.co.uk or just turn up tonight!

And that's not all....."Wind Down Wednesday" takes place afterwards at The Botanical pub on Eccelsall Road: drinks and an opportunity to reflect on the session. Thoughts are tweeted to our SHOUT followers and a wider audience.

See you there!

BAOT Listening Event at Sheffield Town Hall

Come down to Sheffield Town Hall on Monday 24th September (tomorrow!) to share your views and ideas on how occupational therapists can engage with the British Association of Occupational Therapists and develop a strong professional community.

This free listening event, hosted by the Trent Regional Group of the BAOT, will help you to explore why you should become a member of the BAOT and how you can get the most from your membership.

Drop in anytime from 12.30 - 7pm tomorrow to pick up information and speak to the Trent Regional Team and the COT Chair of Council, Naomi Hankinson.

The SHOUT Team will be supporting the event, so come and chat to us about our student-led group and find out how we promote OT and the BAOT. Our first evening seminar of the academic year begins this week on 26th September on our Collegiate Campus in the Mary Badlands Theatre from 6 -7.30pm. The talk is led by Bob Collins on Recovery Themes in Mental Health. Seats are booking up fast, so contact the SHOUT team at shout.team@hotmail.com to make sure you don't miss out! As always, refreshments are served from 5.30pm, and certificates of attendance will be presented at the end. We look forward to seeing you at both events!

Hello First Years!

The world of occupational therapy welcomes 44 new students on 17th September 2012 at Sheffield Hallam University.

The new first years had a taste of the OT course today at a pre-enrollment day, trying their hand at crafts such as marzipan fruit making and experiencing equipment used by OTs to help people live more independently.

SHOUT was there to welcome students and run sessions about our student-led group. SHOUT is by students for students and is a great way for new and existing students to have fun promoting OT, network with local practising OTs and boost CPD by attending our evening talks. And of course, we were excited about giving away our stripy green goodie bags!

It was fantastic to meet the aspiring OTs, play some games, (eat lots of sweets!) and talk about SHOUT. We were keen to explain how our group can benefit students, how to get involved and how enjoyable the next three years at Hallam will be.

And then it was time to say goodbye, but not before all the students had picked up their little bags full of information about SHOUT and BAOT, freebies and treats...

We wish them every success with their course and look forward to seeing them on campus as fully fledged first year OTs in two weeks time! Congratulations, from all of the SHOUT team.