Occupied: Recent Episodes
Brock Cook
re an occupational therapist, allied health professional, student, or simply passionate about mental health and creative practice, this episode offers valuable insights into leadership, innovation, and the power of occupation.Leading with Creativity and Advocacy: Adam Lo OAM Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Dr Jess LevickSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
In this episode of Occupied, Brock sits down with Mallory Reilly, an occupational therapist who never quite felt like she fit the traditional OT mould.Rather than forcing herself into a version of practice that didn’t feel right, Mallory forged her own path — blending her OT knowledge, clinical reasoning, and passion for physical training into a practice that feels authentic, meaningful, and impactful.This conversation explores what it feels like to not quite belong in the expected professional boxes, the courage it takes to build something different, and how occupational therapists can use their unique interests and strengths to shape practice in ways that truly fit. We explore the breakdown of the profession from an occupational science perspective to see if we can find why many people experience this misalignment. Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Brock CookSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
In this episode of Occupied, Jess sits down with occupational therapist Angus Buchanan to explore a career that has spanned clinical practice, academia, and leadership as a Head of School.Angus shares reflections from his recent keynote address at the National Occupational Therapy Conference in Adelaide in 2025, offering honest insights into how his thinking has evolved over time, particularly in the areas of social inclusion and working alongside people with intellectual disability. Angus reflected on his career turns and what has shaped him to be the occupational therapist he is today. Together, we unpack what inclusion really looks like in practice, the gaps that still exist within our systems, and the role occupational therapists play in shaping more meaningful participation and belonging. Angus shares some exciting work he is currently doing with inclusion of people with intellectual impairment at university. This conversation moves beyond theory, highlighting the realities of practice, the influence of leadership in education, and the importance of staying grounded in the core values of occupational therapy across a career.Angus discusses his newly appointed role as Editor of the Australian Journal of Occupational Therapy and the challenges of AI use in article submissions. Key TakeawaysInclusion is more than access—it’s about meaningful participation and belonging Small, everyday changes can have a significant impact on a person’s sense of inclusion There is often a disconnect between systems, education, and lived experience Leadership in OT requires staying connected to the core philosophy of the profession Reflective practice across a career is essential for growth and impactInstagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Jess Levick Subscribe now and never miss an episode!
Greg Santucci is an internationally recognised paediatric occupational therapist with over 26 years experience. He is a clinical leader, educator and creator of the Model of Child Engagement, known for making complex neurodevelopmental concepts practical and usable.We sat down and chatted about where it all started and the keys to the development of the Model of Child Engagement. Paediatrics is not my area of practice so I was incredibly keen to learn more and see just how different it could be from other practice areas. Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Brock CookSubscribe now and never miss an episode!FROM OT AUSTRALIA:GREG SANTUCCI TOUROTA is thrilled to bring Greg to Australia for their 2026 International Speaker Tour. He’ll be running full-day workshops in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth – highly interactive sessions with strategies you can use immediately. 🎧 Special offer for our podcast listeners. Use the code OCCUPIED70 to get $70 off your ticket if you book before 30 April 2026, when Early Bird pricing ends. https://otaus.com.au/international-speaker-tour-2026-greg-santucciGreg’s workshop dates: Brisbane – 22 June Sydney – 26 June Melbourne – 29 June Perth – 2 July Don’t miss this chance to learn directly from Greg and supercharge your OT practice!
In this solo episode of Occupied, Dr Jessica Levick reflects on her PhD journey and explores what evidence-based practice really means for occupational therapists.Why does it take an average of 17 years for research to reach routine clinical practice? Why does strong evidence alone fail to change systems? And what responsibility do clinicians hold in translating knowledge into real-world care?Drawing from her experience as a mental health occupational therapist and researcher, Jessica discusses:The identity shift from clinician to researcherThe realities of academic publishingWhat evidence-based practice actually involves (beyond “just using research”)Why she chose to undertake a PhDThe gap between research and implementationThis episode challenges the idea that research belongs only in academia. Instead, it reframes evidence-based practice as an ethical responsibility shared by all clinicians.You don’t need a PhD to be evidence-informed — but you do need curiosity.If you’ve ever questioned whether what we say about occupation aligns with what we fund, measure, or prioritise in health systems, this episode is for you.Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Dr Jessica LevickSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
More than a year in the making, this episode follows Courtnee Bertucci across three check-ins throughout her first year as a new graduate Occupational Therapist. Instead of a single retrospective reflection, we captured her experience in real time — documenting the emotional shifts, clinical growth, and evolving professional identity as it unfolded.Together, we unpack confidence, imposter syndrome, uncertainty, and the slow building of competence that shapes year one. From early nerves and self-doubt to growing clarity and resilience, this is an honest look at what really changes between month one and month twelve — and what it actually feels like to become an OT.Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Brock CookSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
In this special episode of Occupied, we sit down with Professor Mandy Stanley to reflect on an extraordinary career in occupational therapy as she steps into retirement.Mandy shares the story behind her journey in OT — from early clinical practice to leadership, academia, and shaping the profession at a national level. This conversation is part history lesson, part mentorship session, and part heartfelt reflection on what it really means to grow with a profession over decades.We explore how occupational therapy has evolved across her career, the moments that challenged and shaped her, and what she hopes the next generation of OTs will carry forward. Whether you’re a student just starting out, a clinician mid-career, or an educator thinking about your legacy, this episode is full of perspective, wisdom, and grounding reminders about the heart of OT.Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Brock CookSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
In this episode of Occupied, Dr Jessica Levick sits down with mental health nurse Ayden Riethmuller to explore the powerful intersection between lived experience and professional practice. Ayden shares his personal journey with mental health challenges and how these experiences have shaped his approach to care, compassion, and recovery-oriented practice.Together, they discuss the value of lived experience. This candid conversation highlights the strength that comes from vulnerability and the ways personal experience can enrich professional identity in mental health care.Whether you’re a clinician, student, or someone with lived experience, this episode offers an honest, hopeful look at what it means to support recovery — for ourselves and others.Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Dr Jessica LevickSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
In this episode, Brock sits down with Brad from The Becoming Collective to unpack what it really means to come into alignment with the profession of occupational therapy — and what happens when we drift away from it.Brad opens up about the origins of The Becoming Collective, how it started as a space for meaningful connection and reflection, and how the group evolved (and sometimes dissolved) as members navigated burnout, personal growth, and the realities of professional life.Together, Brock and Brad explore:🌊 The natural ebb and flow of professional identity — and how OTs can lose (and rediscover) their sense of purpose.🔥 Burnout, disillusionment, and the courage it takes to pause and realign.🧩 Why models and frameworks aren’t just academic tools, but anchors for reasoning, reflection, and reconnection with occupation.🤝 The importance of community, vulnerability, and staying curious about who we are becoming as practitioners.This episode is a grounded, honest reflection on growth, drift, and renewal — reminding us that returning to the core of our profession often starts with reconnecting to ourselves.Check out the Becoming Collective here: The free Clarity Collection guide 1 download: https://thebecomingcollective.kit.com/07b16351bcThe OT Re-Alignment Experience page: https://becoming-realign-landing.lovable.app/The Becoming Collective page: www.thebecomingcollective.comEmail: hello@thebecomingcollective.com
In this episode of Occupied, Dr Jessica Levick chats with Professor Elspeth Froude — Professor of Occupational Therapy and National Head of the School of Allied Health at the Australian Catholic University. Elspeth shares insights from her leadership journey in academia, her passion for advancing the profession globally, and her role as Chair of the WFOT World Congress to be held in Thailand in 2026.Together, Jess and Elspeth explore the evolving landscape of occupational therapy education, research, and international collaboration, and discuss how occupational therapists can stay grounded in occupation while responding to global challenges.A thoughtful and inspiring conversation for anyone passionate about the future of occupational therapy and the power of leadership to create meaningful change.💥 Exclusive Listener Offer! Listeners of Occupied can receive 10% off full registration for the WFOT World Congress 2026 in Thailand using the code Occupied@10 at checkout. Don’t miss this chance to connect, learn, and celebrate occupational therapy on the global stage!Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Dr Jessica LevickSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
In this episode of Occupied, Dr Jessica Levick is joined by Dr Kieran Broome — occupational therapist, educator, and researcher, to explore how we can bridge the gap between what we know and what we do. We unpack the concept of knowledge translation and why it’s essential for meaningful, evidence-informed occupational therapy practice. Kieran shares insights into how OTs can stay curious, reflective, and engaged in lifelong learning, no matter where they are in their career journey.Whether you’re a student, clinician, or academic, this conversation will leave you inspired to think critically, learn continuously, and translate knowledge into everyday action.Instagram: @OccupiedPodcastFacebook: Occupied PodcastHost: Dr Jessica LevickSubscribe now and never miss an episode!
In this episode, I’m joined by Joey Peppas, an occupational therapist running her own private practice. Together, we dig deep into the less-talked-about realities of our profession—being a people pleaser, battling imposter syndrome, and the unique personality traits that often draw us into OT in the first place.
Joey shares her experiences of navigating private practice, from the practical challenges of running a business to the personal growth that comes with stepping outside the comfort zone. We also reflect on the ways our personalities shape how we show up as therapists, colleagues, and leaders.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re giving too much, doubted whether you’re “enough,” or wondered what it really takes to thrive in private practice, this conversation is for you.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DOfxLwMAbV1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==* Instagram: @OccupiedPodcast * Facebook: Occupied Podcast
Host: Brock Cook
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In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Arameh Anvarizadeh, the newly elected president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). We dive into her journey into occupational therapy, the experiences that shaped her leadership, and the values guiding her work at the highest level of the profession.
Dr. Anvarizadeh shares candid insights into her personal story, the challenges she’s faced, and the vision she has for advancing occupational therapy during her presidential term. From equity and inclusion, to professional advocacy, to building stronger connections across our diverse OT community, her priorities highlight the future direction of the profession.
Whether you’re a student, clinician, educator, or leader, this conversation will inspire you to reflect on what leadership means in occupational therapy—and how each of us can contribute to shaping the future of our field.
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Host: Brock Cook
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Join Brock and Jess as they chat with Dr Craig Greber about an exciting new model of clinical reasoning he’s helped to develop. Craig shares insights into the origins of this innovative approach, how it can enhance occupational therapy practice, and why clinical reasoning remains critical to the profession. An essential listen for anyone interested in pushing the boundaries of OT thinking!
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Host: Dr Jessica Levick & Brock Cook
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Brock and Jess chat and explore her firsthand experiences attending the 2025 Occupational Therapy Australia National Conference. She explores the highlights, key insights, and areas for improvement from her perspective. Adding depth to the conversation, you’ll also hear reflections from a diverse range of attendees, capturing the varied impressions and standout moments from this year’s event. Whether you attended or missed out, join us as we unpack the takeaways and discuss what it means for the future of occupational therapy practice.
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Host: Dr Jessica Levick & Brock Cook
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In this candid conversation, Brock and Jess dive into the rewarding yet challenging world of academia within occupational therapy. They discuss the genuine highs, the unexpected lows, and share personal insights about navigating life as educators, researchers, and clinicians. Expect reflections on balance, burnout, triumphs, and the ongoing journey of growth in academia.
Tune in for honest perspectives, helpful takeaways, and a relatable chat for anyone connected to or curious about the academic side of occupational therapy.
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Host: Dr Jessica Levick & Brock Cook
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In Episode 174 of Occupied, host Dr Jessica Levick speaks with Martin Staines, an Advanced Occupational Therapist with a deep commitment to recovery-oriented practice in mental health.
Martin shares reflections from his extensive clinical experience, exploring how occupational therapists can work authentically alongside people experiencing mental health challenges. The conversation dives into what recovery-oriented practice truly looks like in action—from fostering hope and autonomy to navigating risk, documentation, and systemic constraints.
Jessica and Martin discuss the tensions clinicians face between policy-driven models of care and person-centred, values-based practice. They unpack the importance of relationships, everyday occupations, and creating space for meaning-making in mental health recovery.
This episode is a rich and grounded exploration of how occupational therapists can challenge the status quo, advocate for human rights, and honour the lived experiences of those they support.
Whether you’re working in mental health or passionate about recovery-oriented care, this episode offers wisdom, inspiration, and practical strategies from the frontline.
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Host: Dr Jessica Levick
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In this episode of Occupied, I sit down with Michelle Oliver, Australia’s first-ever Chief Occupational Therapist, for an inspiring and insightful conversation about her journey, her vision for the profession, and the evolving landscape of occupational therapy in Australia.
We dive into:
- Michelle’s personal career path—from clinical practice to national leadership
- What the role of Chief Occupational Therapist entails and how it came to be
- The pivotal work being led by Occupational Therapy Australia to advance our profession
- Key themes and what to expect from the upcoming OT National Conference in Adelaide
- The importance of representation, policy influence, and strategic leadership for OTs at every level
Whether you’re a student, clinician, or leader in health, this episode will leave you reflecting on how we care—for others and ourselves—in complex systems.
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Host: Brock Cook
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BONUS!!!
If you are considering going to the 31st NATIONAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2025 in Adelaide next month than let me save you some $$$. OTA have kindly provided a link especially for listeners of the pod! Register for the conference using this link and save yourself up to $265 on your registration PLUS go into the draw to win two tickets to the conference Gala Dinner!
Register here: https://www.otausevents.com.au/otaus2025/friendsofthepodcast-occupied
In Episode 172 of Occupied, co-host Dr Jessica Levick speaks with consultant psychiatrist Dr Theo Theodoros to explore the realities of working in challenging, complex and high-pressure healthcare environments.
Drawing from his extensive experience in mental health settings including High Dependency Units (HDU) and Emergency Departments, Dr Theodoros reflects on the emotional, ethical, and systemic challenges that clinicians face across disciplines. The conversation unpacks what it means to work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams, challenging risks and the importance of compassion—for both clients and practitioners.
Together, Jessica and Theo discuss strategies for navigating burnout, maintaining professional integrity, and fostering supportive, reflective environments in the face of adversity. This honest and thoughtful dialogue offers a rare insight into the shared struggles and strengths that unite occupational therapists, psychiatrists, and other allied health professionals working in demanding contexts.
Whether you’re a student, clinician, or leader in health, this episode will leave you reflecting on how we care—for others and ourselves—in complex systems.
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Host: Jessica Levick
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Welcome back to the Occupied Podcast! After a significant hiatus, we’re rebooting with fresh perspectives, exciting content, and most importantly, a brand-new co-host—Jessica Levick.
In this special reboot episode:
Meet Jessica Levick: Get to know Jessica, her professional background in Occupational Therapy, and her vision for the future of Occupied.
What’s Changing: Brock and Jessica discuss why the podcast took a break, what’s been happening behind the scenes, and what listeners can expect moving forward.
New Directions & Fresh Ideas: Explore exciting new topics, formats, and features coming your way. From in-depth conversations and expert interviews to addressing critical issues in Occupational Therapy.
Join us as we kick off a new chapter filled with enthusiasm, insight, and community engagement. Subscribe and stay occupied with the conversations that matter!
Follow us on social media:
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Hosts: Brock Cook & Jessica Levick
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In this episode I sit down with Dr. Jessica Levick to explore the intersection of identity, social media, and the commercialisation of mental health. Together, we unpack the growing influence of social media personalities on mental health narratives, discussing both the opportunities and the challenges this creates for individuals seeking support. We delve into how this trend impacts perceptions of identity and mental well-being and consider the role Occupational Therapy can play in promoting authentic, inclusive, and ethical approaches to mental health care in this evolving digital landscape. Whether you’re an OT, a student, or simply curious about the impact of social media on health, this episode will leave you with plenty to think about. Tune in for an insightful and thought-provoking conversation!
And hey, if you enjoyed today’s chat, we’d love it if you could leave us a review and share the episode with your network.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
In this inspiring episode of Occupied, I sit down with the multi-talented Lindsay DeLong, an occupational therapist and online content creator known for her innovative videos on assistive technologies.
Lindsay shares her journey of merging her passion for occupational therapy with her creative flair, offering listeners a unique perspective on how assistive technologies can enhance lives. She delves into the challenges and rewards of being a creator in this niche, providing valuable insights for both aspiring content creators and occupational therapy professionals. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of healthcare, technology, and creativity, as Lindsay’s story is a testament to the impact one can make by combining their professional expertise with their personal interests.
And hey, if you enjoyed today’s chat, we’d love it if you could leave us a review and share the episode with your network.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
In the latest episode of our podcast, we delve into the fascinating topic of Critical Thinking and its significance in our daily lives. We aim to unravel the mysteries of this crucial skill set, often overlooked yet essential for personal growth and informed decision-making. We’ll discuss practical strategies for nurturing a critical mindset, share insights from experts in the field, and provide listeners with actionable tips to apply critical thinking in various aspects of their lives. Whether you’re a seasoned critical thinker or just beginning to explore this area, this episode promises to be an enlightening journey into the world of rational thought and reasoned analysis. Join us as we embark on this adventure to enhance our cognitive abilities and enrich our understanding of the world around us.
And hey, if you enjoyed today’s chat, we’d love it if you could leave us a review and share the episode with your network.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
Today’s episode is all about mastering interviews, whether you’re sitting in the hot seat or the one steering the conversation. We’re unpacking everything from breaking down interview myths to post-interview protocols in a way that’s easy to digest and even easier to put into action.
First off, we’re tackling what really happens in an interview, shining a light on the realities versus the common myths. Making a stellar first impression is more than just dressing sharp; it’s about presenting the best version of yourself, from your body language to your choice of words. And speaking of words, we’ll dive into how to keep the conversation flowing naturally, with tips on active listening and expressing yourself clearly without getting tangled in jargon. Feeling jittery just thinking about interviews? No stress! We’ve got some straightforward strategies to help you stay cool and collected. Plus, once the interview’s over, we’re not leaving you hanging. We’ll chat about the art of the follow-up and why reflecting on your interview experience is a hidden gem for personal growth. Wrapping up Episode 167, remember, it’s all about being prepared, staying authentic, and communicating clearly. Tune in next time for more real talk and pro tips in the world of occupational therapy.
And hey, if you enjoyed today’s chat, we’d love it if you could leave us a review and share the episode with your network.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
Welcome to the latest episode where we explore the intricate dynamics of racial identity, privilege, and the role of white individuals in addressing systemic racism. In this episode, I’m joined by Helen Harrington and Marielle Turner and we embark on a journey of self-reflection and understanding. We delve into the concept of white privilege, and its impact on healthcare today. We confront uncomfortable truths and share personal stories, aiming to foster a deeper comprehension of our own roles in perpetuating or dismantling racial inequalities. This conversation is an essential step for anyone committed to the path of anti-racism and inclusivity. Tune in, listen with an open heart, and join us in this vital dialogue.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
Never in my wildest dreams did I see us getting here. Last night we clocked over….half a million downloads!! That’s right…500,000 🫣
164 episodes
500,000+ downloads
98 amazing guests
174+hours of original content released
225+hrs of recording
556gig of raw audio files
160 countries reached
58 different podcast apps
2.5 websites
2 MacBook Pro’s
4 Microphones
Still only 1 tech issue (touch wood)
1 fan photo
Many hrs of disrupted sleep
Some absolutely amazing networking.
A huge amount of emails and DM’s from people who resonated with episodes.
Now I know that things have slowed greatly in the last year and I’m sorry about that but I want you to know I’m still here plodding along and putting content out when I can for you to learn and grow from.
You are the reason I’ve done this for so long. And your messages and questions and taps on the shoulder at conferences mean the absolute world to me.
I can’t thank each and every one of you enough for your time, support and kind words. You are Occupied.
Brock
1 Month on from the OT Australia National Conference in Cairns and these are some reflections from the event!
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock@brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
Was listening to OT & Chill recently and something from this episode triggered my brain into thought!
I explore my friend, Marie's, journey into working with kids with trauma and some of the considerations that need to be made by clinicians when working in this kind of area.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock@brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
The main aim of this presentation is to share the evolution of the role of occupational therapists in the field of eating disorders.
If you're on social media and don't know Mandy then are you really on social media? Mandy is not only a beautiful person but has been in the online space helping therapists and students grow and learn into the profession.
What does being Independent mean? why does it always seem to be an OT's goal for their clients? Is it even possible? A long time bug bear that I decided to have a deeper look into. Part of this ep looks at info from the included article.
Karina Sanson-Fisher Occupational therapist in Mulubinba (Newcastle), Australia Instagram @doing.therapy
Session title Doing Drugs: Occupational therapy and alcohol and other drugs
Session details This session explores an occupational therapy role working with people who use alcohol and other drugs, and provides my own experiences of finding and maintaining occupationally focussed practice in this space.
For more and how to register for future seminars, see: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/occupation/
Absolutely honoured to be asked to deliver the keynote for the Wisconsin OT Association virtual conference. This is that presentation as well as the Q&A at the end of it for your consumption.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@OccupiedPod
brock.cook@me.com
TranscriptBrock Cook 0:00
Hi, and welcome to another episode I got asked, and still can’t believe that I got asked to give the keynote presentation at the Wisconsin State ot conference a couple of weeks ago. And they asked me to give some lessons that I’ve learned in Korea that has involved a lot of empowering OTS to use online technology and an online space. So this is the presentation that I gave you guys also get the discussion towards the end of it, as well as the actual PowerPoint from the presentation and everything. So you’ll have everything as if you were there. So I hope you get something out of it. I hope you enjoy it. Please do let me know either way. And let’s roll it. Welcome to occupy plus the Patreon exclusive podcast for those supporters looking to inject some extra value into their practice. Thank you for your support, and enjoy.
Host 1:11
Good morning and welcome to our 2021 Virtual World Conference. My name is Laura souls today and I am the VP of professional development in honor to kick off a two day agenda of expert speakers to set the tone and celebration of our professions. 100 years of resilience. today’s keynote speaker comes to us all the way from Australia. Brock Cook is a seasoned occupational therapist with experience in working in acute mental health rehabilitation, delivering his expertise through innovating, approaches of podcasts and webinars. Currently, Brock is an associate lecturer for James Cook University, and will be presenting on the topics of lessons I’ve learned pushing ot into a digital world. Welcome, Brock.
Brock Cook 1:59
Thank you very much very kind. Just give me one second while I work this shared screen thingamajigger me out. There we go. Hopefully people can see that. Cool. So yeah, hi, thank you for asking me to come and speak to you today. I’m flattered, honored. And hopefully, I can bring something that is of interest to a range of people I was asked to I’ve been involved in this world of OT and how its uses online technologies and social medias and that kind of thing for a very long time now. So I’m gonna go through a bit of my history with, I guess, technology in general, and how that led me into that space of being able to try and adapt it and use it for how I’ve used it within OT. And I’m hoping at the end, if we can, if there’s questions, and I’m very much more of an interactive kind of person than just me speak to people through a screen kind of person. So I’d like to field some questions and try and explore I guess the future where to from here in that sort of question time towards the end of it, if we can so. So if I press the right button, that’ll help. So having a look at my technological journey, so that not there we go. All right, I’ll just do it this way. Sorry. where it started. So I was born in 1985. I my family we got our very first home computer. So one thing I will preface because I know this people have a whole wide range of ages in this room is I am of the generation that saw the start of pretty much all of the internet, that type of thing. So I remember a time before the internet, I remember a time before social media. And I was here when all of them started so I was kind of on the ground level learning all these things as they developed, which I think put me in a good position to start supporting other people and therapists to to actually use them and how to use them safely and effectively. So it started in 1990 When my my family bought the very first computer I remember dad bringing it home and it was absolutely enormous came in boxes that I don’t even think I could fit in my car nowadays. It was heavy. I was five at the time. I remember it not having a clue what it was other than it looked like a big TV with another box under it. It cost a fortune. So back then I actually looked this up. The, it cost us about two and a half $1,000 Australian. Back then which equivalent today was over five grand, which is a very expensive computer had a whopping 12 megahertz processor, VGA screen and 40 megabyte hard drive. Which, if you know much about computers, it did make me laugh because my iPhone, which I have sitting right here in front of me, is 9,000% faster than that computer has more than 10 times the screen resolution and six and a half 1000 times more storage and cost a fraction of the amount. So we’ve come a long way since 1990. But this is where it began. So I learned the very basics of how a computer works and the different parts of it. And for me as a kid, I was the kid that liked to pull things apart and put them back together, which I don’t know how my parents felt about that all the time. But I was very sort of enamored with this computer and how it worked. And I’d never seen anything like it. Fast forward a few years. So around 1996, we got our first internet connection, it was dial up many people probably remember the the weird dial up noise that used to make and you couldn’t make phone calls while you were using it. That kind of thing. A whopping 56 kilobytes a second of internet, which is an I did this test yesterday is 5,000% slower than my internet that I’m currently talking to you on. So again, another leap forward in the last 25 years.
But where it started to make a bit more sense about what we could actually do with this technology, for me anyway, was the birth of social media. Now MySpace wasn’t the first social media it was, I think it was the second but it was definitely the largest and most, I guess, key to shaping what the internet was going to look like. So 2013 or 2003, sorry, which was the year before I started my ot degree, my undergrad, I joined this weird website called MySpace on the recommendation of a friend of mine. And sort of start didn’t really know what to do with it. But then slowly realized that there were developing communities and you could connect with other people. And I actually that I still to this day have a friend that I met through MySpace, all those many moons ago. But it was the beginning of what we look at as web 2.0. So Web 2.0, if you haven’t heard of that term, was the shift in internet websites and tools online to be more interactive. So all of your social medias, like versions of web 2.0. Back in the day, we used to have forums and messengers, like I CQ, and AOL that kind of stuff. Before that, when the internet was really a place that you just went to get information. So look up a website, you go to that website, you find the information you need. And that was pretty much it. It was very one way traffic, web 2.0 allowed for configuration and interaction with the content on the web. So this is where things like wikis were born, where you could actually create content and put yourself out there without having to know like coding languages. MySpace, what MySpace did that was unique to everything else on the web was it allowed you to configure your own little space, so you’d actually have your own room or last one sort of felt like you had your own space, you can make your page look like what you want. You could put your top five, like songs that you were currently into on there, you could highlight who your best friends were and prioritize them into groups and all sorts of stuff. You could configure the colors on the page, what pictures you wanted to share on the page. It was the first really easily accessible and free space on the internet that people could configure to make their own. And that’s a really powerful that’s one of the reasons why it was so big, why it was so massive. The origins of it were very much trying to replicate our social interactions that we were having in person. So back in that day I was probably your typical teenager, before MySpace came out posters on the wall of cars and all that sort of stuff, and bookshelves full of magazines of, you know, rock music and rap music, and probably not a lot of highly what would be deemed highly educational content. But that’s the kind of personalization that kids in my era or in my area where I lived, just what you did with your space, it was a way to personalize your space. And my space offered you that in a virtual forum. The chats were all private, it was like messaging. Same as if you were having a one on one conversation with people. The music would be a few like recommending it. Like these are my favorite songs. Everyone at school knew who whose favorite songs were what it was very much replicating. In life interactions there was at this stage, and I’ll get to this a bit later, there was no algorithm that was changing anything, if you posted something, everyone in your list could see it, all of your friends, etc. It was very basic, in a way. So when did ot come into this, obviously, all that up until that point, it happened before I even started my degree, started my IT degree in 2004. During that time, we had the lovely Facebook, enter the realm
and swallow was I had the time period during my undergrad. So we did a four year undergrad here in Australia. So I have a Bachelor of occupational therapy. I was using all of these social medias and tools. I hadn’t heard of anyone using it for any professional purpose. It was literally as it says on the box, it was just a social media. So you connect with your friends. So I kind of had three or four years with these tools to just play with them, I guess and learn what they could do and learn who you connect with and how they worked and their positives and negatives and all that sort of stuff. So I graduated at the end of 2008. So started working to those nine. And in 2010 is the earliest time I’ve been able to find of, I guess, a professional purpose, particularly for Facebook. So around 2010, there was I think it was the world the Prophet conference in 2010, there was a group of ladies that had all had similar ideas around trying to find a way to use these tools in a professional purpose mainly for CPD for clinicians. They got together and they started ot 480, which at the time was online technology for OT and just a group of women who started a Facebook group. It was open to anyone, anyone could join, ask questions, interact, network, etc. But on top of that, they also started what they what at the time was called the OT 24. Exchange, I think it wasn’t originally and then it got changed to the VX. So every year on world ot day, which is 25th of October, a couple of days time, they would do a 24 hour conference, a virtual conference similar to what we’re doing here. So every hour on the hour for 24 hours. These women were from all over the world. There’s couple from Australia, one from Australia, one from New Zealand couple from the UK, a couple from America, your own Karen Jacobs was was part of that group. They would organize this conference get invited speakers every hour on the hour for 24 hours. And it would run those presentations would be recorded. It was completely free. People could come and go to whichever whichever sessions they wanted, they could watch the recordings afterwards, etc. That was one of the very end that all stemmed from this group that they set up. I got involved with them the following year. So 2011 seen the conference in 2010. Attended again in 2011. And then I at the time, there was this Facebook group, the OT for ot group, and I had this idea that maybe we could expand that because like online technology for it. That’s cool. But I only knew a handful of OTS that were even remotely interested in online technology. But what I did know was a lot of OTS that were interested in mental health, which is where I was working. So I pitched to the ladies to start or to let me start a satellite group. So I started a Mental Health Forum Tea group. And that was the start of, I guess, this period of time where different OTS started engaging with Facebook and are some of them were there to start their own satellite groups, I think there’s about 50 of them now. And some of them were there to engage with the groups that were based on their interest area, whether it was assistive technology or learning disorders, or there’s an oncology one, there’s obviously the original it for 80 MH for at the mental health one that I started. And as a moderator of that group, I treated it like, kind of like a breakout room at a conference, I guess, where I would pose questions and facilitate conversations and people would share resources, too, my goal was to one get people to network, you meet people from all over the world, this was a unique opportunity that we’d never really had before. Because we didn’t have the tools for it. It was also to get people to learn. My experience in mental health was that it seemed at that point in time seemed very disjointed in the knowledge that clinicians actually had. There wasn’t any sort of consistency even around what an OT his role was in mental health. Now, I know, I will preface that. Mental health is a fairly prevalent practice area in Australia. I know it’s not quite as prevalent for a variety of reasons in the States. But it’s quite common over here, I’d say probably 30, to maybe even higher percentage of our all of our OTS work in mental health.
But there still wasn’t sort of any consistency. So my, one of my goals with that group was to try and wrangle some of that in around that same time. Twitter was was starting, I think, because of some of the stuff that I highlighted earlier around. Me being around when you know, home PCs became a thing being around when the internet started being around when social media started, I was always had this sort of like, how does it work mentality. And I, again, that probably stemmed from me being a kid that like to pull things apart and see how they worked. So when Twitter started, I was on it. I’m pretty sure my Twitter account is like 16 years old now or something. It tells me every now and then, but initially, it I couldn’t see any sort of way to use it. for professional purposes, a group of ladies in the UK did find a way however, so they started having a weekly, initially CPD chat for an hour using the hashtag Oh talk ot talk, depending on how you pronounce it, where they would have an invited guest on a certain topic who would come in and facilitate discussion around whoever wanted to join via that hashtag. And they would do that for an hour each week. That then stems or I guess a US version was born from that, which is the ote talk to us, us. Your own Tina champagne was involved in starting that one back in the day, that would have been 2013 ish, it was very quite a while ago. And that was auto successful. They used to do it monthly. And then every week during April, which I believe is your ot month. And the other big professional purpose for Twitter was live conference tweeting. They’re even now it’s probably still the biggest use of it within OT, which I’ve never been able to work out exactly why because the number of people that I know that have a Twitter account and will only ever use it whenever they’re at a conference fascinates me. But when it first started, it was really interesting to me to be able to obviously I’m on the other side of the world. If you can’t tell by the accent, to be able to engage in like your conference, your national conference with the people that are actually there and be able to interact with them live. While talks are happening while keynotes are happening. Them tweeting out content or their thoughts or their reflections about it. People outside the conference from all around the world being able to also engage with that content. It made for a really connected feeling profession in that online space. Some of the stuff from that I as I said earlier, like started, I did a lot of workshops with people ran a lot of webinars, essentially COURAGING people to engage in these. First, these online facilities that were already started the groups, the discussions, the online conferences, etc. The early focus back then the main concern for most people was about privacy. A lot of people wondering whether they needed to start up a separate account for all of their ot staff and then keep that separate from their privacy staff back then privacy settings were non existent. So it probably wasn’t a bad idea. The interesting thing on reflection, too, was that each of those different platforms had a very different community on it. So OTS that were you on engaging really heavily in the Facebook community weren’t necessarily using Twitter weren’t necessarily using back then Pinterest was a big thing as well. They weren’t necessarily using any other platforms, everyone kind of stuck to their own thing. So it was back then we were encouraging people to like, if you want to engage in a wider breadth of community, try these different platforms, a lot of these platforms back then when you to people so it was a matter of try it, you might like it, see how you go engage with the community, if it’s your community, that sweet, look what you found them, you can utilize their, their knowledge. And if not, then you just close your account or don’t use it completely up to you. But it was very different. And the reason it was very different was each platform was designed very uniquely. And I remember
something that really highlighted this was this is the real, tech geeky person in me, I was reading a book by the founder of Twitter, who explained that Facebook, their key question back in the day used to pop up in the little share status thing was What are you? What are you doing? Or know how are you? How are you feeling? How are you doing or something? Whereas Twitter was, what are you doing? Like just that simple reframe, completely shifted the whole focus of the platform. So there are very separate, whereas nowadays, every platform seems to be pirating things from every platform, you can use? Well, Instagram seems to be just collecting everything. So you can do stories, you can essentially do tick tock, you can essentially do Snapchat, you can essentially do what Facebook does all of this on Instagram, Facebook now has stories as well. Yeah, the trying each platform isn’t trying to be unique. They’re trying to garner market share. So it’s very different to it was back in the day. So the community often overlaps nowadays, because you can get the same thing from multiple platforms. The most common purpose for the online stuff back then CPD, and networking. So people are looking to learn people looking to find resources, people looking to network with people in other parts of the world. Where are we equipped? So one of the questions from that, like the next I guess, trying to think about where to from there was were we as OTS actually equipped to support the people that we worked with, in using these tools? I actually posted this out to my Instagram account this week or yesterday. And the response was interesting, because a lot of people thought majority of people, I think 70% of people thought, Yes, we are completely equipped to do that. But then when I asked a simple question like how do you safely use social media of the 500, and whatever people that viewed that particular thing, I got one answer. So I think our default reaction needs to have a look at there. But anyway, that’s a completely another story. So were we equipped, I personally didn’t think we were a lot of 80s Even now, lack tech, tech literacy, and lack tech literacy from a point of view, even if you use some of these things in a personal capacity, might lack some tech literacy on terms of how to educate people on safe use, or sustainable use, etc. We’ll have a look at that in a bit to the next evolution of this usage, sort of that 2014 up to 2019 period was, I guess the a large period of growth for that web 2.0 portion of it in that what we found is that people stopped using it just to get information. And we saw a boom and absolute boom in content creators which is one place where I sort of shifted my interest as I started my podcast in 2018, as did Sarah, who I believe was in the audience here. But you’ll hear from her a bit later in the conference too. So you saw a whole range of different reasons that people started using these platforms, people were still using for CPD, they were still using them for networking. But I’ve seen a lot of people around this period start to use it looking for productivity and workflow, I guess guidance. So trying to use technology to improve their workflow or increase their workflow, especially with the implementation of things like iPads, in the workplaces, people were trying to work out how this how can this help me be a better or more efficient therapist? How can this help me get my work done better, etc. For the first time, during this period, we actually saw or I saw on mass, OTs looking to try and find apps and tools and platforms that they could use with clients not just for themselves and for their own benefit. So that was probably the biggest shift in the OT within an online world was that shift of, okay, I’ve got all these tools now, how would I be able to use these with my clients, and not just for growing myself or learning myself, etc. And as I said before, the there was also a premium content creators during this period.
Then the world ended. So as we all know, some of us are still, some of us may still be in the throes of what happened at the start of last year, some of us are faring better than others. But we’re all aware that last year, a rather large change happened, which had not all negatives, especially when it came to digital literacy for our profession, if I am honest, and a lot of it was born of necessity, a lot of people were forced into this online space, and it was a matter of getting in the deep end and learning how to swim. So I have a look at that, just quickly. So when we’re looking at, look at this in a very odd way, we’re gonna look at the PA. So when we look at the environment, our homes, the least for an initial period, some much longer than others, our homes became absolutely everything. In our environment, we didn’t have many environmental changes throughout our days throughout our weeks. Because everything we did started happening from home, at least for our period, zoom, the program that we are using now increased by 2,900%. In six months of 2020, that was from January to June 2,900% of our home became our place of work, our place of leisure, relaxation, learning social connection, literally everything we did, we had to adjust and find a way to do that, engage with that and fill those needs from this environment, which previously may have just served as a purpose to sleep and eat. For some people. Like I said before, this occupational disruption lasted at sort of minimum a few weeks maximum, it might still be going for some people. But there was also a genuine recognition through from the a lot of the therapists that I saw and interacted with online, there was a genuine recognition that this was impacting our clients and their engagement with the world as well as our own for the first time I saw a lot of therapists recognize that us as well as their clients were in this together and not just that sort of client patient separation type relationship.
When we’re looking at person, so CDC reported that there was a 400% increase in persons reporting anxiety or depression symptoms between January 2020 Compared to all of 2019 which is a huge increase. The interesting thing, which I haven’t put in here for a mental health perspective, if anyone has mental health interest is that didn’t correlate to an interest. Sorry, an increase in suicide, which was kind of fascinating. Digital literacy was, again, we were thrown into it we’ll put to the test overnight was sink or swim Whether some people could continue working or not, was up to how quickly they could learn how to use these tools. Parents with some of you can probably relate to this parents became teachers to students in online environments, quite often instantly overnight, which is a very different role than some people had been used to. So you weren’t just trying to navigate these waters for yourself, but often for other people as well. This is the first time in my career that I’d ever seen mental health really put as a frontline topic. And I’ll, I bring that up for a very deliberate purpose. And I’ll get to that again, in a in a little sec, I’ll make that connection. But it was interesting to see that all of a sudden, it took some event like this, in order for us to actually recognize that we all have mental health. And we should all look after finding ways to do that. Some of this technology maybe can help us maybe it was having the opposite effect. And our use of social media because of this forced if evolution definitely changed. On terms of occupation, we had to change how we worked, we had to change how we socialized, we had to change how we engage in our hobbies, maybe we actually had to change our hobbies, if we couldn’t access them from different environments. socialization, I ran a number of throughout the initial lockdown, which was when I was mostly impacted. So around March ish last year, for probably couple months. I ran a number of sessions on zoom on a Friday afternoon, where I got 30 to 40 OTS together for people that I’ve met online. And we got together and just talked and maybe had a couple of adult beverages. But that was a way of just trying to check in with people and making sure people were right. And something that obviously not a very usual method of socializing. But we use the tools that we had access to which zoom was definitely a tool that got used, as I highlighted before, we used it to fill those gaps.
We saw two distinct growth areas with this. So therapists using technology to engage clinically with their clients, a lot of people were thrown into telehealth or finding other methods to reduce physical contact with clients. And using technology and a lot of instances for that. And we also saw therapists engaging in professional networks for learning and for a lot more for support. Then then learning during that period, I want to highlight a couple of these for you. So there’s a couple of people, again, full disclosure, these are friends of mine, ran and Chris, who’s really one of the ladies in that picture on the left, pivoted her business and started supporting OCS to actually make that transition into the online world. She made the she held events like this ot telehealth Summit, where again, similar to this kind of conference where it was a online speakers that were specifically targeted at different aspects of pivoting people’s businesses on to telehealth so that people could adjust and keep making a living. Throughout that same time period, Laura on the right there, started her business DuraTrac, which essentially she developed an app that clients and clinicians could connect over and share. It’s mainly designed initially for like pediatric clients where there might have been some exercises or activities that the therapist one of the parents to support the child with after like outside of therapy. But the therapist could interact with them through the app, change the program, adjust the program accordingly. That kind of thing. So that’s another way like she pivoted she’s found a niche using online technology and creating online technology to support clinicians, alternative creators. We saw our wins or at Mary I’m sure most of you probably may have heard of it. Marie is a of probably the biggest ot content creator on YouTube. It’s as far as I’m concerned, still a very untapped resource if anyone out there listening designs or has an interest in making videos, that might be an idea for you. And also, we saw a boom in podcasts. Obviously, that’s my shameless plug 2018 When I started occupied and when Sarah started ot for life, I think there was maybe three podcasts when I first started occupied 2020, we saw a massive increase in that, particularly from students, students have a real interest in the use of this technology. And I saw a lot of student led podcasts out there to try and consolidate their own learnings. I, a lot of them were learning from home, as a lot of my students where I’m working in education now. And my students, I was teaching them all online. And it was almost this tool, this all created, the use of this tool created a podcast in order to consolidate their learning like a study group, but using an online technology. And I found that really fascinating because it wasn’t something that I had spoken to a few of them, it wasn’t something that they were like, directed to do. It was almost this natural, like, Okay, what tools of regard? How can we make sure that we’re getting the most out of our learning, because we’re not obviously, if you’ve never learned in an online environment, I can tell you, it’s generally not usually as free and easy as an in person environment, especially when it comes to engagement. So they were wanting more, so they created it, which was amazing. 2021, we’ve seen that trend continue. But we’ve seen a lot more therapists, I feel get into the podcasting space. But we’re seeing a lot more podcasts from a variety of countries, which is amazing. There’s podcasts now from South Africa from India. Previously, it was pretty much I think I was the only one from Australia, I think I may still be I’m not 100%. Sure, as a couple now, majority of them are from the States. And there’s a few from the UK. But we’ve seen a lot more breadth of podcasts, from OTS all over the world, which for me is amazing because you get a wider variety of experiences a wider variety of perspectives. And it’s a valuable valuable learning tool. I’m very much a person that learns from experience, and or hearing people’s stories. I’m a narrative learner.
So one thing I would encourage people is it’s not all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns, there is not it not every aspect of this is a positive one, I personally have experienced the other side of it as well. It’s important that we look at both sides of a coin. Social media nowadays, I spoke about earlier how originally social media was very simple. It was just designed to replicate real life interactions. Social media nowadays is a commodity, it is a business and your attention is the commodity. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m not saying you have to shut down all your accounts and go back to lighting kerosene lamps and living in the woods. But being aware of what the social media platform wants you to do, compared to what you want to do with it is an important self awareness to have when using these things. As with anything that we do, whether it’s learning a new skill, or playing a sport, like informed decision making is a really key thing. And I think being aware that some of these social media platforms, their whole goal is to get you to stay on the platform and engage on the platform. And they have these algorithms that essentially will show your content to whoever they want to show it to unless you play the game unless you engage with their platform more and give them more of your attention is an important component to actually look at, especially if you’re looking at safely educating people that you work with around this. I didn’t. Yeah, I was. There’s a lot of research around social media addiction in air quotes, being a genuine medical diagnoseable condition, displaying similar traits and similar brain chemistry to gambling, addiction, drugs, any kind of addictive behavior. So if you’re working with someone who has a tendency to lean towards those sort of addictive behaviors, especially knowing that can have an impact on how and the kinds of things that you’re going to be educating them on. With regards to safe use and sustainable use of these platforms, it seems harmless, but it can do a lot of damage if if it’s not yours, right, same as anything. Just realized the time. So I’m like rushing through takeaways, key points. And I want to go in a bit of detail where we might leave it for questions on this, but essentially ever a lot changed in 30 years, and it’s not slowing down, things are going to change rapidly, not just with the tech. But if you know, world events like this may happen again, it’s gonna force us to be adaptable. I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with being adaptable. I’ve often looked at adaptability type training with my clients when I’ve been working with them. It’s not always the person who’s the strongest who survives, it’s generally the most adaptable. So being adaptable isn’t a bad thing. And I think it’s something that OTS definitely need to improve on. Because I, as much as we like to pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves, we’re amazing, there are a lot of things that we can improve on as a profession. That is one of them. occupations and occupational performance evolves with these changes, whether the changes in the platform, the changes in the environment, or the changes in the people see what I did, they’re funny that all of this stuff is very OT and I think, if nothing else, this pandemic has highlighted the importance of this profession. But that is a side note. Creativity is one thing I didn’t go into in a huge amount in this presentation, but it is one of the big reasons I feel like people actually start going down the realm of content creation. And I firmly encourage it, I have a lot of opinions and theories around creativity and the benefit that can be taken from creative occupations for the people that are engaging in.
Self awareness, as I just explained, really, really important. And the the biggest tip I can give anyone is to explore these things with genuine curiosity. And don’t just take things on face value, explore how they work, pull it apart, see how it works, see how it can work for you see how it can work for your clients. But be aware of all aspects of it, don’t just cherry pick the positives. Because it’s important that we’re making informed life decisions. And unfortunately, that includes looking at the not so positive stuff as well. Overall, I feel like the profession is growing rapidly. It wasn’t an early adopter to this technology. But I feel like it’s finally finding its feet with it. And I feel like we’re finding some really innovative ways to improve the profession overall. I didn’t go into like, advocacy and all of that sort of stuff, which is a massive part of especially the podcast landscape. Definitely go and check. I know Sarah is talking about that Sarah pipe is talking about that. Later on in the conference, maybe tomorrow. Definitely go along and check out her presentation. For that information. I am very keen to hear that if I’m able to as well. So I’ll stop talking now because I realize I’m running out of time. But I really would like to have some questions or discussion or ideas or queries, complaints. Anything from anyone? I am open to any feedback or ideas, discussions, anything at all, either chat or actually, I’ll might say that I’ll let whoever’s moderating say whether it can be chat or
Host 44:02
Thank you Brad. Yes, the chat room is open. Please put in your comments your questions. Anything that you might have for Brian to elaborate on his presentation Oh,
Brock Cook 44:15
hold that thought I realize what’s happening. Someone might be speaking but my zoom settings have changed and ah try that I might be able to actually hear you now. Oh, no, not that one. All right, hold that thought I was oh, what time it is. It is three minutes to midnight. Hold that thought because my bigger isn’t working.
Host 44:48
Quite as my speaker Brock, they’re beginning to thank you for reaching out to us so late in your day or morning or where you are on your side of the world.
Brock Cook 44:57
Alright, sorry about that. Ah, it’s okay. Uh, one thing you do get used to regards to when you’re doing podcasting is being up at all hours, a lot of the guests and that kind of stuff that I do talk to are quite often in the state. So I’m and I’m not an early morning person say staying up past midnight is usually pretty pretty alright for me.
Host 45:29
I would like to share with everyone that Brock information will be provided with his contact as well. We do have one from Laura Nagel, her question for you, Brock is what is your favorite tech related therapy tool or game?
Brock Cook 45:48
As in for professional purposes, or just for me,
Host 45:53
I think it’s professional, but you can answer it.
Brock Cook 45:58
I’m not. Well, actually, that’s a lie. Because I’m not big into games. But the pandemic, I kind of go to the games, but that was alternative therapy wise, I liked it. I liked the basics. I feel like a lot of the and this isn’t just tech related. I feel like a lot of stuff that OTS do isn’t sustainable, because we’re putting in these things that most people don’t have access to at home. What I like to do is, if people have access to say, a smartphone, which a lot of people do nowadays, even things like teaching them how to use the calendar app, teaching them how to use reminders, how to set alarms, use the timers, all of the tools that they have ready access to, that can integrate into their lives into their routines, etc. To improve their occupational performance or help them remember things, get them to appointments, that kind of stuff. I feel like that real basic level stuff is usually the key stuff where I start focusing. But then if there’s any specific needs that the person comes up with, throughout the thing, like I’ve used, so for sensory modulation. Spotify is brilliant for that, or Apple Music, any kind of streaming service where we all know that you can listen to different kinds of music to adjust your mood. And actually having pretty much all music on tap, at any point in time is a really valuable tool to have when you’re working with someone and you don’t have to carry around 1000 CDs, just in case. So tools like that just the real basic things, and being able to implement them for therapeutic purposes is what I usually promote to therapists.
Host 47:48
Thank you. We have another question from Holly and she’s asking what does a typical day look like in your mental health setting.
Brock Cook 47:58
I’m actually a lecturer now. But back in the day, I don’t know if that is a typical day every day is kind of difficult, difficult, different Freudian slip. What you will find is it depends where you’re working in an acute setting. So in like a mental health hospital, you’re generally going to check the wards who has been admitted, go and have a conversation with them, see if there’s any needs, that you might be able to support them in. Like filling during that period, anything that you can help with to make their discharge sustainable, and improve things on the outside. And for when they do get discharged. The job I was in before I went into academia, I was in Community Mental Health intensive rehab. Essentially what that means is we would carry a really low caseload. So generally, sort of five to eight people. And we would see them into they were living at home, we would see them in home pretty much as often as they required. So some people I would have on my caseload would need intensive support. So I was seeing them every day, twice a day sometimes. And then the idea was that we were supporting them to be able to maintain lives sustainably, manage their own lives, that sort of thing. And gradually, essentially win them off our service so that we could step back or discharge them to a different team that didn’t have or like they could see them once a fortnight or once a week that they need our intensive support. So, but those days, you know, you might schedule a couple of home visits, but what you actually do on those home visits can be very individual to to the person so there’s not really a typical day. Unfortunately, that’s always been a tricky question for me to answer.
Host 49:52
Matt is asking, Are there any great mental health tool available through a smartphone that you recommend? Your clients,
Brock Cook 50:03
the I have to have a double check, there used to be a few. The main ones I use, even nowadays, kind of your mindfulness type apps. Many people probably heard of apps like calm, obviously calm can be quite expensive. If you’re going to pay for the premium version, there was one called Headspace that I don’t again, I haven’t used it in a little while, but used to be able to get like a 10, free meditation sessions through the headspace app. So I used to recommend that to my clients, because that would just generic session. So yeah, it was 10 sessions, but they could just cycle them for 10. And start again, start from number one. And they always found that very useful. There’s some obviously, actually third track, which I mentioned before, I haven’t technically use their track. But like I’ve interviewed Laura, and I’ve had a look through it, I could see it being of huge value to the right, clinician, depending on how you work and what your workflow is. But I can definitely I have talked with her about including some mental health content into the app, which is completely open to. But then again, like, again, like I was saying before, just the basic stuff, stuff like Spotify apps, I’ve used the calendar as a mood diary. So they can just, you know, put a little note in the calendar or in the reminders or just even in the Notes app, as a mood diary. There are so there used to be some like actual mood diary apps, but I never found them to be like exactly what I wanted, or exactly what the client wanted or was easy to use. I’ve always worked on the theory that simplest is best. So
Host 51:54
Mariana is asking, I would like to use more apps. But I find that there’s so many it’s hard to know what’s available, and how best to use it. Do you have any recommendations for learning what’s out there?
Brock Cook 52:06
Yeah, that that’s always been an issue. I’ve back in the day, I’ve written some stuff. I’ve read something for a US Publication with Tina champagne one time about a whole range of different apps, I guess kinda like touch parking. I used to just download them, check them out myself. See what I like to see what I didn’t. It’s not the most efficient of methods. But I’ve not found if anyone was really keen and wanted to make like a repository of information about our like therapeutic apps, that would be amazing. It may exist. I don’t know, I haven’t checked. But yeah, I I’m very much a hands on learner. So I used to get the app tested out. I’m also a person that doesn’t believe in recommending anything to my clients that I haven’t tried myself. So it kind of killed two birds with one stone. But by doing it that way, even though it was a lot of time and effort.
Host 53:03
Let’s wrap up with one more question. This is from Philip, how do you keep an eye on your own mental health? Why working in a sometimes challenging mental health setting, especially during these trying times of a pandemic?
Brock Cook 53:15
That is an excellent question. And I’d love to say that I was amazing at it. But that would be a lie. I think I’ve had my own mental health issues with depression. Those of you if you’ve ever listened the podcast, I’ve done an episode about explaining my situation. It’s one of those things where I don’t feel like I was amazing at it. But with each time something happens on reflection, reflection is a really powerful tool. Being able to pick up triggers or being able to pick up things that really affect you is a really important thing. Also having a really good support system. I’ve got an amazing support system now that I know I can call on wherever I need. I was having a conversation with a really good friend today about something that I’d been reflecting on with regards to my mental health and made a few like sort of breakthrough connections with Hey, when this happens, it kind of affects me like this. So I think being open and honest having those conversations with your support network, being able to reflect and the benefit of the reflection as well is you don’t end up just stuck in a loop repeating the same problem and triggering yourself and setting yourself off again and again and again. The basics again, though basics, healthy lifestyle. Get outside get some sun, read a book that is completely unrelated to work if work is the thing that’s triggering you trying to work out what is stressing you what is impacting your mental health can take a long time. Depending on you know what’s going on in your life, obviously Everyone’s got a lot going on. But I also think being just a little bit kind to yourself, like you mentioned, these are difficult times, and even if things are floating on air, and you’re 10, out of 10, at the moment, just really the fact that you’re living in a world that is going through a lot right now, and there’s a lot of tension, whether it’s political, or whatever else it is, whatever the reason is that this sort of these global or national tensions, that’s gonna have an impact for me, knowing that, taking a break from actually looking at the news, really valuable tool for me. I personally have had breaks from things like social media, essentially, to distance myself from being out from having to take on, you know, everything that’s going on in the world at the moment. That’s the thing that I found works for me. And it’s, it’s gonna be a matter of experimenting, I guess in a lot of ways and finding a handful of things. Let’s say five things that work for you, someone’s preventative, some as when you’re already feeling a bit down are a bit burnt out that you can do to sort of pep yourself back up or help yourself recover a bit. So yeah, there’s no A plus B equals C kind of answer for it. But a lot of it is common sense is find out what’s essentially hurting you and either avoid it or you have it in moderation so that you can cope with it better, basically.
Host 56:40
Thank you, Brock, we’re going to go ahead and wrap up. But thank you so much we value you and the input that you have provided us today. Very honored to have you with our virtual conference this year. So thank you so much.
Brock Cook 56:54
Firstly, I want you to know that your support with this project is massively appreciated. I’d love to hear, drop me an email or DM on the socials and talk to me about how I can add even more value for you. If you know any other OTS who also get value from occupied or occupied last let them know and send them occupied podcast.com And remember, keep occupied
If you’re like me you are aware that memory is a thing. You may even know there are different types etc but for many this is the extent of it. Allison Brush IS the Memory OT. I came across her page on Insta where she puts out awesome content around the OT’s role when working with people whose memory has been impacted. It seemed like something that I definitely had to find out more about and brought you along for the ride!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CsZ-mmnsWL2/Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
Time for a secret sneaky episode! featuring the one and only Claire Hocking doing her All About Occupation Seminar
For more and how to register for future seminars, see: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/occupation/
So I’ve been asked a fair bit about where I think the profession is at right now and where I think it’s going. So here is a short and sweet exploration of that exact topic…..or is it….
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep OccupiedBrock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
Clarice and I connected online after a little social media break when I arrived to a bunch of online controversy regarding a movement being pushed to change the profession in a variety of ways. We decided that we would get together and have a chat and break down some of the points logically and see if there was any merit behind the movement.
We explore OT’s role in politics and how Clarice’s background makes her the perfect therapist to break this down for me. We look at various practice areas and the impact the medical model is having on them as well as our opinions on the positive or negative aspects of this impact. Lastly we leave it open for the facilitators of the FullScopeOT movement to come on and discuss their ideas with us for you all.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
Session Title: Dissident Genders and Sexualities and Life Possibilities
Session Details
This seminar aims to create a dialogue about the possibilities of life faced by the population who experience dissidence of genders and sexualities. Taking the Brazilian reality as a central example, the proposal is that we can understand how the vulnerability and subalternization processes of these people create and maintain situations of social injustice, demanding actions from every society engaged in social transformation.
For more and how to register for future seminars, see: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/occupation/
This Episode was recorded around April 2021.
Leadership is a topic that everyone has come across during their studies, career, sports engagement or just general life but how’s your knowledge about what it actually is? This episode we decided to bounce around the idea of leadership and pick it apart in order to fully understand what’s involved.
Who better to bring on board for this one than the AMAZING Dr. Arameh Anvarizadeh! AOTA Vice President, Director of Admissions and Associate Professor of Clinical OT at USC, Founding member and chair -elect of the Coalition of OT Advocates for Diversity, Youngest women of color to be inducted into the Roster of Fellows (FAOTA), among many many other accolades, Dr Anvarizadeh’s leadership CV is second to none.
In This Episode – Can Anyone be a Dope Leader? – we cover:
What is leadership?
Why do we need leadership?
Can leadership skills be developed?
What are the essential leadership skills?
And more!
What do you think? Do you consider yourself a leader? Do you want to be a leader?
As always, if you enjoyed the episode please like, share, and subscribe.
Have you ever thought about starting your own business? What is stopping you?
Contact:
Dr. Arameh Anvarizadeh: (an-i-var-iz-i)
- Website:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drarameh/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arameh.anvarizadeh
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrArameh
Brock: http://occupiedpodcast.com/
Michelle: https://www.incorporatemindfulness.com/
Sarah: https://ot4lyfe.com/
Welcome to Occupied 3.0. Some of you may have noticed a lack of episodes recently, and for that unannounced break I apologised. But I’m back and I’m inspired to continue bringing you more regular eps and interviews again!
A hot topic every April during OT month. Why does no-one know what we do? I want to look deeper into how this became a problem and what can we do to fix it.
Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process (3rd Edition)”. American Journal of Occupational Therapy. 68 (Suppl. 1): S1–S48. March–April 2014. doi:10.5014/ajot.2014.682006
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@OccupiedPod
brock.cook@me.com
Transcript0:02
So many moons ago, I did an episode on occupied about how to talk about occupational therapy. And it remains, to this day, one of the most popular episodes that are out there. There’s been a lot of talk recently, around a similar topic. And it tends to be something that comes up pretty much every April every 18 months, surprisingly, in the States. So I thought I’d revisit this topic and try and delve into a little bit more detail so that we have a better understanding of why it’s important that we do gain a good professional identity, we do gain confidence in what we do, and we are speaking about the profession in a more consistent manner. Why? Or how do we know this is an issue, I only have to look into a number of ot Facebook groups or Instagram accounts, or particularly my favorite meme pages to see that the complaint of no one knows what we do is still prevalent within the profession. There’s been some talk recently about blaming the individual or blaming the profession. And I do want to assure you, I’m not here to blame anyone. But I am here to hopefully get you to see that although it’s not an individual’s fault, or it’s not the professions fault, it is also our responsibility to fix it because no one else is going to fix it for us. So I think it’s important that we have a look back at sort of how we got here. And to do that, because we’re such a young profession, we have to go right back to the very start. So it’s important to know if you don’t already that ot was birthed from a group of people from a number of different professions, there were psychologists, or psychiatrists, nurses, and a lot of other professions, I can’t read all of them off the top of my head, but other professions are weren’t even health related, who all saw this sort of gap in the medical model at the time, there were people slipping through the cracks, and there was things not being done because it didn’t fit within that medical model.
2:47
The overall sort of consensus was that occupational therapy could be a profession that looked more at the complex interrelation of social, economic, and biological reasons for a person’s dysfunction, rather than just the medical reason. So it was looking outside the medical model to improve health and well being, even if they weren’t exactly the terms used back in the early 1900s. There was early on, and I believe he was one of the founding people of IoT, I can’t remember his name off the top of my head. But they came up with four sort of core points for what would become occupational therapy. And those points were that occupation has a positive effect on health and well being. That occupation creates structure and organizers. I’m that occupation brings meaning to life, culturally, and personally. occupations or individual people value different occupations. The weird thing about that thing, the thing that I actually really like about that, as even though that was written many moons ago, and the profession has through a number of different phases, the phase that we’re coming back to for the last 1520 years. This fits perfectly. I can’t think of a really good sort of occupation based practice or that that doesn’t fit within these four points. But since that was written before or like after that was written, we went through a phase around World War Two, were based on the huge number of injured vets and some criticism From the medical model professions, the medical model health system, OTS adopted more of a reductionist philosophy, we kind of merged, we assimilated more with that medical model. And I think it was more to do with just needing more hands to do what they were doing. OSI at that point in time, very small, a very small percentage. And we’re thinking sort of David and Goliath type sort of odds. But we were essentially it was mob mentality, in a way we, the dominant culture was the medical model culture. And after looking for validation and looking to, I guess, kind of cement our identity, even though we’re still kind of forming our own identity, and didn’t really know what that was, we still are to a degree, we tended to, or the profession itself tended to move into that reductionist philosophy, where a lot of practical skills were adopted, and grown, especially around the areas of physical rehab, and assistive technology, etc. But we tended to drift away from our core philosophy, which was the use of occupation as a therapy. This way, there’s a number in in in different clinical settings, there is still a number of different phases, but the main sort of ones we’re we’re that were started off being very occupation based, we moved into a more reductionist role, a more reductionist framework around the sort of late 40s 50s. And it really wasn’t any really wasn’t until occupational science was coined, and was was formally formed in 1989, and then rolled out through the early 90s, that the profession had a good hard look at itself and started to move back towards its roots. Now, I can’t imagine how big a shift that would have been, and the the time and effort that it would have taken to shift our whole profession, even that, yes, in the 90s, to get the profession would have been much smaller population wise than it was than it is right now.
7:48
But you’re really trying to steer a huge ship with what essentially was a handful of therapists that we’re driving that movement. So whether you are in care, occupational science or not our ridiculously impressive feat. Either way, the underlying philosophy of at evolve from being more of a diversion from illness, which it kind of had evolved into during that reductionist period, it became more of a diversion or thing as opposed to looking at enablement through the use of occupation. So that’s how we kind of got here, we’re still in that transition phase, we’ve still got therapists that qualified and worked. We’ve still got, like during that reductionists period, yes, there. They may be in the academic roles. They may be retired, they’re still the one thing I’ve learned about OTS is even in retirement, they still seem to they love the professional enough that they still are usually quite involved, which I think is says amazing things about the profession itself, which is, which is wicked. But there’s still that influence. A lot of the theories and the textbooks that we don’t even think twice about using were develops during that reductionist time period. And yes, some of the newer ones may have been developed through the sort of transition period of the 90s. But there’s still that flavor. I’ve talked a lot on occupied about cultural transitions. And I’m thinking and again, completely unrelated to the topic, but the idea of ongoing cultural influence in my episode, interpret and God around the colonization of Australian healthcare system. And yes, in that example, yes, like, I’m not trying to colonize the work that I’m doing. But I’m working in a system that has been influenced for many, many years, quite often without me really putting any thought into the fact that hey, wait a minute, maybe this isn’t working for everyone involved, that the the profession is the same, we are enculturated into the workplace that we go into. And if that workplace is heavily influenced by a well now very old reductionist paradigm, then you’re going to be as a new grad enculturated into that. One of the reasons that I believe that we need to talk about ot more or better is, in order to change this. Now we need to try and complete this transition over to our very occupation based back to our roots, our core assumptions. Back to those four points that I spoke about earlier, that occupation has a positive effect on health and well being it creates structure and organizes time brings meaning to life, culturally and personally. And it’s individual people value different occupations. The reason we need to get back to that we need to complete the transition back to that is at the present, if we pictured on I don’t have the exact numbers, but if we picture that there’s 50% of the profession, and that’s probably a bit overkill, but 50% of the profession working in a very sort of reductionist paradigm still and 50% working from the more widely promoted occupation based paradigm. How are those two kind of diametrically opposing philosophies going to form one single, cohesive, professional identity?
12:23
You think about the recent US elections, like there was so much turmoil, because there was two parties that had such an opposing view on opposing philosophy on one what it was to be an American, and to the what the system does, pretty much everything wasn’t really on, it was pretty much everything. And that kind of you saw the turmoil, that that created of not being able to form this cohesive identity of Hey, this is America, this is our system, this is etc, etc. Same thing, any any opposing views, people struggle to be able to negotiate that middle ground for an identity. I can’t remember who said it, but the one of my favorite quotes, I think there might have been Einstein actually talked about the true measure of intelligence being able to hold two opposing views without reacting. That’s a side note. But anyway, so why do we want to talk about it? So, I come from a very socially social constructionist lens, in that. I believe that words, form meaning. Words, create relationship, words, creates. our beliefs and shapes are lenses that we look through. One of the issues with not having a cohesive, a strong professional identity is that we’re kind of all doing our own thing. And when someone goes, Oh, what’s it everyone’s got their own idea? everyone’s working from their own little silo, everyone’s looking at their profession through their own little lens. And we’re looking when we when we get asked that question, it’s us as professionals as OTS looking in inward at the professional going, Hey, well, what exactly are you and through my lens, you’re this and through Joe blows lens, you might look slightly different and they’re gonna explain it differently. There’s no there’s no way to really change that from the inside so that when everyone looks in, we’re all reading off the same page, what we need to do is sort of get a groundswell of people who are confident and understand what the profession is. And the only way that we’re going to know that people understand what the profession is, is if they’re talking about it. So we can go, Hey, that person there is describing the professional exactly the same as I do. One interesting thing that I did find today, actually, while I was doing a little prep work for this episode was for many moons. I’ve used an elevator talk. For the for describing the professional when someone asked me what is OT, I start by setting the expectation of what occupation is, is one of the biggest complaints I see from therapists is was no point because people don’t understand occupation, or people think occupation means something else. And my argument has always been well, it means what we think it means, or has meant that for a lot longer than it’s meant to be, like our job or employment. So and people understand. When we describe it, the way we look at it pretty easily, I’ve never had anyone get it, that doesn’t make any sense. So the definition that I’ve used quite often is, when as OTS, when we’re looking at what we call occupation, we’re looking at anything, any activity that you do anything that you’re engaged in, that occupies your time. And for different age groups, that’s going to be different things for kids, it’s going to be playing for elderly people that might be reminiscing and family time for middle aged people. It could be work holidays, growing a family, whatever it is. And then we would then look at anything that then stops you from engaging in those things. We work with you to come up with creative and sustainable ways to get back to occupying your time with the things that you want to do,
17:12
and need to do. So my focus when I when I talk about occupation has always been very much on the time. And it always shocked me when I put out that that first episode mail probably two years ago now that a lot of people were like, Oh, that’s really novel that’s new. And I was just like, I don’t really know if it is. This thing that I found today is that the American ot Association has the occupational therapy practice framework, which I know, I’ve heard many American therapists or Mac students mainly talk about having to study the OT pf in the textbook associated with that, which according to this references, the OT pf, or occupational therapy framework, domain and process a third edition from 2014, I believe. There’s a sentence in there that struck me, and it was talking about occupations. And it says an occupation is defined as defined as any type of meaningful activity in which one engages in order to occupy in quotes, one’s time. So I don’t fully understand why the time aspect of my definition was sort of novel. But it also supports that, that the eo ta is trying to change that consistent message from the inside using our metaphor from before. So that if we, if if you are using the occupational therapy practice framework, that’s your consistent, that’s what you should be looking at, for your whole process. But right from the point of defining what occupation is, now, if we’re all defining occupation the same way doesn’t matter what practice area in if you think about your practice area, and you read over that definition, an occupation is defined as any type of meaningful activity in which one engages in order to occupy one’s time. Any practice area, think of your practice area, that definition fits. If that definition doesn’t fit to your practice area or one that you’re thinking of slightly different issue and we may need to have a look at that. But that’s that’s what the profession is. That’s the the core assumption is that that anything that fits under that definition has a positive effect on health and well being creates structure and organizers Time brings meaning to life culturally and personally, and is individual. So people value different, different things, different ones, to any type of meaningful activity for an individual. Again, this sets us up just this definition sets us up perfectly and how we should be looking at ourselves within a clinical practice. We’re looking at the individuals, what they find what occupies their time, for starters. And the meaningful activity. The occupation is what brings that meaning to their life culturally and personally. So it sets us up as very much the E almost in a consultative role, we’re not in the center of this, it puts the person right at the center of our practice, just by definition, how it’s worded. It’s perfect. I mean, it’s obviously not perfect, perfect, but it’s a really, really good starting point for us to start considering where we fit how we define occupation, if everyone starts talking about occupation, and defining it in a fairly simple, I’m not saying you have to use this, you can use that exact definition if you like, or any variation of it, or you can use your own as long as it’s sort of highlighting the same points. If everyone is relatively consistent, that language then starts forming, or it starts shaping your lens, your view, looking back at the profession, it starts shaping your lens, when everyone is shaping their lens, and those lenses start to be semi consistent, we start reshaping the culture of the profession, because that’s what culture is. Culture is those shared values and beliefs. So if we are using our own language, and that language is spreading, people are resonating with it, people are using it.
22:09
Clients start defining occupational therapy to other people, in the same way that we have that almost I guess you describe it nowadays as going viral. That word of mouth, that spread of information that helps shape our culture. And once that sort of groundswell happens, it’s kind of like a snowball effect in that the more people doing it sort of exponentially means that even more people are going to start doing it, we do will, we will get that mob mentality. effect, so to speak. But that’s how we can groundswell from the from the grassroots from you guys, the people on the ground working directly with clients. That’s how you can help change the profession. When everyone’s thinking the same, that’d be a culture and that becomes a consistent professional identity. With that professional identity comes confidence in being able to stand up for what we are, who we are, what we do, and where we work. Now, yes, there are systems in place that do not align with all of that those things that I just listed. But we as individuals don’t have a lot of control over the external factors of the system. We have been described as a very transactional model. But we are actually a part of this profession. We are a part of the culture, you are part of the system of occupational therapy that makes up occupational therapy. You and your influence over the therapists and the surround you have the power to start that snowball. We have that power to start changing minds, changing opinions. And bringing the profession closer and tighter than it has been in 100 years. Bringing ot back to its roots bringing ot back to being a very tight knit consistent, but still very broad in where we work. I think that’s the other thing is that by doing this, we’re not losing anything. We’re not losing any opportunities for places that we work, we are simply taking back our power and our identity as therapists. And I think that’s really important. The other aspect of language is obviously that there are a lot of occupational therapy specific terminologies and words, you know, we look at occupational deprivation, occupational apartheid, occupational justice, etc. I would see little branching out into some of those as almost secondary to being able to define the profession itself. A lot of those terminologies help bolster confidence in the profession from within the profession. But there’s not a lot of times that I’ve seen that those terminologies are used outside of the profession, which is an interesting point in itself, and probably the topic for a whole nother podcast about whether or not we should be using those terms when there are equivalent terms outside of the profession that we might be able to tap into and use anyway. But we’ll leave that for another time. For now, I challenge you to come up with your elevator speech. Let me know you can message me through Patreon. You can tag me on Instagram. I know ot for life is running a little campaign throughout ot month this year in 2021. asking people what the elevator speech is, and I’m gonna send her mine. I’m gonna put mine up on Instagram, I will
26:44
tag it, feel free to have a look at it. I encourage you to tag yours tag me and tag OT4lyfe and let’s start trying to build a more cohesive culture within occupational therapy. So yes, it’s no one individual or no profession to blame, but it 100% is still our responsibility to fix it, because if we don’t no-one else is gonna do it for us.
You may have heard her on the Holly the OT podcast and if not then definitely get on that! Holly works in a super remote Australian town called Lightening Ridge. Her experience of the newgrad transition on top of working super remote is unique and one that everyone can take lessons from.
https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1993247.rss
https://www.instagram.com/p/CedXVaDgXZu/Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com
his session will focus on understanding the basics of sexuality and the various ways it translates into human occupations.
For some students virtual learning and, in turn, virtual therapy is the only option available. Zoom fatigue, anyone? ?♀️ This got us thinking…is this really the best way for students to be learning and what are some alternative means for providing client centered therapy. What about using resources that all of us have right at our fingertips: Nature! ??
Carissa returns to the podcast! During her last episode (OCCUPIED 123) she discussed her personal experience with eating disorders and was about to embark on her doctoral project. She has now completed that project and has come back to talk about how it went.
This session will cover the learnings from a number of years research into digital workers’ occupational experience.
Is being a fieldwork educator a skill? What are traits that make a good educator? Importance of communication Navigating safety and expectations Educators knowing their roles in fieldwork education When do you know that you are ready to take students? How we can prepare to be a fieldwork educator
In this episode Moo and I explore creativity and where the mental and physical benefits of creativity might lay as well as how Moo manages the balance between using creativity for self expression as well as a business.
What makes OT practitioners good (and bad) as entrepreneurs Navigating the ins and outs of business without a business degree Importance of understanding finances Can anybody be an entrepreneur Social entrepreneurship
Session Title
“How Did I Get Here? One Occupational Therapist’s Search for Meaning”
Session Details (TW // sexual violence) The purpose of this session is to provide my personal perspective as a practitioner, educator, and researcher on the topics identified as the focus of this seminar series. In these roles, I have attempted to understand people as occupational beings. This quest has led me to explore and promote people’s engagement in activities, and in learning in particular, and appreciate the high degree of trauma many people have experienced or are experiencing whenever they attempt something new or challenging. This recognition has shaped my teaching and intervention practices and has me now focused on the legacy of occupational therapy in mental health, so I would like to share some resources that have resonated with me on this journey, in hopes that they may inspire others, cause discussion, and engage lively debate.
Resources https://research.aota.org/ajot/articl... https://research.aota.org/ajot/articl...
In 2006, as I was first shifting from a clinical to educational focus, I was hopeful; the community-engaged scholar is a role that has held significance for me. In the aftermath of a personally chaotic period of my life. I met Tina Champagne, and she inspired me then and has continued to be a source of motivation, persistence, and determination in my contribution to OT.
It has always been my hope that I could contribute to improving the health and well-being of the people I encounter in life. The chance to teach holds a special potential and obligation in achieving my goals. I became very interested in studying how students learn, and how to maximize significant learning. I examined the meaning of my students’ and my own engagement in activities in many very diverse contexts, and the relationship between occupation, identity, trauma, recovery and self-discovery https://research.aota.org/ajot/articl... https://clairecunnington.com/ https://articlegateway.com/index.php/...
As this process has continued to evolve, I have been able to create community-based collaborations with local organizations in which I have become involved https://www.mlkjrfamilyservices.org/a... https://www.viability.org/
And begun to reflect on my own legacy and those who helped shaped my experience as an OT practitioner, educator & researcher: https://www.allen-cognitive-network.org/ https://naric.com/?q=en/content/order-life-skills-manual https://www.otleaders.org/home
For more and how to register for future seminars, see: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/occupation/
This ep we have a look at that experience and then funnel down into her interest and experience living and working with chronic pain.
We explored Samantha's journey through the profession, how she got involved with WFOT, how she made it to the position of President and we explore the upcoming WFOT Congress in Paris.
Alondra is an occupational therapist in Bay Area California and currently, she provides services via Hippotherapy, which entails incorporating horses And utilizing the movement of the horse Within the treatment sessions. She has a keen interest in imposter syndrome given her own personal experience of it.
Her passion for improving those around her and assisting people to learn from her experiences is infectious. But how did it get to this stage? How did she get to share her content with thousands of OT's? How does she cope with modern day stressors of being a content creator? These are just a couple of the things we explored.
This session will introduce the participants to the community-based Music Engagement Program, which aims to create opportunities for social interaction and wellbeing for all of those who are involved through sharing songs.
I'm the first to admit that I never used the MOHO much in clinical practice for a number of reasons. Conversations with Ruth started to get me to revisit some of the thoughts I'd had for a long while.
So recently I embarked on a challenge with a few friends. We read Greg McKeown's Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less. The common feeling through the group was that we all often take on way more projects than we might have the capacity to handle.
Outcome measurement is crucial to proving the effectiveness of occupational therapy, but remains scarce in many areas of practice. So what’s holding us back?
In this episode we explore the injury and his rehabilitation up to this point from an occupational perspective.
This episode we are diving into the effects we have been experiencing recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic and “safer-at-home” restrictions. We looked at how it has impacted our habits and routines and also what we can do to adjust to these changes to maintain a sense of positivity and mental wellbeing.
This is a model that I have used for many years with a massive variety of clients, friends, family and myself to help explain how a variety of concepts interrelate and can impact on our ability to cope with life.
Dr Nick Pollard is a senior lecturer in occupational therapy at Sheffield Hallam University, teaching occupational therapy students at undergraduate and post graduate level, and course leader of the MSc pre-registration programme. He was previously professional lead in occupational therapy, vocational rehabilitation and dietetics on an interim basis for 23 months, and before that team leader and research co-ordinator for occupational therapy also at senior lecturer grade.
His MA explored internal migration and mental health; His MSc explored occupations in creative writing groups, and his PhD the political implied in occupational therapy. Dr Pollard has written and presented extensively on community based rehabilitation and on critical explorations of occupational therapy.
You may know Dr Pollard for having coedited several landmark occupational therapy texts, notably the Occupational Therapy without Borders books, with a new edition published in 2016.
This episode we explore the need for OT's to understand and take a more active role in being political within the spaces that we work.
Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied
Brock@brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
If you want even more valuable content join <> for bonus podcast episodes, resources, mentorship and much much more!
Session Details In this seminar, we will discuss the following: - The nature of meaningful occupations - The difference between meaningful and psychologically rewarding occupations - The postulated healing properties of meaningful and psychologically rewarding occupations - Future research to clarify the nature of meaningful and psychologically rewarding occupations
You know her. You love her. I'm honored to have the phenomenal Professor Gail Whiteford back on the podcast. This time we got to talk about a project thats very close to her heart and we lay out a challenge to you all to get involved!
As occupational therapy practitioners, we know the importance of community; so please reach out and let us know how you are navigating this challenging time. We here at the OT RoundTable want to support you and band together as an OT community.
Just a short update about where I've been, what I've been up to, and what the plan is for 2022!
We discuss the wider societal acceptance of neurodivergence, their personal experiences, and how B3 is pushing the way forward for an all-inclusive future.
COVID has drastically changed the critically important occupations of many and has enhanced our understanding of occupational disruption experienced by clients with disabilities. Occupational therapists profess to understand disruption, but now have a personal experience of disruption. The pandemic provides a unique perspective on our clients’ experience.
Been asked a few times recently for tips on the kinds of things new graduates should think about when going in to negotiate their first contract. This is NOT LEGAL ADVICE but rather some points to keep in mind. Should you need legal advice for your contract most definitely see a professional.
What I would want to know if I was about to step into the world as an OT for the very first time. So here it is, my lessons from a career in OT.
rs. How does this hyper focus on food, eating, comparison, judgement and hiding all of the above from your closest people impact your life?
Are you client-centered? Are you sure? Does your initial reaction to a situation indicate that you are too? After coming across a little video of a man learning to use his new prosthesis with no supports outside on the grass. He falls multiples times but gets back up and keeps trying. Unfortunately, the original video has been removed so I can't show you all but I still wanted to share with you my reflections on the reaction to this video.
Describe the group culture of people who desire to be “beautiful” through the world of beauty pageants Discuss the different perspective on pageantry work Discuss essential and hidden occupations performed within the context of beauty pageants
An exclusive sample clip of one of the Occupied Plus+ Patreon episodes. If you like it and want to get access to the rest of this episode and many more go to patreon.com/occupiedplus and sign up today!
Emily Roberts has really begun to champion the niche of body image within the OT community.
Connecting with Allie has been an absolute blessing. You may know her better as @patchesofot and the host of the Patches of OT podcast. Her content is super unique and deeply personally engrained. This engrained passion is what initially drew me to her. We discuss all things trauma and her experience she had through researching it through her doctorate.
The aim of this session is to show how social assistance recipients experience lack of opportunity and resources to make everyday choices and to have decision-making power as they participate in occupations. This presentation will also consider my research from a lens that moves away from individualised Western epistemologies and discuss how race/culture has a significant influence on occupation.
So recently I was given the opportunity to present to the Royal College of Occupational Therapists Specialist Section for Children, Young People and Families. At the time I was toying around with the concept of the "Art & Science of OT" so as part of my looking into that I built this presentation that looks at where that came from and what it means for modern occupational therapists.
Professor Liz Townsend is a name that almost every OT around the world would know and have learned about some of her work.
Amy Tippol cohosts The Occupation Station podcast with her friend Ana Milanese. Today we explored Amy's journey though OT school, starting a podcast and now transitioning into the profession.
Karen will reflect on her report entitled ‘Engagement in living during the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing occupational disruption’. This essay, about occupation and wellbeing, was written in March 2020 during the uncertainties of the first weeks of the pandemic. Looking back on the intervening year, Karen will explore the deeply rooted social inequities and structural injustices that have been exposed by the pandemic; inequities that impacted occupational rights, wellbeing and the likelihood of survival itself.
Ellie Frith found herself in an acute mental health ward after experiencing some issues with her mental health. This is her story.
Taryn's unique perspective on her practice has grown into a business that offers integrated woman's pelvic floor health services.
A nice, short and sweet episode reflecting on the last 3 years of this podcast. So much work but for me personally its resulted in so much growth. Thankyou to everyone who's been involved in the podcast in any and every small way. Heres to the next 3 years
Laura brought her business to my attention via LinkedIn and right from our first conversation I was completely intrigued with what she was trying to do. As the CEO and founder of Theratrak Laura is walking a line not commonly travelled by those in the OT profession. She is not only a private business owner, an entrepreneur but she is developing a product that aims to bring OT into the digital age.
Kwaku & I started talking and let the convo go where it wanted. It drifted towards communication skills and the nuance involved in being an excellent clinical communicator.
Erik is by far one of my favourite OT's on the planet and his honestly and vulnerability in this conversation simply confirmed that for me.
Exploring how Rachel navigates living on traditional peoples land and working with their populations. This convo was absolutely eye opening and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
So many times over my career I've heard cliche's and platitudes used by therapists and often wondered....do they know what that actually means? Recently I've had a number of discussions on this podcast about terms used that are used incorrectly OR used as lip service and I thought it was about time I did an episode and explored some of these.
I’m super excited to be announcing……. Occupied Plus+
Occupied Plus+ will have Patreon exclusive resources for those supporters looking to inject some extra value into their practice.
For a long time I’ve wanted to expand the resources and value I can add to you, the listener. From this OccupiedPlus+ was born. From as little as $4 a month you become a member of the Occupied Plus+ Patreon. In there you will get access to resources from monthly Occupied Plus+ podcast episodes, Monthly AMA, a range of digitally downloadable resources, Short essays on important topics and so much more! In this higher tiers there is also available supervision/mentorship with myself, supporter shoutouts on the Occupied podcast and ongoing direct chat access to me for continued regular support.
Occupied Plus+ comes with 4 tiers to suit your needs, level of support and budget.
I do want to assure you that if you simply enjoy the Occupied podcast, nothing will be changing there and you will still get the regular episodes on all things occupation and occupational therapy that you are accustomed to.
Before anything else monies will be put towards making the podcast sustainable and even more accessible, e.g trying to get accurate transcriptions of each episode.
This is just the beginning! I will be continually looking for more amazing things I can provide to patrons to help add value to your practice! I’m excited to interact with you all and hear what resources you might be interested in me creating for you!
Join the Occupied Plus+ Patreon
www.patreon.com/occupiedplus
If you have any questions feel free to get in contact and let me answer them for you!
Keep Occupied
Brock@brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.comoccupiedpodcast.compatreon.com/occupiedplus
There are many parts of OT that need improvement and we explore the lip service that is often payed to topics around inclusion with different populations.
December 2020 I had my first experience being admitted to hospital. It was eye opening to say the least and my experience highlighted for me certain things that I NEVER considered when working for the same hospital system.
Mr Toy Division joins us on OCCUPIED to provide a "lived experience" of being a part of graffiti writing culture.
We discussed the complexities of the healthcare system and how that often fall short when working with people who are diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
The aim of this episode was to create a grassroots resource about how the Kawa came to fruition as I strongly believe that in order to get the most out of the model, understanding its roots is imperative.
Right from the very start, I said if a handful of people learned something or took something away from the podcast it would be worth the time
This episode we explore the concept of sexualisation how that relates to identity and what this means for Occupational Therapy practitioners.
On December 8th I went public about my journey with depression. Some people asked for more, asked for an episode. So here it is.
Rhiannon Crispe describers herself as "a salty soul, health enthusiast, sun chaser and blessed mumma & wife. A dreamer and a doer. A goal setter and a go-getter. A change agent and a game changer. And also a proud Occupational Therapist and business owner."
I wanted to look at why soooo many people fail their resolutions and an alternative method that I use and you might find more successful!
Having this discussion about language and how we as therapist use it to frame and situate our therapeutic relationship, power and recovery for the people that we work with.
I've spoken many times about the impact public portrayal of OT has on our profession. In my opinion, I can see how condoning some of these memes could be doing us damage.
Dev is on a mission. A mission for inclusion. A mission for happiness. A mission for equal rights. A mission for acceptance.
PLEASE NOTE: This episode discusses topics such as colonisation and racism in multiple forms. The guests would like to make it clear that this episode does not sit as a ‘standalone’ teaching tool. If you are planning to share it with your cohorts of students we encourage you to use it alongside other aspects of the curriculum with cultural responsiveness with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Have you ever considered the impact colonisation might have had on the indigenous peoples of your country? Have you ever considered the ongoing impact these historical events have had in terms of systemic racism and institutional marginalisation of our clients?
Australia has a checkered and often hidden history when it comes to its colonisation by western entities. The impact that this event has had on Australia’s indigenous peoples is something that continues to impact them today. Today’s episode delves into the institutional racism and cultural isolation that continues today due to Australia’s colonisation in 1788.
This conversation with Tirritpa Richie and Jodie Booth was deep, confronting and mindblowing all at the same time. I can’t express enough how important it is to listen to this one with an open mind and a critically self-reflective lens.
Racism in Australia traces both historical and contemporary racist community attitudes, as well as political non-compliance and governmental negligence on United Nations human rights standard and incidents in Australia.[1] Contemporary Australia is the product of Indigenous peoples of Australia combined with multiple waves of immigration, predominantly from the United Kingdom and Ireland.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Australia
Personal Reflection
As I reflected on in episode 044 This session had a HUGE impact on me, alerting me to many considerations in my own schema that I was completely naive to. At the Australian National Conference where Tirritpa Ritchie challenged the room to critically challenge their “whiteness” in the context of the service they deliver/teach.
Map of Indigenous Australia – The map is an attempt to represent all the language, tribal or nation groups of the Indigenous peoples of Australia.
A huge thank you to Jodie Booth who brought this conversation together as its something we all wanted to do justice to as it is something that so important to Australian health care but also relevant to many many other western cultures around the world including the USA and Canada.
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
Some of you will remember Erin from the Occupied 2020 Guide to Job Interviews....Well she's back! and this time we are delving into her true passion, falls prevention. This is an area I will openly admit that I didn't know much about the specifics of it so i absolutely loved this conversation. Erin is very occupation based in her views and practice and very practical in her advice. Give it a listen.
This episode the lovely Clarissa Sorlie joins me again to shed some light on her interest in the occupation of graffiti. Considering this occupation using the concept of the Dark Side of Occupation we explore the depths of why people engage in it and some of the meaning they often assign to it.
Jess is a phenomenal OT and a great friend of mine. She has often explored the road less travelled in this profession and has developed into a clinician with a unique perspective on life, health, wellbeing and OT. In this episode we delve into Jess's story, her burnout and how she rebuilt herself to be a better, stronger OT. She talks about her use of mindfulness, self-awareness, rest, and yoga among many other things.
In these unprecedented times, many many people are experiencing occupation disruption on a large scale. Many people are starting or looking for new occupations in order to maintain their occupational wellbeing. Today I wanted to explore a small part of my journey into a new occupational engagement. A new hobby in a crazy world. I took up photography and am aiming to learn as much about it as i possibly can. The more i learn, the more i find i have to learn. But I'm absolutely loving it and immersing myself into this new community and new world. Listen in to my experience of navigating this period of occupational disruption through an occupational lens.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFvpZxjnZq3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
We highlight some things health practitioners should be aware of and what they can do to help maintain their own mental wellbeing.
You asked for it, so here it is! The 2020 Occupied guide to job interviews. How can you give yourself the best chance of landing that job!
Jesse recently retired from his professional rugby career and it seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up to pick his brain about navigating that transition into civilian life.
I put it out to you guys and many of you requested to know about: What I wish I knew when I was a new grad.
Exploring the Dark Side of Occupation in more detail this episode, Rina and I delve into the world of harm minimisation. A question that I've been asked by many students is how can you work with someone who is "using illicit substances" when its "illegal". When is "getting off" or "staying off" drugs not the goal? By not addressing these things are you encouraging it? These are the ethical grey areas that many students and clinicians have toyed with when moving into mental health or duel diagnosis settings.
Danielle Delorenzo is well known to much of the online OT community and may be better known as @MorningswithanOTmom on Instagram. Danielle has a phenomenal personal story about becoming a mom and learning and growing with her neurodivergent son, Luke. She is also qualified in infant mental health which is what we wanted to talk about in this episode. We delve into infant mental health, postpartum care, self-love, and discuss how the world is impacting our wellbeing at the moment.
If you're interested in hearing her heart moving birth story definitely have a listen to her episode with Sarah over at OT4Lyfe:
Check out all of her socials and projects here:
https://linktr.ee/morningswithanotmom
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
This episode we discussed the progression of adaptive training focusing mostly on the functional fitness world. Exploring the training of those with a disability from a coaching to a competing perspective.
Ciara and I discuss depression and other mental illnesses, training, resilience, emotional flexibility and recovery. I hope you enjoy as much as I did!
We discuss what she learned, hows she grows, how she overcomes some of the challenges associated with placement and at the end have a discussion on what she feels would be the biggest learning points for other students going through or coming up to their placement.
Language is important. Documentation is important. The people we work with are important. But with all these "important" factors splitting our focus, have we lost the point?
Zara Mills is an RN with extensive experience in mental health and a passion for improving nursing and healthcare in general. We talk often about the language used in health care and the throw-away terms and conversations had by health professionals that have a profound impact on those we work with....without us even realising it.
I'm super glad we got to have one of those conversations on the podcast to share with you all.
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
Having this discussion about language and how we as therapist use it to frame and situate our therapeutic relationship, power and recovery for the people that we work with.
It’s a beautiful thing seeing a therapist incorporate something they're really passionate about into their Occupation Based Practice
In this episode, we explore Gabe's lived experience of BPAD, his experiences with health services, the impact mental illness has had on his life and EVERYTHING in between.
Dev is on a mission. A mission for inclusion. A mission for happiness. A mission for equal rights. A mission for acceptance.
I was super excited to talk to this phenomenal OT and garner her perspectives on life, MH and OT.
An episode discussing how therapists can make this transition to telehealth more successfully in this ever changing world we are currently in.
In recent times I've come across some absolutely amazing OT private practices. Becoming an entrepreneur is rapidly becoming a valid career progression for OT's around the world and I suspect that in this current health climate the potential of going into private practice will become more and more enticing, but how is that someone can develop a truly unique and innovative practice? The first step is about developing the mindset required to turn your idea into reality.
Stay safe. Stay home. Keep learning. Share the love with your colleagues. #happyaprilfools
Keep Occupied
Brock@brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
In the current climate, it's more important than ever to be in control of your headspace. Michelle has received specialized training in teaching mindfulness and has her own business, Incorporate Mindfulness
Tattoo's and tattooing has become somewhat mainstream in western culture today and we, as therapists, will work with tattooed individuals every day. But how many of us have actually considered them through an occupational lens?
We explore content creation and exchanged hints and tips for OT's to not only find their creative talent but also to dive into sharing it with the world.
Sensory processing is something that is not uncommon to hear spoken about in OT circles but unless you're on the coalface of its application it can seem a little like the therapist is playing games. I am well versed in Sensory Modulation in mental health but I wanted to learn a bit more about the basics of sensory processing in paediatrics.
Kara Rice runs a private practice that specialises in brain development and sensory integration. She was amazing and taught me so much! I really loved how she framed sensory integration not as a standalone modality but in the context of the impact it has on behaviours and reactions.....on OCCUPATIONAL ENGAGEMENT!! This was VERY exciting for me.
Learning about primitive reflect integration was also very exciting for me as it's not something I've ever been exposed to before. If, like me, you have an interest in learning the basics of sensory processing and what an OT does in this space than this is definitely the episode for you!
website: www.brainconnextherapy.com IG: /brainconnextherapy FB: /brainconnextherapy
Keep occupied
Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
This is most definitely a passionate plea from me to you guys. Firstly, I love memes. I think so many of them are amazingly clever and incredibly funny.
Therapy-related memes, however, are a thorn in my side. Firstly, 99.99% of them are not remotely funny. I’m really sorry to break it to you guys but therapeutic relationships are rarely funny and trying to make light of them comes across as soooo forced and often offensive. And this is where today’s episode comes from.
I’ve spoken many times about the impact public portrayal of OT has on our profession. In my opinion, I can see how condoning some of these memes could be doing us damage.
The meme above is the inspiration for this episode. It was a short video of a person falling out of a wheelchair after going off a step. The comment, as can be seen by my comment, is the main part that really got to me.
I encourage you to keep an open mind, have a listen to hear my opinion and come up with your own opinion on the matter.
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Do you ever wish communication in healthcare was more efficient? Clarissa does – all the time. In this episode, Clarissa shares how her frustrations with clinical communication led her to seek out a job in the health technology industry, and what she learnt about transferability of Occupational Therapy skills in the process.
Clarissa (@geekyOT on Twitter) works in forensic mental health, and also for the secure messaging app Pando.
Pando is free to download in the UK. To get your name on the international waiting list, please email aline@hellopando.com
Show Links:https://hellopando.com/https://hellopando.com/privacy-centre/https://geekyot.com/
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
DURING THIS PODCAST TOPICS SUCH AS BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER, SELF HARM AND EXPERIENCES OF TREATMENT ARE DISCUSSED. IF THIS IS A TRIGGER OR MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, LOOK AFTER YOURSELF AND DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO LISTEN.
OTforBPD was an account on Instagram and Facebook that I came across through MH4OT. They were putting out some practical and detailed resources for practitioners about the often misunderstood diagnostic category of Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD is a diagnosis that even though I encountered people who have it through my career, I do not feel like I had a good grasp on the user experience of it.
I messaged the page and managed to track down the owner, Laura, who explained that she had a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, was a qualified OT and her mission was to help not only support others with BPD but to help educate OT’s and other health practitioners about BPD.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD), is a mental illness characterized by a long-term pattern of unstable relationships, a distorted sense of self, and strong emotional reactions. There is often self-harm and other dangerous behavior. People may also struggle with a feeling of emptiness, fear of abandonment, and detachment from reality.[4] Symptoms may be triggered by seemingly normal events. The behavior typically begins by early adulthood and occurs across a variety of situations. Substance abuse, depression, and eating disorders are commonly associated with BPD. Up to 10% of people affected die by suicide.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder
I’m super grateful that she agreed to come onto Occupied and share her invaluable experience of navigating the health care system as a person with BPD. Laura was so kind and genuine. There is a sense of vulnerability in her words but a feeling of strength in her words.
Check out OTforBPD here:https://www.facebook.com/OTforBPD/
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Laura, Anya & Ozias (@otforbpd) on Nov 28, 2019 at 12:27pm PST
Reasources Laura recommends: https://themighty.comhttps://www.spectrumbpd.com.auhttps://bpdfoundation.org.au
Gunderson, J. G., & Hoffman, Perry D. (2005). Understanding and treating borderline personality disorder : a guide for professionals and families (1st ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Pub. Sampson, M. J., McCubbin, Remy A, & Tyrer, Peter J. (2006). Personality disorders and community mental health teams : a practitioner’s guide. Chichester: John Wiley.
Keep occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
PLEASE NOTE: This episode discusses topics such as colonisation and racism in multiple forms. The guests would like to make it clear that this episode does not sit as a ‘standalone’ teaching tool. If you are planning to share it with your cohorts of students we encourage you to use it alongside other aspects of the curriculum with cultural responsiveness with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Have you ever considered the impact colonisation might have had on the indigenous peoples of your country? Have you ever considered the ongoing impact these historical events have had in terms of systemic racism and institutional marginalisation of our clients?
Australia has a checkered and often hidden history when it comes to its colonisation by western entities. The impact that this event has had on Australia’s indigenous peoples is something that continues to impact them today. Today’s episode delves into the institutional racism and cultural isolation that continues today due to Australia’s colonisation in 1788.
This conversation with Tirritpa Richie and Jodie Booth was deep, confronting and mindblowing all at the same time. I can’t express enough how important it is to listen to this one with an open mind and a critically self-reflective lens.
Racism in Australia traces both historical and contemporary racist community attitudes, as well as political non-compliance and governmental negligence on United Nations human rights standard and incidents in Australia.[1] Contemporary Australia is the product of Indigenous peoples of Australia combined with multiple waves of immigration, predominantly from the United Kingdom and Ireland.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Australia
Personal Reflection
1As I reflected on in episode 044 This session had a HUGE impact on me, alerting me to many considerations in my own schema that I was completely naive to. At the Australian National Conference where Tirritpa Ritchie challenged the room to critically challenge their “whiteness” in the context of the service they deliver/teach.
Map of Indigenous Australia – The map is an attempt to represent all the language, tribal or nation groups of the Indigenous peoples of Australia.
A huge thank you to Jodie Booth who brought this conversation together as its something we all wanted to do justice to as it is something that so important to Australian health care but also relevant to many many other western cultures around the world including the USA and Canada.
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Breeanna Janson (@breetheOT) is an Australian OT who I discovered through Instagram and her amazing content. Bree often has “theme weeks” on Instagram where she would education on topics around Occupational Therapy and personal growth including meditation. Bree has a number of amazing projects on the go at once, most of which we touch on during this podcast.
I really wanted to discuss meditation with her and its clinical application for OT’s. Bree has a side gig voicing guided meditations for an app called Bloom. She also utilises the benefits of meditation with a prison population in which she works with.
On that topic, during the conversation, Bree introduced me to an amazing model called the Good Lives Model which we went through and she utilises to highlight where in a persons life meditation can have a huge impact.
View this post on Instagram Here's a pic of me from last Friday, doing more meditation recordings for @bloomapp ✨ @chloeszep @mollyjane A post shared by Breeanna Janson | Bree The OT (@breetheot) on Dec 7, 2019 at 11:10pm PST
Bloom Apphttps://apps.apple.com/au/app/bloom-better-you/id1469479066
The Good Lives Modelhttps://www.goodlivesmodel.com/
Since we recorded Bree has also set up a mental-health related podcast which will launch in February 2020. Give The Strong Minds Club a follow to stay up to date with their launch and new episodes.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Strong Minds Club Podcast (@strongmindsclub) on Dec 22, 2019 at 12:41am PST
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Charles Christiansen is a name that a large portion of Occupational Therapists from around the world would recognise. From his papers to his textbooks to his positions on AOTA and AOTF boards, Charles’ impact on the profession has been nothing short of paradigm-shifting.
I first met Charles in 2012 when he was flown out to a conference here in Australia as the keynote. Through a serendipitous turn of events, I was given the privilege of picking him up from the airport. From that first minute, his bubbly personality and amazingly measured and thoughtful conversations had me enthralled.
Since that time we have kept in contact and it was an absolute pleasure being able to host him on Occupied. An amazing man, an amazing story and such a great conversation.
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
WELCOME TO THE OCCUPIED BEST OF!
Voted by you guys as one of the four best episodes thus far, Dr Anita Hamilton has arguably had the biggest influence of any individual on my OT career. If you’ve heard this episode before I can guarantee you’ll get something new out of it. If you haven’t heard this amazing episode before, strap in, you’re in for a ride!
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The one and only Dr Anita Hamilton has had a MASSIVE influence on my career and volunteered me for a number of amazing opportunities I would not otherwise have had the fortitude to tackle. Anita is an expert and leader in the space of OT’s utilising online technology and has been a massive proponent of the OT4OT group who founded and help facilitate the whole range of 4OT facebook communities.
Stay tuned to the end for a WORLD EXCLUSIVE ANNOUNCEMENT regarding the ongoing future of the OT24VX virtual conference!!!
Also find the “first follower” video discussed in the episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ&feature=emb_logo
Anita’s video highlighting the use of her model of knowledge dissemination “the IM-KT Framework”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsJzjeieqf0&feature=emb_title
Keep occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
WELCOME TO THE OCCUPIED BEST OF!
Voted by you guys as one of the four best episodes thus far, this episode rustled more jimmies than just about any other! If you’ve heard this episode before I can guarantee you’ll get something new out of it. If you haven’t heard this amazing episode before, strap in, you’re in for a ride!
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Goals…..we’ve all heard of them and all been advised that we should be using them both personally and clinically….but why and how are we using them? Do we have a good understanding of how they work? Hear me out and I’ll see if I can make you think ?
When I say how do you write a goal I bet this is what you think of:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time-bound
………….but why?
I’m sure we’re all very familiar with this format for “goal setting”, it’s been drilled into us for year! But how many of you could list a different goal format right now off the top of your head? To me, that in itself is an issue. I encourage you to hear me out and listen to this one with an open mind. I’m a believer that SMART goals are not only not a good method of goal progression for OT’s but even that they can be detrimental….and I’m about to explain to you my thoughts around this!
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
WELCOME TO THE OCCUPIED BEST OF!
Voted by you guys as one of the four best episodes thus far, Professor Gail Whiteford has had an almost immeasurable impact on the profession of Occupational Therapy. If you’ve heard this episode before I can guarantee you’ll get something new out of it. If you haven’t heard this amazing episode before, strap in, you’re in for a ride!
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I am honestly so excited about this episode. When Gail first sent me a message asking to be on the podcast I almost fell off my chair. All my Occupational dreams come true!
Professor Gail Whiteford has been an OT hero of mine for the longest time and even though we have met multiple times, getting to have a chat with her was a surreal experience. To say I was fan-boying was an understatement. Coming to the conclusion that she is not only one of the most intelligent and well rounded Occupational Therapists i know but also one of the most easy to talk to and engage with. I can’t thank Gail enough for allowing me to pick her brain.
Professor Whiteford’s work has had a significant and lasting impact on the direction of the profession and Occupational Science. In particular her work with Dr Elizabeth Townsend in the development and promotion of the Participatory Occupational Justice Framework was something that resonated with me from the core of my OT beliefs. Being involved with OT organisations such as OOFRAS and working with some marginalised populations the framework instantly resonated with the work and professional experiences I had up until that point.
The Conversation
Our conversation started with her journey through the profession and the evolutions of OT she experienced throughout that time. Gail, on the spot, came up with ideas I would never have ever considered about the profession. Blew my mind wide open. Feel like im still processing it.
We discussed the POJF and how it came into development. The current state of Occupational Therapy as well as what the future may hold for the profession. Definitely one of the deepest, most reflective conversations I’ve had and I really hope it blows your mind as much as mine.
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
WELCOME TO THE OCCUPIED BEST OF!
Voted by you guys as one of the four best episodes thus far, Rebecca Twinley’s Dark Side of Occupation has been growing exponentially over the last few years. If you’ve heard this episode before I can guarantee you’ll get something new out of it. If you haven’t heard this amazing episode before, strap in, you’re in for a ride!
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Dr Twinley came into my life, as many have, via online connections and shared thoughts on Occupation and Occupational Therapy. When we first connected was just before she publicly released the concept of The Dark Side of Occupation. This concept very easily resonated with me. It integrated into my clinical practice and conceptualization very easily. It just made sense.
The understanding that occupations having purpose and meaning, being contextually situated and having an impact on health are nothing new to OTs. Reflecting on “the dark side” of occupations and seeing that there are many people in society, you included, who engage in maladaptive, harmful or health decreasing occupations was profound. It’s something, that for many, doesn’t seem to have been given the focus it deserved until it was given a name.
Why is it important?
Since this time I’ve seen the concept spread and evolve and become more widespread. One thing I’ve seen is the evolution of how people used the term. It was good to get Bex’s opinion on this and how it differs from her understanding and presentation of the concept.
It’s incredibly important that Occupational Therapists not only look at occupations that are health-promoting but also those that may not have such a positive impact. Only then are we able to fully gain an adequate understanding of the people we work with and deliver effective health services. If you are wanting to get a better understanding of the concept then definitely start with the website linked below.
The Dark Side of Occupation: a concept created and being developed by Dr Rebecca Twinley
Also check out some of these:
Twinley, R. (2017) Woman-to-woman rape and sexual assault, and its impact upon the occupation of work: A Learn at Work Webinar. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXGxvh96pnA
Twinley, R. (2017) ‘The Dark Side of Occupation’. In: Jacobs, K. and MacRae, N. (eds) Occupational Therapy Essentials for Clinical Competence. 3rd edn. Thorofare, NJ: SLACK.
Twinley, R. (2014) ‘Everyone is a moon’: The dark side of occupation. OT24Vx2014: A World of Health and Well Being. 3-4 November 2014. 24 hour Virtual exchange available at: http://www.ot4ot.com/ot24vx.html
Twinley, R. and Morris, K. (2014) Editorial: Are we achieving occupation-focussed practice? British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 77(6): 275
Twinley, R. (2013) The dark side of occupation: A concept for consideration. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 60(4): 301-303.
Twinley, R. (2013) Response to Re: The dark side of occupation: A concept for consideration. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 60(6): 459.
Twinley, R. (2013) ‘The dark side of occupation’ Occupational Science Seminar Series. 24 April 2013. Plymouth University: Plymouth
Twinley, R. and Addidle, G. (2012) Considering Violence: The Dark Side of Occupation. British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 75 (4): 202-204. DOI: 10.4276/030802212X13336366278257
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Have you ever thought about how your life would change if you just found out you had a sibling? Sounds like a movie script right? What if one sibling was an Occupational Therapist and the other had Cerebral Palsy? How would your occupations change? How would your family dynamic change?
I came across Whitney and Dexter's story on Instagram. In this podcast, we explored their amazing story and how finding each other has impacted both of them.
View this post on Instagram Hey guys my name is Dexter I am the other half of the team here at Tied Together I'm 26 I have cerebral palsy which has been one of craziest experiences of my life along with finding my long lost sister. What I hope to bring to this page is the fun? as well as give voice to those who are in my situation or similar situations to let you know 1)there's hope 2) you're not in this alone 3) your voice matters With that said welcome to Tied Together let's have some fun #cerebralpalsy #disability #adventure A post shared by Dexter and Whitney (@tied__together) on Oct 2, 2019 at 6:47am PDT
Keep Occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
I came across Crystal's Intagram account during her "Neuro A-Z Photo Challenge". Her content and explanations are exceptional and I learned a lot. Since then her content has continued with her focus on educating OT's and the public on all things neuro, especially stroke. Her passion for her practice area is very obvious and infectious.
We explored her journey into OT, her passion for promoting brain health as well as a number of other helpful little tidbits for therapists to be aware of.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by ??????? ? ??????????? ? (@thebrainyot) on May 21, 2019 at 6:29pm PDT
The following website was also discussed by Crystal during the episode: EBRSR.com (Evidence-Based Review of Stroke Rehabilitation) You can also check out her blog at: https://thebrainyot.wixsite.com/website Keep Occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
This episode I wanted to reflect on an idea that I've been playing around with for a few weeks and that's the difference between Mental Health and Mental Illness. Having an understanding of the links between wellbeing and mental health is a skill that every clinician can take into just about every clinical practice area.
This is an area and a concept that fits core with Occupational Therapy and isn't constrained by the boundaries of Mental Health practice. Exploring Mental Wellbeing with clients is something for ALL OT's to engage in....but how?
"There is no health without Mental Health" Erik Johnson
During the episode I explore one model for wellbeing that you can find here:
https://www.wheelofwellbeing.org/
Keep Occupied
Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
I know a lot of passionate people. I also know a lot of people in a lot of different practice areas. I've been lucky enough to know a couple of people who are incredibly passionate about working in the aged care sector. Brooke George has an amazing passion for working with people who have dementia. Those of you who have listened to a couple of episodes will know that this is far from my forte so I've been keen to learn more.
This conversation was one that I'd wanted to have for a long time given my own knowledge gap. I learned an absolute tonne about working with people with dementia. We also explored how Occupation based practice can be exemplified in this practice area. Brooke was also able to highlight some of the difficulties of working in this practice area.
It was a fantastic conversation and Brooke was brilliant. I learned a tonne from her expertise and I'm sure you will too.
https://www.holisticoccupationaltherapy.com.au/
Brooke also posts a TONNE of amazing videos and resources on her Instagram profile so definitely give her a follow if youre interested in learning even more! :D
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Brooke George • OT (@teaming_with_dementia) on Aug 27, 2019 at 2:35pm PDT
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Continuing on a bit of a trend of lived experiences on the podcast I roped in the awesome Taylah Douglass to have a chat about her experience with Chronic Pain. Taylah is currently completing her OT degree just outside of Melbourne Australia and the combination of her study and her experience of pain has given her some great insights into its impact on occupational engagement.
Her story and her insights are invaluable and I learned so much about the mindset, and the toll that pain can have on a person. With roughly 1/5 people having chronic pain of some kind in their lives if you are lucky enough to not experience this for yourself you will definitely work with someone during your career who does. For this reason, gaining an understanding of the experience and toll of pain on a person is invaluable for an Occupational Therapist.
Resources Mentioned in the podcast: retrainpain.org Painfreeyou.com Thankyoudrsarno.org (page full of success stories healing from chronic pain through the mind-body connection) healthskills.wordpress.com
Books: Dr Howard Schubiner - "unlearn your pain" and also has YouTube videos. Dr John Sarno: "the divided mind" Nicole Sachs (therapist working with pain patients) - "the meaning of truth" Steven Ozanich - "The great pain deception"
Podcasts: "The cure for chronic pain" - Nicole Sachs "The mind and fitness podcast" - Eddie Lindenstein (pain success stories through the mind-body connection, relating chronic pain to athletes and fitness)
Taylah's details for any questions or feedback! taylahdouglass95@gmail.com
Keep Occupied
Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Professor Karen Jacobs is one of those guests that makes me feel like I don't work hard enough. Any of the projects she has been involved in could be looked at as career-defining by mere mortals like myself. Everything from writing textbooks, creating national campaigns looking at safe backpack use, writing a library of kids books. Also, she's been President and VP of AOTA, run a cable TV show, started an academic journal and runs an OT podcast. The list goes on and on and on!
I first "met" Karen in 2011 when I first got involved with the OT4OT team (where she was a member). There, I was able to help them out with their 24hr virtual conference as well as their suite of Facebook groups. The more I learned about her the more I was just in awe of the impact she has had on our profession.
AOTA's summary:
Jacobs is a clinical professor of occupational therapy and the program director of the distance education post-professional occupational therapy programs at Boston University. She has expertise in the development and instruction of online graduate courses. In addition to being an occupational therapist, Jacobs is also a certified professional ergonomist (CPE). She has a private practice in ergonomics.
Jacobs earned her BA at Washington University in St. Louis, her MS at Boston University, and her doctoral degree at the University of Massachusetts.
Dr Jacob’s research examines the interface between the environment and human capabilities. In particular, she examines the individual factors and demands associated with increased risk of functional limitations among populations of university and middle school-aged students. She focuses particularly on notebook computing, backpack use, and games such as WiiFit. Most recently, she is co-developing, with Dr Nancy Baker at the University of Pittsburgh, the Telerehabilitation Computer Ergonomics System (tele-CES) for computer users with arthritis. The tele-CES is a remote systematic ergonomics program. It's aimed at substantially reducing work disability among workers with any type of arthritis.
Jacobs is the founding editor-in-chief of the international, interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2010.
Jacobs is a past president and vice-president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). She is a 2005 recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Akureyri in Akureyri, Iceland; the 2009 recipient of the Award of Merit from the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT); and recipient of the Award of Merit from the American Occupational Therapy Association in 2003.
https://www.aota.org/Publications-News/ForTheMedia/Experts/Jacobs.aspx
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOT brock.cook@me.com
When I started Occupied I didn't really have a plan for how it was going to go. It was a form of creative expression for me and I enjoyed learning the process and creating a product. The uptake of said product has been absolutely amazing.
I'd be lying if I said I was excited every single hour of the editing process or thrilled to get up at 4am to record but the feedback from you guys and hearing every now and then that you love the conversations is a big part that keeps it fun and interesting.
50 episodes 70k+ downloads 34 amazing guests 55+hours of released content. 70+hrs of recording 140gig of raw audio files 115 countries reached 44 different podcast apps 2 websites 2 MacBook Pro's 3 Microphones Still only 1 tech issue (touch wood) Many early morning alarm clocks A Million laughs
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It means the world that you guys would listen, comment, email, share, like even just think positive thoughts about the podcast. I encourage you to keep building this amazing OT community of podcasters and podcast consumers. If you listen to a podcast and take something away from it, take the couple minutes and get in contact with the host. Let them know. I can 100% guarantee you will make their day.
Here's to the next 50!
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOT brock.cook@me.com
This is an emerging topic for me. It's something for which I've seen a correlation for many many years. Now is the stage in my career where I'm starting to explore this more in-depth. Meaning is arguably the most important aspect of a person's occupation. Yet, in my experience, it is also one of the most neglected or least understood areas of our practice.
This episode I wanted to take some time to reflect on my thought process and how "meaning" has evolved over my career.
I make reference to an article during the episode that has recently provided me with some food for thought around this:
Morris, K., Cox, DL. (2017) Developing a descriptive framework for “occupational engagement” Journal of Occupational Science 24 (2), 152-164
Would love to hear your thoughts on "meaning" and how you see it relating to occupational therapy! Shoot me an email or a voice mail! All links in the profile.
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOT brock.cook@me.com
Since the beginning of my involvement in the sport of powerlifting, I've always been fascinated by the similarities. There are close links between the skillsets required to excel in Powerlifting and those commonly utilised by Occupational Therapists. I have, previously, written blog posts on how I've utilised my OT skillset in my coaching. To build on those I have planned to record an episode on it for the longest time.
At about the same time I started this podcast, I came across two ladies on Instagram. One was a powerlifter, one an OT who was developing quick reference products for students and therapists. I'm semi ashamed to admit that it took a good 12 months for me to work out that these two ladies were, in fact, one and the same...Jennifer of @OTreference.
I was talking with Jennifer one day about these previously mentioned similarities between the profession. I reflected and knew that I couldn't record this episode on my own. Luckily for me, Jennifer agreed to come and have a chat with me, for you.
What I present to you is an exercise in viewing the world through an occupational lens. In our instance, Powerlifting was a mutual love that we discussed but I bet you could look at a myriad of your own hobbies and find similarities.
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOT brock.cook@me.com
There aren't too many OT's in the online space that hasn't come across or seen posts from The Occupational Therapy Hub. I've known Jamie for about as long as Occupied has existed. He was one of the very first people to contact me after the release of my very first episode. Since that time Jamie has always been a strong supporter of Occupied and all of the OT podcasts out there.
From Radio and TV then on to Occupational Therapy, Jamie discusses his journey and all the ups and downs along the way. Glad I was even able to teach him a new saying:
"The important thing to remember about the idiom "how the sausage gets made" is that it always refers to UNPLEASANT details (not boring details, unimportant details, etc.) and it always refers to a PROCESS. It means that there are a number of details that we'd rather not hear about."
https://www.italki.com/question/129918
Jamie had a vision when he was an OT student and that was to create a "hub" where OT related resources could be curated into one spot for ease of access for therapists and OT students. He poured his heart and soul and energy into building the Occupational Therapy Hub and released it to the world (all for free I might add). He has pulled together a worldwide team of volunteers to continue building The Hub as well as developing an online community of therapists looking to learn and grow together.
He has juggled all this whilst also making the transition from student to new-grad as well as all of life's other trials and tribulations. His passion for growth and learning is evident and something we could all use a little more of.
Keep Occupied
Brock @brockcookOT brock.cook@me.com
DURING THIS PODCAST TOPICS SUCH AS ABUSE, PTSD AND VIOLENCE ARE DISCUSSED. THERE IS ALSO STRONG LANGUAGE USED. IF THIS IS A TRIGGER OR MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, LOOK AFTER YOURSELF AND DON'T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO LISTEN.
When we think of Anxiety and PTSD we all would get some image of a person in our heads. But what we need to understand is that no matter what that image looks like, it's wrong. PTSD and anxiety are both in-discriminatory.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Heather Connor (@heather.e.connor) on Oct 27, 2018 at 10:36am PDT
I had the absolute privilege of knowing and being able to chat with Heather Connor who is pound-for-pound one of the strongest drug-free powerlifters on earth. With multiple national and international titles and records under her belt she is looked up to and admired by people all over the world for her strength, dedication, work ethic and her humorous outlook on life (as well as her dogs, Pancake and Butters lol)
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Heather Connor (@heather.e.connor) on Jun 14, 2019 at 5:24am PDT
The Real Heather Connor
What many people are not aware of is that the history that helped create her is quite confronting and at times scary. She has battled anxiety and post-traumatic stress for a large part of her life. This podcast is exploring her mental health story. We hope that this will help shed some light on the experience of these conditions as well as provide hope and motivation for people who have experienced similar things that you can not only survive, but you can thrive.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Heather Connor (@heather.e.connor) on Mar 5, 2019 at 3:14am PST
Heather is passionate about using her social media platform to help people and open up the conversation about mental health. She was incredibly open and vulnerable with me during this conversation and it shows in her message. Cannot think Heather enough for such an amazing chat.
Keep Occupied Brock@brockcookOT brock.cook@me.com
This conversation starting talking about the transition and what to expect moving from a student to newgrad practitioner. Thalia was honest and raw and didn’t sugar-coat any of the experiences, good and bad. We explored the intricacies of practitioner mental health. The aim being to come up with some strategies for newgrads to help maintaining their mental health and thrive during the transition. Thalia, as am I, is of the opinion that this level of awareness and conversation is important for newgrads to be exposed to.
I first came across Thalia about a year ago and was instantly taken by her confidence in putting herself and her experiences out there for the world to see and to learn from. At the time she was a student who had been documenting her placement experiences and reflecting on them in youtube videos on her channel, Endless Eduation.
She has since then graduated and begun working as an Occupational Therapist. Her channel, likewise, has graduated to sharing her musings and reflections on her transition to a practitioner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnnojVzKgVs
Her content is amazing and i thoroughly encourage all students and new grads to check out her youtube (shown above). She is also working with The OT Hub so if you’ve not checked them out yet, get on it! If you wanted to contact her, leave a comment on her youtube or you can tweet her at @Thalia_OT :) Keep Occupied Brock@brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
On July 10-12th 2019 I found my way to Sydney for the 28th Occupational Therapy Australia National Conference & Exhibition. This was my 4th Australian National Conference which runs every 2 years. In this episode, I'd love to highlight some of the key moments and amazing inspirations for me from #OTAus2019. Key Conference Stats Delegates
1419 Registrations (Record Number!) 915 OTA Members 283 Students & New Graduates 14 Countries
Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam
Program
642 Abstract Submissions 6 Occupation Stations (New Format!) 347 Oral Presentations 168 ePosters
Exhibition & Media
18 Organisations Sponsoring 120 Organisations Exhibiting 40+ First Time Exhibitors 12 Media Releases
Leigh Sales AM and her brilliant presentation about adjusting after life-changing events.
Associate Professor Natasha Lannin and her amazing keynote focused on how we can sustainably get more clinician-researchers within the profession
The omnificent Professor Gail Whiteford mesmerising the audience and pushing the profession to live up to its true potential in her Sylvia Docker Lecture.
The Debate: Should the profession ditch the categories of Self-care, Productivity and Leisure?
Overall I have a fantastic time. It was so amazing to meet so many of you who listen to the podcast and your stories and kind words really made my conference so to those who came and said hi, thank you so much :) (Stats and all photos from https://otaus.com.au/media-and-advocacy/news/photo-gallery-ota-28th-national-conference-and-exhibition-2019) Keep OccupiedBrock Cook@brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com
I first came across Sense Rugby when the below video came across my facebook browsing. Being a strong advocate for occupation-based practice AND an old rugby union tragic, this video appealed to me on multiple levels. The use of Rugby Union as a therapy seemed so simple yea sooooo powerful.
The combination of Occupational Therapist, Carlien Parahi and her husband, Australian 7's Rugby representative, Jesse Parahi has produced an amazing service. Utilising the culture, training, social aspects and even the equipment of rugby union and adjusting it to make it fully accessible to their clients is their core business. There is no inclusion criteria for Sense Rugby. Due to the word of mouth of friends or other therapists they have amassed a small army of children who are now reaping the benefits of organised team sport. Their amazing program has now expanded across almost 20 locations across Australia. They are planning to expand it even further to other parts of the country and the world. If you want to check out Sense Rugby check the links below: www.senserugby.com.au www.facebook.com/SenseRugby/ Keep occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
DURING THIS PODCAST TOPICS SUCH AS SUICIDE AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION ARE DISCUSSED. IF THIS IS A TRIGGER OR MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, LOOK AFTER YOURSELF AND DON'T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO LISTEN.
DURING THIS PODCAST PERSONAL OPINIONS AND EXPERIENCES WITH MENTAL HEALTH AND MEDICATIONS ARE DISCUSSED. THESE ARE OUR PERSONAL OPINIONS AND EXPERIENCES ONLY AND YOU SHOULD DISCUSS YOURS WITH YOUR DOCTOR.
Who is Sarah?
Sarah Cawthorne is a friend and an amazing human. She's always been open and friendly and there for people who need her. Almost 12 months ago she made an amazingly honest post on Instagram addressing her experience with detrimental alcohol use and her recent decision to "remove alcohol from her life". I remember talking with Sarah at the time and being in absolute awe of her strength and clarity around the issue. To see someone who was so physically strong (she's a badass, strong AF, powerlifter), have a hidden weakness for alcohol and to be on the journey to addressing it is so amazing to see.
View this post on Instagram 91 days ago I made a decision to remove alcohol from my life. Contrary to what I’ve always believed - I’m worth more than that. To me, alcohol was like an abusive relationship. I hid it, I protected it, I couldn’t live without it. But it was making me sick, making me sad, isolating me, forcing me to give up things I loved. It made me give up on myself. I hid it pretty well. People with addiction are very skilled at this. I slipped up once during this time but was back on track the very next day. I’ve never been able to do that my entire adult life. Thank you universe for the handful of beautiful humans in my life who held me accountable and hugged me when the mind fuck was overwhelming. Anyway, here’s me - no lashes, no makeup, no hangover and no regrets. I don’t plan on wasting another second. A post shared by Sarah Cawthorne (@sarah.cawthorne) on Aug 5, 2018 at 9:00pm PDT
Our chat: We discussed our mutual experiences working in the mental health field before delving into her personal experiences with alcohol addiction. I know Sarah was super nervous about having this conversation but her brutal self-honesty and vulnerability with myself are so greatly appreciated as it's given me a much greater appreciation of the lived experience of alcohol addiction and recovery. We also discussed mutual experiences with functioning depression and conceptual ideas around mental health treatments. I can't thank Sarah enough for opening up, being vulnerable and taking a chance in chatting on the podcast and I truly hope this conversation gives you as many insights into addiction as it did for me. Keep occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Laura Park Figueroa, to me, is something special in the profession. To take on the often scary role of an entrepreneur and turn your passion into a private practice takes STONES. This is exactly what Laura has done with her practice, Outdoor Kids Occupational Therapy. Loving the great outdoors and having that connection with nature are driving forces behind the business.
Laura also runs the Mind Your OT Business podcast where she shares her insights and thoughts about private practice and supporting OT's to take the plunge! We delved into her journey into private practice as well as what it might take for others to do the same.
I was able to draw on my experience of a time when I NEARLY became an entrepreneur myself and Laura helped me highlight the areas where I could have improved.
I'm a firm believer that many of the amazing new and adventurous OT practice out there at the moment is coming from the brave people in the entrepreneurial space. Those that are brave enough to really back up their words and turn their passions into projects that help others.
Check out Laura's amazing work here:
www.mindyourotbusiness.com
http://www.outdoorkidsot.com
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
A while ago I asked Michelle to come and be a guest on Occupied. As I had expected she agreed but then retorted, "I'm going to interview you". We both laughed and that was that for a couple months while we tried to nail down an appropriate time. When we did find a time Michelle mentioned that she had been thinking about questions to ask me. This is when I finally realised she was serious....she was intending to hijack the podcast!
In all seriousness though, Michelle and I have known each other for a long time and we talk often about all things OT and OS so I knew her questions and ideas were going to be deep. We went right through my OT history but from the perspective of my conceptual development which was an interesting reflection.
I hope there's something for everyone in this one as we explore a whole gamut of OT and the OT process. Some strong discussions around Occupation based practice, institutional trauma, alternative lenses and where we'd like to see the profession go in the future.
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
The release of the adaptive XBox controller might have been something you saw cross your news feed a while back. You may even have thought "damn that's awesome, I wonder how OT's are going to use this". What you may not have known is that an OT was heavily involved in its development! Erik Johnson is that very OT and his story is phenomenal. Some of you may remember Erik from his time in the Army when was known across the social media landscape as ArmyOTguy. Back then, like me, you might have been in awe of his amazing work with service men DURING his deployment to Afghanistan. For me it really opened up my mind about the potential for where OT's could work. At the time he also inspired me to explore the use of Nintendo Wii in my own practice area. Fast forward a few years and Erik retired from the Army. Since then he helped start Warfighter Engaged, a volunteer company that custom designs and sets up adaptive control centres for people with accessibility issues so they can engage in the occupation of gaming! Incredibly creative and inspiring work can be seen on the Warfighter Engaged website here: https://warfighterengaged.org/projects I thoroughly enjoyed this chat with Erik and his rich experience and occupational focus was amazing and inspiring. Check out the XBox adaptive controller here:
https://www.xbox.com/en-AU/xbox-one/accessories/controllers/xbox-adaptive-controller
Where to find Erik: If you have the will and capacity to support Warfighter Engaged in the amazing work that they do than do check out their website for how you can support them.
If you want to find more about Erik you can find everything you could ever want to know about him on his website: http://www.erikunleashed.com/ Erik's work also extends to Operation Supply Drop, an NFP organisation helping enhance service persons lives through community engagement https://weareosd.org/
Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Alexis is an OT, an online juggernaut, a clinical mentor and metaphor aficionado. If you're on Instagram or Facebook then you have more than likely come across some of her posts, stories or live chats. Hard to imagine how she has any balance.... ;)
A few months ago Alexis invited me to do an Insta-live with her. Honestly, I can't even remember what we originally started talking about but we digressed to occupational balance. We decided then and there that we needed to record a podcast and give the topic the time and space that it deserved.
Occupational Balance is a concept that ALL occupational therapists have heard of and the majority would mention regularly, usually as a potential or ideal outcome. But how many have thought about the concept in detail? How many have considered the process of occupational balance outside of the feeling that we get when we have "achieved" it? What is actually being balanced?
Definition:
balance /ˈbal(ə)ns/noun 1. an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady."she lost her balance and fell"synonyms:stability, equilibrium, steadiness, footing"I tripped and lost my balance" 2. a situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.
By definition balance is about offsetting things against other things in the correct proportions. When we look at getting the "just right" perceived amount of engagement in a certain occupation what exactly are we offsetting this against? We explore the merits of considering this phenomenon as Occupational Wellbeing instead. We also branch off and consider ditching occupational classifications in favour of classifications of engagement. The paper discussed during the episode is here: Hammell, AW. (2009) Self-care, productivity, and leisure, or dimensions of occupational experience Rethinking occupational ‘categories’, Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 76(2): 107-114 During the chat, Alexis also refers to this article on distracted parenting: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/the-dangers-of-distracted-parenting/561752/?utm_source=atlfb_test134_1 Where can you find Alexis? CreatingconfidenceinOTs.club updates on happenings, resources, e-courses, mentorship program, tools, and shares. Hang out with Alexis on Instagram at @8alexisjoelle. If you have any questions you can email her at info@alexisjoelle.com OR tweet her at @8alexisjoelle
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
"Coffee, a brewed drink prepared from roasted coffee beans, the seeds of berries from certain Coffea species." I can guarantee you that many people reading this did not know that a coffee bean comes out of a cherry! Why? Because, for most of us, it's not important to our engagement with it. Some of you may not even be aware that it is a seed! and some of you might not like coffee at all (say it isn't so!). What I want to do with this episode is take something that I love and explore how it has the potential to mean so many different things to different people. By looking at the different ways in which it can be engaged with I'm hoping it will act as a lesson/reminder that context is king and assumptions of meaning have very little place in Occupational Therapy. As an added bonus, I came out of this episode so highly caffeinated I recorded another right after it! Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a clinical modality that I was introduced and exposed to during my clinical career. Unlike many psychotherapies, ACT was always able to be incorporated into an Occupation-Based Practice framework.
I came across Lou Sanguine on Facebook through a post about the podcast. She challenged me to make a post about ACT. I challenged her to make it with me. It was a challenge but she caved and joined me for a chat. We explored this new experience for Lou during the conversation and use it as an example to explain a lot of the different aspects of ACT....very meta.
Lou's knowledge and passion for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy runs deep and that comes across in our conversation. She mentions the underpinnings being based in Contextual Behavioural Science. If you'd like to explore this more, do check out their website contextualscience.org
For more regular updates and information on ACT in the OT profession go ahead and give Lou's FB page a like:
https://www.facebook.com/OTandACT
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
There's very little I can say about RachelStarLive that she hasn't expressed herself in one of her amazing youtube videos. So using her own words, Rachel is a "schizophrenic badass from Youtube and TV stuff." She's been on Americas Got Talent & Ninja Warrior. She is a Mental Health advocate. She's a Schizophrenic (listen to the episode before you take offence to the word). She's survived a flesh-eating bacteria. She's a Stuntwoman. She is not a pornstar.
Her story is diverse, scary, inspiring, shocking and all that without even considering her schizophrenia. When people say they've "been through some stuff," Rachel is the embodiment of that phrase.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjxmQt47Uwo
I've personally used some of Rachel's videos to help teach students about the lived experience of various symptoms etc. So when it came to wanting to highlight lived experience on the podcast there was no one else for me, It had to be Rachel. There are a lot of things that originally drew me to Rachel's content. Firstly her energy. The way she presents information is full of buzz and very engaging. As she discusses in the podcast, if you didn't know she had schizophrenia, you wouldn't guess by watching her videos. To a large degree that is one of the learning points, I liked from her content. Her descriptions of her experienced symptoms are dynamic, descriptive and strangely comprehend-able for a wide audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0da-Dbdkvow
Rachel has been working on her own movie called Stuntgirl so give her Youtube a follow and stay up to date with all of her mental health and stunt content! Keep occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Dr Twinley came into my life, as many have, via online connections and shared thoughts on Occupation and Occupational Therapy. When we first connected was just before she publicly released the concept of The Dark Side of Occupation. This concept very easily resonated with me. It integrated into my clinical practice and conceptualization very easily. It just made sense.
The understanding that occupations having purpose and meaning, being contextually situated and having an impact on health are nothing new to OTs. Reflecting on "the dark side" of occupations and seeing that there are many people in society, you included, who engage in maladaptive, harmful or health decreasing occupations was profound. It's something, that for many, doesn't seem to have been given the focus it deserved until it was given a name.
Why is it important?
Since this time I've seen the concept spread and evolve and become more widespread. One thing I've seen is the evolution of how people used the term. It was good to get Bex's opinion on this and how it differs from her understanding and presentation of the concept.
It's incredibly important that Occupational Therapists not only look at occupations that are health promoting but also those that may not have such a positive impact. Only then are we able to fully gain an adequate understanding of the people we work with and deliver effective health services. If you are wanting to get a better understanding of the concept then definitely start with the website linked below.
https://thedarksideofoccupation.wordpress.com/
Also check out some of these:
Related publications and presentations
Twinley, R. (2017) Woman-to-woman rape and sexual assault, and its impact upon the occupation of work: A Learn at Work Webinar. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXGxvh96pnA
Twinley, R. (2017) ‘The Dark Side of Occupation’. In: Jacobs, K. and MacRae, N. (eds) Occupational Therapy Essentials for Clinical Competence. 3rd edn. Thorofare, NJ: SLACK.
Twinley, R. (2014) ‘Everyone is a moon’: The dark side of occupation. OT24Vx2014: A World of Health and Well Being. 3-4 November 2014. 24 hour Virtual exchange available at: http://www.ot4ot.com/ot24vx.html
Twinley, R. and Morris, K. (2014) Editorial: Are we achieving occupation-focussed practice? British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 77(6): 275
Twinley, R. (2013) The dark side of occupation: A concept for consideration. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 60(4): 301-303.
Twinley, R. (2013) Response to Re: The dark side of occupation: A concept for consideration. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 60(6): 459.
Twinley, R. (2013) ‘The dark side of occupation’ Occupational Science Seminar Series. 24 April 2013. Plymouth University: Plymouth
Twinley, R. and Addidle, G. (2012) Considering Violence: The Dark Side of Occupation. British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 75 (4): 202-204. DOI: 10.4276/030802212X13336366278257
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
It's OT Month in the states and I've seen a TONNE of social media posts promoting the profession and saying how amazing we are and outlining the wide variety of things we can do. What I haven't seen is a large swell of people promoting the profession outside of the profession. I'm all for giving each other a pat on the back when we've done something awesome, 100% but don't expect that pat on the back to be anything other then what it is. If we really want people outside the profession to understand what we do then we need to promote to them.
So why now?
This all started after a conversation with Gail Whiteford. Sitting on my couch the other day I had the thought that I would put out my "elevator speech" to see if it was similar to other peoples. I also wanted to share with my networks (most of which are non-OT's) with the hope that it might trigger the conversation where I could explain fully about our amazing profession. What I didn't expect was the reaction these three little pictures would get. To date they have reached over 70 thousand people after over 1400 of you shared them with your own networks. To me, these numbers are INCREDIBLE! So I decided to put together a little episode to explore this and why I think it's important.
I am most definitely not saying that OT Month/Week/Day activities that are about highlighting our professional strengths are a bad thing. Quite the opposite, in fact, I feel like they do serve an important place. What I am saying is it's important that we continue to try and push the understanding of occupation and occupational therapy outside the profession if we expect to grow and be respected as a health profession. Keep occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
You may remember Simone from episode 2! She is the creator of the Regulation Rocket and an amazing occupation-based pediatric OT. Simone has definitely been one of our most popular guests. She has just got back to Australia after spending a year travelling the world (pretty sure the last episode was recorded from Japan!). Because of that, I thought it was time to touch base again and explore her occupational brain. :) From the moment we met Simone and I have got along really well and found that we're both on the same occupational wavelength. We could literally talk for days if left to our own devices. This episode we explore her new business venture including telehealth and how occupation can be implemented using it. We went deep into the realities of implementing Occupation Based Practice and the systemic limitations that become barriers. Naturally, a lot of pet peeves came to the surface such as OT memes, client labels, generational communication differences. We explored the importance of routines and habits but also of developing the adaptability and resilience to cope when they're disrupted. From that, the topic of success and not recoiling from failure came up. We then discussed how OT's can often let fear hold them back from breaking the mould and doing something truly innovative or scary. Of course, it wouldn't be a Rocket OT podcast without discussing the Regulation Rocket and self-regulation. Like I said at the start, Simone and I could talk forever and we've decided that we will record again. Expect an episode in the future that explores the professions over-reliance on "independence". http://rocketot.com/
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Prior to meeting Jon Jon my measures of success were most definitely material and superficial. Since that time I've been a much more introspective OT. I met Jon Jon Rivero in 2014 when he came to Australia to deliver the keynote at the QLD State Conference. I've still never been to a more amazing presentation. There was singing, dancing, roundhouse kicks, beatboxing, harmonica as well as amazing occupation based practice stories. I learned about creativity and growth and finding yoURawesome.
Since that time we've kept in touch and I've followed along the success, growth and development of Qi Creative. Some of you may have seen me hinting at a link between my last guest, Meghan Harris, and Jon Jon and that link is that Meg also works for Qi!
The conversation ended up moving towards something that I'd been mulling over for a few weeks and thats, pulling success from failure. Jon Jon was open and honest enough to share an amazing story. He told how a large part of his professional self and his business birthed from a large "fail".
I had an absolute blast talking with Jon Jon and left feeling inspired and motivated for the profession and the future.
Jon Jon on TwitterQI CreativeBalikbayan Project
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
THIS EPISODE DISCUSSES TRAUMA & TRAUMATIC INJURY. ALTHOUGH THERE IS IS NOTHING OVERLY GRAPHIC OR NEGATIVE, PLEASE DO EXERCISE COMMON SENSE IF YOU FIND THESE TOPICS DIFFICULT OR TRAUMATIC.
Meghan and I connected many years ago on twitter and I've followed her career and growth since then.
Last year Meghan and a group of others from her cycling club were hit by a truck whilst out for a ride. She suffered vast and traumatic injuries and spent a long while in a rehabilitation hospital. Meghan is now back at home but still working through her rehabilitation. In this conversation, we explored Meghan's experience right from the accident to this point in time through her occupational lense. The hope is that we are able to give therapists a view and perspective from the other side of the fence.
Through the trauma, Meghan remained positive and driven. This was something I was curious about and we did get to discuss the realities of this perception. Meghan is an amazing therapist and her views and observations of the process I find incredibly positive and inspirational. qicreative.com meghan2@ualberta.ca Meghan's Instagram
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
SOME CONTENT IN THIS PODCAST MAY BE CONSIDERED EXPLICIT BY SOME PEOPLE. SEX AND INTIMACY TOPICS ARE DISCUSSED AND MAY INCLUDE SOME COLLOQUIAL TERMINOLOGIES. EXERCISE COMMON SENSE IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY THESE OR RELATED TOPICS. I discovered the OT After Dark podcast only 4hrs after they released their first episode (Sex as an ADL). My initial reaction was "Yes! Finally someone is brave enough to talk about sex and sexuality in a public forum!" But it got even better. Firstly, they're hilarious and very personable. Secondly although speaking candidly about these topics they are exceptionally well read and well researched.... They also include, on their website, all of the research they discuss in each episode for your perusal. I firmly believe that sex, sexuality and intimacy are topics that OT's often neglect for a variety of reasons. Similar to most social change I feel that opening the conversation is the first step. Exposure to the topics will hopefully ease some of the anxiety and awkwardness about addressing sex with our clients. I encourage everyone to check out the OT After Dark podcast on your favorite podcast app. Also check out their website or tweet them: https://otafterdark.com/https://twitter.com/otafterdark
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
You may know Mandy as Seniors Flourish. She's an OT. Entrepreneur. Business Owner. OG OT Podcaster. Online OT personality. but most of all she was kind enough to come and have a chat with us here at OCCUPIED.
Many of you may have come across her work on social media where she produces and curates tonnes of useful and interesting content for therapists in all areas of practice. Her work is, as the name suggests, predominantly targeted at those working with seniors in the aged care sector and we explored just why her passions lay in this practice area.
It was an extremely fun conversation that had us both laughing a lot. We explored Mandy's journey into OT, her business, her podcast, the evolution of digital tech and even her dance prowess.
If you don't already definitely get along and check out her website and social profiles: Facebook Twitter Instagram
And if you are in aged care or have an interest in aged care her membership site, The Learning Lab, provides and unprecedented community of support and resources to help you develop your practice.
SeniorsFlourish.com/learninglab
Also we're still waiting for her dance video.....
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
I'd like to reflect on a natural disaster. At the beginning of February 2019 the city where I live was stuck under a monsoonal rain even for over a week. This event dumped over 1.6m (5ft) of water in 7 days. Townsville being a typically dry place was not designed or ready to drain and divert more than its yearly rainfall in one week. What proceeded was a 1 in 100 year wet event with unprecedented flooding.
Throughout the event I received so many messages from friends, family and fans of the podcast and I'd like to thank you for your thoughts and concern. It meant the worlds. Long story short, myself, my family and most importantly my dog are all fine. We didn't even get the worst of it. Some of the suburbs on the south side of Townsville were completely devastated. In many cases lost everything they owned. The Podcast This podcast is some observations I made during the even through an occupational lens. My aim is not to sugar coat, nor shield anyone from the realities of natural disaster. I do discuss, death, loss of possessions, grief, etc so if this is something you are sensitive to then please ensure you are appropriately supported or alternatively skip this episode. I also touch on some of the amazing things to come out of such a difficult time. People pulling together to help each-other, rescue each-other, and dropping everything for each-other. In some cases even using their own tools and resources to help their fellow man without hesitation. Social media played a massive role during this natural disaster and I reflect on exactly how I saw this powerful tool being utilised. From that I also explore my own occupational experience during the floods. This video should give you an idea of the water levels and widespread devastation. Video by Cameron Laird
https://youtu.be/BHAX5VdD5jg
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Brock brock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Kitty (@truly_radical_) contacted me over Twitter some time ago and emphatically stated that she wanted to talk with me about research. She told me that herself and fellow OT, Anna (@aurbanowicz) had a huge passion for promoting research to Occupational Therapists. She wondered if I would like to talk about it with them on Occupied.... definitely!
Dr Anna Urbanowicz and Dr Kitty-Rose Foley did their PhD's at the same time in the same place. This lead to two very different directions and experiences. Sitting down and chatting with the two of them highlighted the challenges and rewards of completing research and a PhD.
Anna is Australian but currently in the United States as a VC Postdoctoral Fellow (Fulbright Scholar) at RMIT University. Learning inclusive research techniques to bring back to her work in Australia.
We talked about their respective journeys through PhD and into Post Doc. From there we went on to explore why research is important to the profession and various ways that OT's are able to get into it. The key takeaway is that research isn't scary, it just takes a little bit of planning. With this in mind you have the opportunity to add to the evidence base of the profession using your own clinical experiences.
For me personally this a great follow-on from episodes 013-014 about transitioning to academia and I'm def more driven than ever to get stuck into some research! I'm excited!
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Leah Forman is a COTA and an OTD student whom I originally discovered from her Instagram. The very first post I saw was a photo of a pelvis and a comment about womens health, mindfulness and OT. This (strangely) caught my eye due to my good friend Melissa LaPointe and her business/interest/passion in the field.
I also noticed Leah had a blog and through reading some of her posts I got to see some quite similar interests to myself. The use of mindfulness and meditation being one of them. Connecting with her then and having further discussions it didn't take long to work out we were on the same wavelength about a lot of different things. Seemed like a no brainer to get her on Occupied and see where the conversation took us!
Leah taught me about what a COTA is and what they do. We also explored the therapeutic use of mindfulness and meditation. Finally we looked into the links that can be seen between the concepts of mindfulness, minimalism and Occupational Therapy. The conversation was fun and came really easily and I'm sure you will get as much out of this conversation as I did.
Check Leah out in all the following places:
lifesoccupations.com www.instagram.com/lifesoccupations/
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
I am honestly so excited about this episode. When Gail first sent me a message asking to be on the podcast I almost fell off my chair. All my Occupational dreams come true! Professor Gail Whiteford has been an OT hero of mine for the longest time and even though we have met multiple times, getting to have a chat with her was a surreal experience. To say I was fan-boying was an understatement. Coming to the conclusion that she is not only one of the most intelligent and well rounded Occupational Therapists i know but also one of the most easy to talk to and engage with. I can't thank Gail enough for allowing me to pick her brain. Professor Whiteford's work has had a significant and lasting impact on the direction of the profession and Occupational Science. In particular her work with Dr Elizabeth Townsend in the development and promotion of the Participatory Occupational Justice Framework was something that resonated with me from the core of my OT beliefs. Being involved with OT organisations such as OOFRAS and working with some marginalised populations the framework instantly resonated with the work and professional experiences I had up until that point.
The Conversation
Our conversation started with her journey through the profession and the evolutions of OT she experienced throughout that time. Gail, on the spot, came up with ideas I would never have ever considered about the profession. Blew my mind wide open. Feel like im still processing it.
We discussed the POJF and how it came into development. The current state of Occupational Therapy as well as what the future may hold for the profession. Definitely one of the deepest, most reflective conversations I've had and I really hope it blows your mind as much as mine.
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
December 2018 I was given the opportunity to co-present a webinar for the new WFOTvx series of professional development things. Myself, Karen Jacobs of Lifestyle by Design and Stephanie Lancaster of On The Air presented a Podcasting 101 webinar for Occupational Therapists.We covered everything from the workflow involved in creating and publishing a podcast as well as how OT's can utilise this media space for their own professional development.A massive thanks to WFOT for supporting this presentation and to Karen Jacobs for facilitating and inviting me to be part of it.The recording of the webinar can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUOHG2ZVyZs
Keep occupied Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Erika is an OT and entrepreneur who together with her husband, Mike, run their business Joy Energy Time. Their focus on burnout in health professionals is a contemporary issue that needs to be addressed now before it becomes an epidemic. How I found Erika I first came across Joy Energy Time on Instagram and, being the visual person I am, was instantly attracted by their awesome pineapple logo. I found the podcast and was an almost instant fan! I'm generally quite picky with the podcasts but i instantly got this sense that the content Erika and Mike were putting out was real and honest. I tuned into an amazing Instagram Live story where Erika explored a revelation she had recently had about her long term anxiety and burnout. She then turned that into a podcast which I have shared for you below. It takes a special something to be able to put yourself out to the world like that. It takes something even more special to take these experiences and turn them into an opportunity. This is exactly what Erika and Mike have done with Joy Energy Time. They aim to educate and support therapists around burnout and self-care practices. The Burnout Conversation We started chatting about the concept of "travel therapy" and the differences regarding this between the USA and Australia. We discuss our common burnout experiences and the contributing factors. We then unpacked some of the common impacting factors of burnout and highlighted some of the tools we've found that can help manage these factors. Of course, as you would expect from Occupied, we also related it all to Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science. Joy Energy Time offers an online course (Bash the Burnout for Healthcare Professionals) for clinicians. The aim of the courser is educating HPs about burnout and how to manage it. Information and enrollment in the course can be found at: www.joyenergytime.com
https://youtu.be/EWC5STeg-38
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Alondra Ammon is an Occupational Therapist from California. She graduated with her masters in Occupational Therapy from Samuel Merritt University and is currently working as a school-based OT. Her passion is Diversity and the promotion of the profession! I first came across Alondra's youtube channel and being a bit of a geek had a search around for the rest of her social media presence. After that, we engaged in some conversations over Twitter where I found that she had been on On The Air. The diversity of her professional experience, her bright and bubbly personality and her interest in promoting diversity throughout Occupational Therapy all added up to her being someone I just had to chat with. I have always found people with a broad and varied life experience have the most interesting perspectives on things and Alondra's military and previous health service experience intrigued me. At the beginning of the episode, we discussed Occupied Ep 020 which wasn't released at the time of recording. Alondra Added her ideas around the changing diversity of the profession and the impact it might have on Occupational Therapy as a whole. Occupational Passion: Throughout the chat I hope it's evident that She has more passion for Occupational Therapy than your average OT. As a result, she is harnessing some of this explosive enthusiasm and channeling it into a media that she is hoping will have a positive impact on the profession. She has some important messages for all OT's about promoting the profession and taking, the often scary, step to put yourself out there for the benefit of spreading the word among the general public. Check out Alondra's Youtube channel where she discusses contemporary issues and interviews a variety of Occupational Therapists. I challenge you to watch and not crack a smile after soaking in her unbridled enthusiasm!
https://youtu.be/wz0VtJsegiU
Alondra La OT Facebook Keep occupied
Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Today's discussion stemmed from a number of observations of late. Seemed like too much of a coincidence that the topic came up multiple times in a very short space of time so I decided to put together my thoughts. I'm very aware that for some people this topic is quite sensitive. I do encourage you to have a listen with an open mind as I am simply trying to highlight an idea that I haven't seen spoken about in the literature. That idea is that changing the demographics of Occupational Therapy will change the profession fundamentally. I definitely don't have a definitive answer to any of these raised concerns but the (well rounded) discussion needs to happen. Topics: I compare some of the reported experiences from the literature to my personal experience. My belief is that the experiences are legitimate but my interpretation of the cause of these experiences seems to differ greatly from those presented in the articles that I have read. I've seen a lot of very heated discussion on the topic of sex disparity.
My concern is that the views being taken into these discussions are not conducive to effective discussion. When the chat gets heated, this is stilting the ability for clinicians to have a well-rounded view. Another question I wanted to pose is if this is an issue from the perspective of men as my personal experience has never highlighted it as an issue but also I've not read any papers on the topic that have included men as authors..... so if you know of some shoot them through to me because I'd love to read. Reference to the article discussed: Beagan, B., & Fredricks, E. (2018). What about the men? Gender parity in occupational therapy. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 85(2) 137-145. doi: 10.1177/0008417417728524
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT Occupied Podcast
Dr. Ellen Nicholson is the Head of Department at the Aukland University of Technology's, Department of Occupational Science and Therapy and has had a vast and profound influence on my own career being the inspiration for Operation Occupation. We talked about everything from her journey into OT, the professions move back towards Occupation, and the role of Occupational Language in that journey.
I first came across Ellen's work in ~2012 when she presented at the OT24VX on her PHD research. This really hit me at a time in my career when I was having a professional identity crisis. I was struggling to even work out if i was working as an Occupational Therapist. Ellen was super friendly and easy to connect with. She normalised a lot of the feelings and experiences that I was having at the time and acted as a super intelligent, amazing soundboard.
Using her references, ideas and inspiration i not only changed my own practice but also started a couple projects that aimed to support other clinicians to do the same for themselves.
Check out her work here: Collective action and the transformation of occupational therapy practice Abstract There is evidence of a growing tension within the occupational therapy profession regarding the legitimate knowledge and practice of occupational therapists. While occupation is described by many as the legitimate knowledge base for occupational therapy practice, the history of the profession, and the practice context, often appear to endorse accepted practices that are not overtly aligned with an occupational paradigm. Oppressive, dissatisfying and disempowering social conditions, revealed in the knowledge, power, and discourse which underpin occupational therapy practice, have likely further influenced the meaning and intention of occupational therapy practice with children and families over time.This thesis describes a critical participatory action research project which sought to investigate and affect how occupational therapists working with children translated knowledge to inform and transform their practice. Embedded in shared concerns about the legitimacy of accepted practices with children and families, and using a contemporary occupational therapy theory as a framework, eight occupational therapy co-researchers engaged in two phases of critical action; deconstruction-planning and action-reconstruction. Positioned in between the phases, the resolution of a subjective quest for validation was revealed as a principal catalyst to transformative action. Practice stories and critical dialogue, gathered as project information, was reflectively analysed to progress both the dialogical inquiry and the transformative intent of the research.Implications for practice drawn from the research findings include a suite of action-oriented strategies which will enable practitioners to discover and advance practice transformation within their own practice. These strategies have been consolidated into the VENIA model, which is presented as a practical solution to changing the practice of occupational therapists, and strengthening the political agenda of the occupational therapy profession.
and you can access her full thesis right here:
http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/6075
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
We've looked at values and how they may highlight a person's occupational needs so the next logical progression is to have a look about what happens when someone changes the occupation that fills a need. That gap between occupations is a time that I feel OT's can really have an incredible impact on peoples lives. Let's explore the different types of transitions and how this can impact on the interventions and OT could perform.
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
We continue our chat about Sarah's experiences overseas, what developed country OT's could learn from these limited resource experiences, professional understanding of culture and OT's use of diagnosis.
Sarah Putt is pediatric OT and fellow podcaster! She currently runs her own practice but has practiced in more countries than I was able to count and has some amazing stories to go with it! As expected we discuss the amazing medium of podcasting and how OT's can benefit and engage in it and she also introduces me to Hippotherapy and the occupation based benefits for service users of this very unique practice modality. OT4LYFE.com You can find the OT4LYFE podcast anywhere you can find Occupied
Also check out the FB page:
or Insta:
or contact Sarah Via Twitter: @OT4LYFE
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Sarah Putt is pediatric OT and fellow podcaster! She currently runs her own practice but has practiced in more countries than I was able to count and has some amazing stories to go with it! As expected we discuss the amazing medium of podcasting and how OT's can benefit and engage in it and she also introduces me to Hippotherapy and the occupation based benefits for service users of this very unique practice modality. OT4LYFE.com You can find the OT4LYFE podcast anywhere you can find Occupied
Also check out the FB page:
or Insta:
or contact Sarah Via Twitter: @OT4LYFE
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
As requested! an expansion of Episode 009 - How Do Values Fit with OT Practice by having a chat about how I've used these concepts in practice. Looking at a very practical way of finding a person's occupational needs which can then be used to guide the occupation based practice direction.
Super keen to start the discussion an hear if other clinicians have used any values-based perspectives in Occupational Therapy
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
The 2nd half of our roundtable discussion with Michelle Perryman and Dr Jessie Wilson about the challenges of transitioning from a clinical OT role into an academic role. Between the three of us we are from 3 different countries, pre, during & post Phd, varying clinical backgrounds, and all have recently moved into academia.
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
A roundtable discussion with Michelle Perryman and Dr Jessie Wilson about the challenges of transitioning from a clinical OT role into an academic role. Between the three of us we are from 3 different countries, pre, during & post Phd, varying clinical backgrounds, and all have recently moved into academia. Being able to compare multiple experiences from around the world fostered some amazing conversation that I hope any people considering a move into academia will find interesting.
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Stephanie Healey graduated from the University of the Sunshine Coast and moved into her first OT position with the Department of Education in her home state. This position turns out to be quite unique in Australia and I wanted to learn all about it. Steph explained the types of intervention she does with her students, her journey into OT and her dream roll!
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
The one and only Dr Anita Hamilton has had a MASSIVE influence on my career and volunteered me for a number of amazing opportunities I would not otherwise have had the fortitude to tackle. Anita is an expert and leader in the space of OT's utilising online technology and has been a massive proponent of the OT4OT group who founded and help facilitate the whole range of 4OT facebook communities.
Stay tuned to the end for a WORLD EXCLUSIVE ANNOUNCEMENT regarding the ongoing future of the OT24VX virtual conference!!!
Also find the "first follower" video discussed in the episode:
https://youtu.be/fW8amMCVAJQ
Anita's video highlighting the use of her model of knowledge dissemination "the IM-KT Framework":
https://youtu.be/AsJzjeieqf0
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Samantha Bowen is an Occupational Therapist from Perth Australia who found her passion in the aged care sector. Samantha started Acorn Network, an entrepreneurial venture aimed at promoting young leaders in the aged care sector by providing mentoring, support and growth services to individuals and companies.
http://www.acorn-network.com.au/
Samantha has also just dropped her own podcast (The Grey Revolution)! So if you work in aged care, are interested in aged care or just breathe air then check it out!
http://www.acorn-network.com.au/podcast/
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
A rather spontaneous recording whilst getting some vitamin D, sitting outside, and relaxing. You know what they say, strike while the iron is hot, so whilst thinking about how I utilised values and values assessments within and occupation-based practice context it seemed like the perfect time to put my thoughts on record....and then send them out to the world. A bit of a reflection on how I've used concepts such as Occupational Need, Values, Occupational Disruption, and how these interrelate in order for us to be able to support people with more authentic interventions and recommendations. The example model discussed in this podcast is the Theory of Basic Human Values and is shown below.
As is highlighted in the episode this is just one of many, many models of values and how they interact. This is a brief overview of how I think about these concepts interact together and I will be exploring them individually in more detail in future podcasts.
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
Dr Jessie Wilson is a former colleague of mine who now works at Western University in Canada. Her paediatric and mental health clinical background led her into her Ph.D. around an occupation based therapy project for young adults with autism.
We discussed everything from previous episodes of Occupied, some of the marketing issues of the profession, some of the challenges between undergrad and graduate entry OT's as well as in depth about her experience completing her PH.D. project using the CO-OP approach.
Critical Physio blog: https://criticalphysio.net/network-blog/
The CO-OP Academy: http://co-opacademy.ca/
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Goals.....we've all heard of them and all been advised that we should be using them both personally and clinically....but why and how are we using them? Do we have a good understanding of how they work? Hear me out and I'll see if I can make you think ;)
When I say how do you write a goal I bet this is what you think of:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time-bound
.............but why?
I'm sure we're all very familiar with this format for "goal setting", it's been drilled into us for year! But how many of you could list a different goal format right now off the top of your head? To me, that in itself is an issue. I encourage you to hear me out and listen to this one with an open mind. I'm a believer that SMART goals are not only not a good method of goal progression for OT's but even that they can be detrimental....and I'm about to explain to you my thoughts around this!
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Melissa LaPointe is a friend I've known for a number of years and I've watched her entrepreneurial journey building from her original passion area, Occupational Therapy and Women's Health. Now she is an online entrepreneur, a women’s health advocate, a coach, a leadership consultant and a community builder! We went into some detail around therapist burnout and how we both have been through it and come out the other side. I obviously explored the role of Occupational Therapy in Women's Health and the types of things they might do in this area and how Melissa's work in this area devolved into her current online businesses. Melissa's passion has now evolved into supporting and coaching other therapists to follow their passion for developing healthy and sustainable private practices'. Melissa's consultancy service can be found here:www.melissalapointe.com Melissa's online community for therapists and entrepreneurs in pediatrics and women's health.www.strongbeginnings.online Melissa referred to a poem she wrote about me in the podcast....well i found it haha so enjoy her creative writing skills!
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Brockbrock.cook@me.com@brockcookOT
So in this episode, I explore some random reflections I've had after coming across the concept of "minimalism". It started when I found a documentary on Netflix called Minimalism: A documentary about the important things which was the beginning of me diving down the minimalism rabbit hole.
"Minimalism is a lifestyle that helps people question what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution."
The reason this concept grabbed me, once I started looking into it, is because I could see some really close links with Occupational Science! I decided to have a think and a chat about the links that I could see and how they might relate to Occupational Therapy and I hope this provides some food for thought for some people.
https://www.theminimalists.com/
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
This episode I delved into the world of the New Graduate Occupational Therapist!!
I had the pleasure of sitting down with the one and only Dominic Lloyd-Randolfi to hear about his journey into Occupational Therapy including his involvement with www.NewgradOccupationalTherapy.com
NewGradOT is an amazing blog resource for new graduates containing an amazing array of information with the aim of helping new graduates navigate the (often scary) transition into the profession.
We had a chat about his transition from student to practitioner, sex as an occupation, made some comparisons between American health care and Australia’s as well as (OF COURSE) provide some tips for new grad therapists to help make the transition to practice a much smoother and more productive one.
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Every now and then a small thing happens during my day triggers some much more extensive thoughts/reflections (ironic right?). Discussing with my Occupational Therapy students about the importance of reflection got me thinking about my personal journey towards developing this SUPER IMPORTANT skill. I discuss a bit about my experience of finally realising how amazing this skillset can be and some tips about when and how you can start implementing it.
If you enjoy it and know someone else who could do with some tips on reflection than feel free to share this podcast with them!
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Simone contacted me on Reddit following the release of Occupied episode 001 saying she wrote a blog called the Rocket OT and had created a visual that "demonstrates how regulation develops and is affected depending on environment/occupation". After having a chat it was clear that Simone and myself were on similar wavelengths so how could I not have a chat with her and learn more about her occupation perspectives and her story.
We delved into a tonne of topics including OT's and the drift away from occupation, professional identity, sensory modulation as well as Simone's very own Occupation based pediatric resources. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed having the discussion!
Follow Simone's work here: https://www.facebook.com/rocketot/
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Brock brock.cook@me.com @brockcookOT
Operation Occupation was a project that I undertook a few years ago and was a turning point in my career for my personal growth into the profession of OT. Below is a presentation that I gave to the OT’s in my district about the “Operation Occupation” p...
For the longest time I've wanted to start a podcast. The blend of technology, creative expression and Occupational Therapy has always appealed to me greatly.
My vision for this is to be an online space where I can discuss concepts, new ideas, old ideas, talk to interesting OT's, explore the dark depths of Occupation and generally have fun. If you have any ideas about topics you would like to hear broken down and discussed OR if you would like to discuss things with me then get in contact!
brock.cook@me.com
@brockcookOT
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Brock