Hope and occupational therapy

I (Emma) recently spoke at The OT Show on behalf of the OT Service, who I work as an associate for. I talked about how as, occupational therapists, we maintain hope in our service users when we know they have potential and with ongoing input they could achieve better outcomes, but we are limited within available resources. It was a challenging reflection because as someone who has been qualified 30 years I know what it was like "back in the day". We had the luxury of time to rehabilitate our service users to help them achieve their occupational goals, the disabled facilities grant was the same as it is now but building costs were cheaper, people weren't as disabled in the community because they had received more rehab etc., etc. I also work in the private sector where I see what can be achieved with more resources. Hope is fundamental to rehabilitation and indeed is central to the recovery model in mental health and so despite the challenges that we face we must continue to do what we can to instill hope in our service users be that with simple language, gestures or finding a loop hole we can take advantage of. We can all have our say as to the 10 year plan for the NHS so that we can try and influence the importance of occupation following illness or injury; be that being able to brush your own hair, be able to work or for your child to sit at the dinner table. For anyone who listened to my talk I have an update on Billy who was the inspiration for the session; with a lot of fighting from his family he is now in an inpatient specialist rehabilitation unit for the next 4 months working on his own occupational goals.