Patricia Crist

Service Learning: Meaningful, Community-Centered Professional Skill Development for Occupational Therapy Students

The profession of Occupational Therapy advocates for new and emerging areas of practice that more fully embrace our moral responsibility to address significant social injustices that exist in our communities (Kronenberg, Algado, & Pollard, 2005). The service-learning pedagogy is impacted by the philosophical and theoretical influences of John Dewey, the mission and purpose of American higher education including Boyers (1994) call for an engaged citizenry, and the social vision of occupational therapy. The pedagogy of service learning provides a natural context for students to experience community practice while contributing to reducing existing social injustices. This paper provides an overview of service learning (SL) as a philosophical and pedagogical approach in occupational therapy education, key processes in developing successful service learning experiences and community partnerships to support service learning. Characteristics of effective service learning, assessment of community and institutional outcomes of service learning and the scholarship of service learning are also discussed. Most importantly, strategies for developing service learning scholarship, an important but frequently neglected requisite to validate any educational practice, are delineated. The authors conclude that service learning provides educators with an opportunity to provide students with experiences in natural, community contexts while developing life-long commitment to civic engagement and social responsibility.

The Community Reintegration Project: Occupational Therapy at Work in a County Jail

The incarcerated population in U.S jails has more than doubled in the last thirty years while prison populations have quintupled. Over half of those released from incarceration return to correctional systems within one year of release. One of the reasons for these high rates of recidivism is that many inmates lack the community living skills necessary for community reintegration. Successful community reintegration for ex-offenders requires a skill set that occupational therapists have long addressed in their domain of practice. Compared to practitioners in the United Kingdom and Australia, U.S. practitioners have been slow to develop occupational therapy programming in correctional settings. This article describes a community reintegration program for jail inmates built through a collaborative partnership between a university occupational therapy program, community non-profit organizations and a county jail.

Entry-Level OTR and COTA Intervention Utilization Derived from NBCOT Practice Analysis: Implications for Fieldwork Experiences

Effective fieldwork provides students with learning experiences in preparation for entry-level practice as occupational therapists (OT) or occupational therapy assistants (OTA). In 2003, the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy, Inc.® (NBCOT) conducted a practice analysis of entry-level certified occupational therapy practitioners (OTR & COTA) to validate a test blueprint for the national certification examinations. This study reports a novel, elective survey reflecting the total percentage of entry-level practitioners, who reported use of 88 different interventions. The purpose of this paper is to translate the practice analysis intervention data gathered in the optional survey to plan and implement effective fieldwork that prepares fieldwork students for entry-level practice. The results of this study will provide understanding of intervention use among entry-level practitioners (OTR = 479; COTA = 168) as a function of practice context. An initial correlation of a random sample of 100 OTRs and COTAs found group equivalency, meaning that the OTR information could be used for the major analyses and generalized to include COTA. Fourteen interventions were found commonly across all practice settings for OTR. These fourteen were factored into three areas or themes (preparatory and activities of daily living; motor skills, posture and coordination; and mental functions) with significant frequency of intervention utilization. Further analysis indicated a high variability of the top thirty interventions for each setting with regard to utilization of interventions above and below the 50 percentile. This snapshot of practice regarding entry-level intervention utilization in occupational therapy across seven major practice settings is described and application to fieldwork processes elaborated. The information provides a description of practice in each setting that can be used by academic fieldwork coordinators for student placement decisions. Fieldwork educators can use this information as a guide for planning comprehensive fieldwork-learning activities, as well as supervising students. Fieldwork students can use this intervention utilization information to assess their readiness for entry-level practice in each setting.

Evaluation of Software and Hardware for Rehabilitation and Management

Occupational therapists entering the field of computer applications for rehabilitation and management are perplexed by the plethora of options in hardware and software. Compound this with the need to be computer literate and the problems can be overwhelming. Many therapists desire a structured format for decisionmaking prior to the purchase of various options as salesmen are seldom familiar with the unique needs for software and hardware in rehabilitation environments. The purpose of this paper is to present questions most frequently asked by novices in computer applications. Additionally, structured evaluations of software and hardware for occupational therapy application will be presented. This paper will provide methods for therapists to be informed, self-directed and effective in the selection, justification, and purchase of computers and software in rehabilitation and management.