Category Archives: Lecturing
A Creative Controversy…
I have recently joined Pinterest and was exploring the site for some images to pin to my ‘Words to Live By’ Board when I came across this image on creativity – I was close to repinning (some of these words may mean nothing to you as they didn’t to me a bare week ago) when two statements in particular stood out as ones I did not believe in at all. They’ve kept me up late to writer this blog post. I’ll let you look at the poster and see if you can pick them out.
Now, you may not have identified the same two as me or may even have identified more. I think perhaps many of the statements could be seen as limited and, although they can be true when applied to creativity, they aren’t the only ways to define it. I do wonder if the author of the original poster was thinking about pure artistic creativity when creating this?
I know of at least one person who agrees with me as they immediately responding when I posted this on Facebook identifying the very statements that had vexed me. And so, because I know you are itching to know if you agree or disagree with me:
1. I do not believe that ‘Creativity is something that some are blessed with & others are simply not.’
Yes, there are people who appear to be blessed with creativity and can be creative with words or paints or a camera or…. but that is a somewhat narrow definition. What about the person who is the only one to notice that someone is in trouble and reaches out by simply saying hello?
Creativity can be expressed in our daily lives and potentially in everything we do; from trying a new toothbrushing technique to improvising with breakfast when the milk has gone sour, to an idea springing from a problem we’ve never encountered before even when we don’t think we’ve ever had a good idea in our lives.
Is creativity always a good thing – is it always a blessing? For me (and I think I am quite creative) sometimes the ideas become too overwhelming because I don’t have enough time to implement them or because there are things blocking me translating ideas into reality, sometimes a fear of doing something wrong or not perfectly.
In relation to the issue of time perhaps I could share my ideas more and allow someone else to jump start their own creativity, sparking off mine.
In relation to the blocks – some are personal things that I need to work to overcome and others are I think are societal – thinking that there is only one way to do something and not always accepting that won’t work for everybody – expecting the person and not the process to conform.
2. I do not believe that ‘Creativity is something that cannot be taught.’
If I did believe this I’d be in the wrong profession!! (Both of them – Lecturing and Occupational Therapy I think are all about this). Maybe it’s the word teaching which can sometimes be considered didactic – “You will be creative today”.
I certainly believe that the learning of creativity can be facilitated. I see this in our students (and have seen it in myself).
Another pin I spotted may help to shed some light on this:
Moving to this type of ‘grey’ learning or thinking I believe comes with age and/or experience – Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development ‘stopped’ at the formal operational stage which was suggested to be reached at 11+ . This stage is where people ‘can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically. Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems’ – Atherton, 2011).
For me there is too much focus on logic here which often relies on rules or absolutes.
Kramer et al (1992 cited Santrock 2006) described ‘Postformal’ thought as that which ‘involves understanding that the correct answer to a problem requires reflective thinking and can vary from one situation to another, and that the search for truth is often an ongoing, neverending process. Postformal thought also includes the belief that solutions to problems need to be realistic and that emotion and subjective factors can influence thinking.’ (I have this in quotes because I can’t quite remember if I paraphrased this so this may not be the exact words).
School teaching appears to, in a lot of ways, rely often on logic or rules or rights and wrongs and a number of students when they come to university want to know what is the right answer – most often there isn’t one. Yes occasionally there are wrong aspects but I genuinely believe that in my profession there are many ways to do something ‘right’.
I would hope then that by focusing on skills such as problem solving, critical appraisal, clinical reasoning (from many different viewpoints) etc as well as ‘teaching’ content and knowledge, and allowing opportunities to apply knowledge using those skills developed, that students can approach things creatively and that they in turn do this with clients.
I don’t know much about the Montessori Method but from what I’ve read I think this is a method designed completely to foster creativity and love of learning from an early age. I know there are devotees and critics of this approach but what is clear is that state schooling certainly doesn’t work for everyone. I think I’d like to see slightly less focus on a formal jam packed curriculum for youngsters and some more exploratory time filtered back in.
This exploring shouldn’t stop when you are young. Play is the way children learn – there is no reason adults can’t continue to learn this way too. By simply trying new things, learning and developing new skills and knowledge I think this enables the development of creativity. You do have to be prepared to step outside your comfort zone and feel challenged to reach this though.
Whilst performing a quick search on this topic I came across this website – Creativity for Life – that has lots of activities and suggestions for thinking and acting creatively – why not try some of them out.
I hope I made it clear why I singled those two statements out and I think some of what I’ve said supports the other statements that I do agree with on the whole.
I’m going to leave it there but may well come back to this topic again as I am fairly sure it will be something that I will be exploring as part of my research and if not it’s something I’m interested in anyway.
I’d love to know:
- whether you agree or disagree with me?
- whether you’d add any statements to the poster?
- whether you’d remove or revise any of the others?
- whether you’ve had much experience of the Montessori method or your thoughts about your own or your children’s schooling?
- what has developed your own creativity?
- Anything else that you’d like to add I’d love to hear it.
References
Atherton J S (2011) Learning and Teaching; Piaget’s developmental theory [On-line: UK] retrieved 17 February 2012 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm
U is for… (#atozchallenge)
U is for…
Understanding
Today’s post relates to occupational therapy, creative writing and life in general.
To understand: To perceive the meaning or explanation of, grasp the idea of, or comprehend: to be thoroughly acquainted with or familiar with.
(Polatajko 2010, p. 59)
For me, when I was practicing, the most important meeting I had with my clients was the first one. The one where I completed the initial interview, found out what the reason for referral was and what the difficulties for that client were, and also, most importantly, what they wanted to achieve. When first seeing a client I would allow plenty of time for this, time to get to know them. I would often “only” see two new clients in a day (working in a community setting seeing people in their own homes). Now when you have to fill in stats for how many clients you see and when these are compared with the stats of other professions this can possibly look a little lax. I have heard students commenting on facing the same challenge, and believe me it is a challenge. We don’t have unlimited time, budget or resources, sometimes we can cut client meetings a little shorter but do we then really get to understand them or their needs?
Take for example a time when you have had to complain to someone about something. When were you satisfied that the person dealing with your issue understood what it was? Was it when they went, ‘yeah, yeah, have your refund.’ or when the person listened to what you had to say and reflected it back to you. Even if the outcome of the latter wasn’t what you desired I reckon most of us would still consider that to be the more positive outcome.
So why does it take an occupational therapist so much time to understand their clients?
Because we are dealing with their occupations, the things that they do everyday and the activities that form their identity. Polatajko (2010, p.58) suggests that:
Constructing an understanding of occupation requires a careful examination of the doing, the doer, the context or situation in which the occupation is found, and the relationships among these elements.
Could you do this in 30 minutes? Can you even do it in 2 hours (the average length of my first meetings)?
You need to understand a person on their own terms, understanding about their past and present, about their beliefs, values, culture, religion, family, etc. etc.
One thing about social media that has been really interesting for me has been communicating with my friends using facebook, twitter and more recently blogging. The latter has been a revelation and reading my friends’ blogs (their stories) has really helped me understand them a little better. People write about things we don’t talk about. I have suggested to students that blogs can be useful sources of information for understanding the impact of a particular health or social condition on a client. On Twitter at the moment there is a hashtag discussion on the use of social media (generally) in the NHS, #nhssm. Why not check it out.
Understanding a client’s narrative is an important part of clinical reasoning (Boyt Schell and Schell, 2010). I think it helps us connect to our clients by forming trust, they trust that we know them and we can trust that we are providing the best intervention for their needs and in their best interests.
In creative writing I think it is just as important that we get to know and understand our characters. A number of writers create detailed character sheets identifying a whole host of characteristics that may never make it into a completed story. They do this to understand the psyche of their character, to know how they would respond in different situations, what another character’s words might make them feel, what choices they would make when faced with the challenges we throw at them. I have just ordered a Kindle copy of Psychology for Screenwriters: Building the Conflict in Your Script
Returning to the example I gave earlier of you getting someone to address your complaint, if you knew that the person saying, ‘yeah, yeah, have your refund’ had just been made redundant does that make their reaction anymore understandable?
How often do you spend time listening to people, getting to know your characters, reflecting on why people react or live in the way they do? What insights has this given you?
Thanks for reading
References
Boyt Schell, B.A., Schell, J.W. 2008. Clinical and Professional Reasoning in Occupational Therapy. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.
Polatajko, H.J. 2010. The Study of Occupation. In: Christiansen, C.H., Townsend, E.A., 2010. Introduction to Occupation: The Art and Science of Living, 2nd ed. New Jersey: Pearson, 57-79.
(I have a feeling that a closer read of this chapter will be very useful to my PhD)
S is for… (#atozchallenge)
S is for…
Studying
I have a confession…I love learning.
It’s good to get that out; I think it’s an addiction. I know that there are others of you out there.
I went to a Grammar School and I’m not convinced that it was there that inspired me. In fact when I was applying to university one course told me to take a year out and I decided not to because I didn’t think I’d be able to get back into learning if I’d had time out (ha, little did I know). It obviously helps when you are learning things that interest you and I still have examples of school projects where clearly I had been engrossed in the subject. I really enjoyed Sociology at A-Level and won a school prize for it. I studied English and did consider dropping it because I felt we were told to concentrate purely on the words of a text without always considering context.
I do, however, have a tendency to be a little flighty and get more excited about my next course or the next topic to learn. I was initially going to complete my dissertation at uni on autism but then on my mental health placement came across a young man who had drug induced psychosis (caused by cannabis consumption) so I applied to change my topic.
In 2004 I decided that I wanted to go back to study and enrolled on a few Open University courses, An Introduction to the Humanities and Start Writing Fiction and Start Writing Poetry. I was hooked. I then completed: Approaching Literature, Start Writing Plays, Perspectives on Leonardo da Vinci, Creative Writing, Advanced Creative Writing, 20th Century Literature: texts and debates. I got my first class BA (Hons) Literature in 2009 and had to hold myself back from signing up for another course, they have one on Children’s Literature where you can study Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone!! (I did have a year out in 2006-7 to complete my PG Cert in Health and Social Care Education when I started my new job lecturing).
I’m now working towards a PhD and am finding the lack of deadlines challenging (I did sign up to the Writer’s Bureau course years ago and never finished because I didn’t have set deadlines). My supervisor has just suggested one though so hopefully that will push me to stop floundering and get on with it.
Academia then is actually a pretty good place for me to be, I really enjoy attending conferences and seminars and training sessions at work, always coming away with ideas but sadly not enough time to implement them all. I find this frustrating because my body can’t keep up with my mind, and there are only so many hours in a day. I think if I didn’t have to earn money I’d make a good eternal student, alongside my writing of course.
I have always been a strategic learner and learnt with a specific purpose, e.g. To write an assessment or to write a lecture to deliver. I need to set myself goals to work toward otherwise I don’t get anywhere.
I hope that my love for learning comes across to my students and that I inspire them to want to read more and find out more than I tell them. One of the biggest skills I learnt distance learning with the OU was that you need to learn yourself and that as you grow older it is less about being taught and more about picking up a book and reading and applying it to what you know or what you see around you (maybe that’s why although I enjoyed school it didn’t completely grab me then). I think that’s probably why yesterday’s topic of reflection appeals to me too, because it is generally a self managed process.
My learning plans
My friend Stacey has completed some Science courses with the OU and she mentioned a course introducing Forensic Science. As my NaNoWriMo novel is a police story I am sorely tempted to sign up. The next presentation starts in May and there is some flexibility about when you complete it (in 6-8 weeks or 5 months). I just need to check if I’ve got enough Tesco vouchers to help pay some of the cost.
I have a few conference presentations coming up and plan to write journal articles on the topics I will be presenting on so that’s going to be a lot of reading and learning.
I would love to learn how to play the guitar
I would love to learn how to paint
I keep putting off the above two because they are ‘physical’ skills, something that you have to learn to do rather than understand. I know that they will be more difficult for me but I still want to try.
I want to keep learning about writing, I’m going to do that by doing it.
What are you/do you need to be learning at the moment?
Does a love of learning start in school or after? What was it that inspired you? Or turned you off?
O is for… (#atozchallenge)
O is for…
Occupational Therapy, Occupational Science and all things Occupation
I shall start with a couple of definitions:
‘Occupation: A group of activities that has personal and sociocultural meaning, is named within a culture and supports participation in society. Occupations can be categorized as self-care, productivity and/or leisure.’ (Creek, 2010 p. 25)
‘Engagement: A sense of involvement, choice, positive meaning and commitment while performing an occupation or activity.’ (Creek, 2010 p. 25)
In short then Occupational Therapists help people engage with the occupations in their lives. Additionally we can use these same occupations in our intervention plans with clients.
A fellow OT, Bridgett Piernik-Yoder, completing the a-z challenge on all things OT, posted for D on the domain of the OT and looks at what OTs do in more detail. Please check out her post here.
The British Association/College of Occupational Therapists has recently produced a range of videos showing how OTs might work with clients with a number of conditions.
Occupational Therapists could however work with anybody who is experiencing a change in their normal occupational pattern (or occupational disruption) whether they have a recognised disability or medical condition or not. Some of the potential areas I personally think OTs could work are, with new parents (what a disruption), older people entering retirement (it can be more challenging than you think having all that free time 
) and students starting university (I know I could have done with some additional cookery and domestic skills!).
Prior to becoming a lecturer in OT I worked in physical rehabilitation, most recently with older adults following a fall or with adults of any age post stroke. I facilitated clients to work on goals as diverse as making themselves a hot drink and carrying it through to the lounge to learning how to type and send an e-mail to preparing someone to return to employment. Interventions were as varied as fabricating hand splints, taking someone shopping to work on their memory and sequencing, providing equipment at home, teaching alternative strategies, such as how to dress using one handed techniques, working on strength and balance and falls safety in a falls group and completing a work place visit to assess what demands would be placed on someone with lasting cognitive impairment.
I have to say that I loved this variety and the contact with clients and their carers and I do sometimes miss it but I really enjoy educating future practitioners too.
One of the best things about returning to academia has been revisiting the theory that underpins occupational therapy practice and really gaining an appreciation of my, and our, profession’s core underlying belief that occupational engagement can affect our health and wellbeing. It is this that has driven my topic for my PhD research. An occupational exploration of creative writing as an occupation.
Another definition for you now:
‘Occupational Science: Academic discipline of the social sciences aimed at producing a body of knowledge on occupation through theory generation, and systematic, disciplined methods of inquiry.’ (Creek, 2010, p. 29)
Everybody is now focussed on delivering evidence based interventions and occupational science aims to help provide this supporting knowledge for our profession as well as society as a whole. (Just a note that Occupational Scientists are not always OTs, but can amd should be anyone interested in the science of doing).
Personally I am not going to be looking at creative writing as therapy (at least not for for my PhD, maybe later) but I will be exploring why writers write and what that can teach us about that occupation and occupations in general.
Wish me luck.
I hope that this post has helped you understand OT a little better; it is a fantastic profession to be a part of and I really hope the value of our services are seen as vital to however health and social care ends up being structured in the UK. On my to do list is to speak to my local MP about Occupational Therapy, why not speak to yours too?
References
Creek, J., 2010. The Core Concepts of Occupational Therapy: a dynamic framework for practice. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
I would like to say the above represents my own opinions and may not reflect that of all OTs.
Any questions or comments please share below.
I is for… (#atozchallenge)
- I is for…
- Clark, F.A, Jackson, J. and Carlson, M. 2004. Occupational Science, Occupational Therapy and Evidence-based Practice: What the Well Elderly Study has Taught Us. In: Molineux, M. 2004. Occupation for Occupational Therapists. Oxford: Blackwell Publications, 200-218.
- Iwama, M. 2010. Cultural Perspectives on Occupation. In. Christiansen, C.H., Townsend, E.A., 2010. Introduction to Occupation: The Art and Science of Living, 2nd ed. New Jersey: Pearson, 35-55.
- Wilcock, A.A. 2003. Occupational Science: The Study of Humans as Occupational Beings. In: Kramer, P., Hinojosa, J., Brasic Royeen, C. 2003. Perspectives in Human Occupation: Participation in Life. Philadeplhia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 156-180.
Identity (and iPad)
As you may have seen my blog is not just on one theme, it’s not just a writing blog, not just an OT blog, not just a PhD student blog (not yet even but elements coming soon), it’s a me blog (ooo doesn’t that sound self-centred?). Now I could have had two or three separate blogs but I would find it so difficult to split what went where. All of these different elements form my identity and I wouldn’t feel right splitting them.
As an occupational therapist I believe that our sense of self and identity comes from what we do (the ‘occupations’ or activities we engage in our daily lives) and the roles we play. As such our occupations play a huge part in our personal feelings of health and wellbeing.
Wilcock (2003, p. 175) cite Whiteford and Wicks (2000, p.48) who discuss the idea of an ‘occupational persona’:
“That dimension of self shaped by a myriad of factors both biological and sociocultural, which is predisposed, as well as driven toward, engagement in certain types of occupations. Through the process of such engagement and the outcomes generated, the occupational persona is shaped, and to some extent reinvented over time.”
Iwama (2010) also suggests that self is ‘embedded in the environment‘.
To me these quotes mean that aspects of our personal nature (things like being an owl or a lark, short or tall, shy or extrovert) as well as nurture (how/where we are bought up, what opportunities we were afforded) as well as our environmental contexts (the place we live and work and socialise), the people around us, the culture we are, shape what we do and thus our identity. This can change and develop over time.
I always hear people I know, and myself, saying “I couldn’t do what they do”. This is most definitely a good thing. After all we need all types of people doing all types of things to make society work.
Within the last few years I have been diagnosed with dyspraxia, I’ve clearly always been dyspraxic and having read about the condition I can see that it has always affected me. Although I now tick the box to say I have a disability, generally I would not identify myself as disabled. Others though may feel differently and if I had had this diagnosis earlier in life maybe I would have a different opinion of this and a different identity. Disability then, to me, isn’t an automatic feature of having a specific health condition if you can still accomplish what you want or need to. At times I feel perhaps that I have been made to feel disabled by environments or processes around me. This is a common theme in literature about disability, that people are disabled by their environment (whether this is physical or in terms of the attitudes of those around them) rather than by the condition or label they are given.
Instead I identify with being an OT (even though I am not currently practising, my current emersion in occupational literature, teaching about OT, communicating with other OTs (via Twitter and Blogs even)and students on placement), a lecturer (through writing and presenting lectures, facilitating group sessions), a writer (through writing, reading about writing, blogging, running an online writing community, thinking about writing), a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a friend (through spending time socialising, talking on the phone, visiting, listening to, laughing with etc).
I also look forward to, in future, developing my potential roles and occupations in being a researcher, a girlfriend, a wife, a mother, grandmother etc. Knowing some new mothers I do think that it is likely that my identity in terms of my work and the importance that plays in my life may change (and probably rightly so).
It may be that identity is transient but there are some occupational identities that I think stay with us, like a fellow OT @claireOT said to myself and @GentleChaos on Twitter, “once an OT, always an OT. (like king or queen of Narnia. and order of phoenix, obvs.)”. I think that’s true and that I will always be an occupational therapist and possibly always have been without having a word to call it (it is weird how when a new group of students arrive in the university you can almost always identify them relating to the profession they are enrolled in).
How does this apply to life or practice? For therapists, or people in general, I think at times we can impose an identity on someone based on their condition, e.g. a stroke survivor, a person with a learning disability, a person with depression. But we need to look beyond this to what they have done in the past, what they do now and importantly what they’d like to do. We can do this by simply taking the time to talk to that person and find out. The stroke survivor may have been an astronaut, the person with a learning disability may enjoy acting in a theatre group, the person with depression might be you or me.
Please feel free to leave comments – I have no questions for you today but an activity:
Activity for you to post to your blogs (please link back here or place a link in the comments)
(This activity is taken (with only minor amendments) from Clark et al, 2004, p. 214)
Collect together ten pictures of yourself taking part in occupations (or activities) that best characterise your sense of self. Arrange them in an order that shows us your story (e.g. chapters of your life, different elements such as work, rest and play). Tell us a little about them and in essence your identity. These pictures can be from past and present. You may want to add pictures of occupations you would like to become involved in (though you won’t have pictures of you doing this unless you photoshop them).
(I’ll try and do this too – I’ve not got the pictures ready though)
References
I’ve got to squeeze a word or two in for my iPad which I think has solidified my identity as a gadget geek. I do plan to do a top 10 apps feature (or two or three) after the A-Z challenge has finished.
I hope this post makes sense, I’ve had to do it in a but more of a rush than I’d like because some of my other occupational identities have taken over!!
E is for… (#atozchallenge)
E is for…
E
By e I don’t mean the mathematical constant (whatever that is) or e=mc2
I mean e for electronic, as in e-learning, e-CPD, e-portfolio, e-books and so on.
One of the big debates of the moment is about e-books and whether they are helping publishing and writers. As an administrator of an online Writing Community I can say that the emergence of e-publishing has made it pretty easy (and cheap) for me to publish competition anthologies and a magazine for http://www.slingink.com. I have done this through http://www.lulu.com. The only real financial layout I have had is in ordering the proof copies of the print books so that they can be distributed though other retailers. The books can be made available as a PDF download or individual customers can make a print on demand order all managed through lulu. They’ve also just contacted me to say they are putting the books forward to become available through iBooks (a word of caution you do have to have some, or get some, technical knowledge of PDF formats to create an uploadable file).
Of course it’s the Amazon Kindle that really seems to be driving the e-book market forward and allowing authors to self-publish their material and in some cases make more money doing this than they would through traditional publishing. The name that springs to mind is Amanda Hocking and you can read her recent blog post about her switching back to traditional publishing here.
When I have something decent written I may well turn to Kindle myself too.
My C post was on CPD and one of the things I have been investigating over the last few years at work is finding an e-portfolio tool that will support my students (and myself) to maintain our CPD and share elements of it with potential employers, our registering body and others. In fact my presentation at last year’s College of Occupational Therapists Annual Conference was on this topic. One of the biggest findings that arose from an audit I completed was that current practice was still very much paper based and I think this is a factor that is preventing e-portfolios taking hold once students leave university. I think I’ll leave this topic here today and post in more detail at a later date. The search continues…
I am a huge supporter of e-learning and by this I mean using online technologies to support learning. As an Open University alumni I have been an e-learner myself, distance learning using the Firstclass forums. The OUs OpenLearn initiative to share free learning resources means that everyone with access to a computer can get a flavour of a range of subjects. In my professional life it is e-learning and developing online resources that inspires me and I have used Facebook, podcasts, blogs, wikis, e-portfolios to name but a few to, hopefully, enhance the learning experience of my students.
Despite my love of all things e, I think there is a place for traditional means and methods too.
I have a kindle but I am not planning on selling any of my books anytime soon and as my B post demonstrates I love Books (weirdly enough a second hand smoky smelling, liquid book arrived through the post (which had been described as in Good condition) – I am sending it back and debating buying the kindle version instead.
I still have to buy albums in CD format (though I will download singles) and films and TV shows have to contribute to my DVD collection.
At one of the sessions at the e-portfolio conference I attended in Birmingham recently, the speaker discussed having given students a choice of how to gather evidence for a portfolio, scrapbooking was a more popular option than e-portfolios.
As good as e-learning can be there are some things that can only be taught face to face. I particularly enjoy one to one or small group sessions where I can really get a flavour of what students have learnt.
A few questions for you:
What have your experiences of e-learning be? In what situations would e-learning be the best method to learn and in what situations would other methods be better?
Has anyone used an e-portfolio? What type? What were your experiences? OTs, if there was a readily accessible e-portfolio system available for you to use, would you? Why/Why not?
Writers what do you think of the e-book versus traditional publishing route?
D is for… (#atozchallenge)
D is for…
Domestic Abuse
I recently sat in on a third year health students’ presentation about domestic abuse and in this they shared with their audience a number of resources that stayed with me and that I would like to share. Please be warned the video below may be distressing and is not suitable for young children and the poem had me in tears.
This is a subject I have chosen to write about a couple of times myself in the past (not thankfully inspired by events in my life though I am aware of people I know having been in this situation). I share with you four pages from my poetry book.
Domestic Abuse is not always as obvious as the examples above or always to do with physical violence. Abuse can be emotional, sexual, financial, or related to social isolation. It’s not just women that it affects, it can affect men too, and children, even if they aren’t the target, may be aware it is happening.
If you are in this situation I know it is not easy to leave but please seek support and try to tell one person that you trust. Don’t forget in an emergency situation to dial 999.
Some useful links may be:
Relate – the relationship people for relationship counselling
Samaritans for a listening ear and non-judgemental advice
Men’s Advice Line for men in abusive relationships
Refuge for women and children
And more can be found on the BBC Health Domestic Violence page.
Be safe and try to remember that nobody deserves to be abused.
C is for… (#atozchallenge)
C is for…
Creativity in CPD
UK Occupational Therapists, I don’t want to burst any bubbles of denial but did you know that the two yearly audit of CPD activity is coming up again this summer, ready for our November re-registration?
Is that nod you are giving me a smug, ‘my CPD folder is completely up to date’ or a slow nod of fear? My nod lies part way between these.
CPD for the uninitiated stands for Continuing Professional Development (or at least it does in this case).
This blog post will hopefully help you to see where you have completed CPD already, provide links to useful resources and hopefully make you less fearful of being randomly selected for audit and preparing your profile. (Come back again on April 21st where I’ll be talking about Reflection in more detail).
The first thing to say is that CPD is not just about attending courses, nowadays money to actually do this may be tight. See what the Health Professions Council (soon to become the Health and Care Professions Council) say constitutes CPD activity. What can you already tick off as having done in the last two years? What could you do in the next few months? Next see what they suggest can provide evidence of CPD. What can you gather together to put into a folder (whether this is in paper or electronic format)?
Now I called this post creativity in CPD because I believe that we may have to create these opportunities ourselves but I think we can also be creative with this.
- If you are reading this post then I suspect that you are engaged with social media. Why not summarise what you’ve learnt from your engagement with this over the past two years. What contacts or networks have you developed?
- Do you watch television programmes and films, read books, newspapers and magazines? What have these taught you about occupations, conditions, life… that you can apply to your practice?
- How can you demonstrate that what you do in your home life and spare time applies to development of professional skills, i.e. transferable skills?
- Have you experienced a situation that went really well? Do you know why? Can you read around the topic to see what theory might help you understand the situation better. Or can you be creative and write something from the Point of View of a colleague you were working with or the client. Note the additional insights this gives you so that you can try to replicate the positive experience next time.
- You don’t just have to write, you could capture your CPD through drawing, painting or photography. You could video yourself or tape an audio reflection (be sure to gain consent or maintain confidentiality with any means you use).
- Now if you do have money available for training in your department why not see if you can get sponsored to attend the Annual Conference in Brighton. I attended my first conference last year and I found it so useful. If you can’t attend follow the tweets on Twitter using the hashtag #cot2011.
- The BAOT/COT website has the Interactive Learning Opportunities Database available to members with links to relevant training and resources such as reflective tools.
- An excellent CPD activity would be to take a student on placement with you, why not speak to your department’s practice placement coordinator about this or if you are a private practitioner contact your local university.
So if you are called up for audit what will you be expected to do?
You will need to write a profile explaining the CPD activity you have completed over the last two years and how it has helped you meet the HPC’s 5 Standards of CPD. You also need to provide a few select examples of evidence to support this profile. Some of the documents you could use to check your activity against are, your job description and person specification, your appraisal documentation and KSF outline (if in the NHS). Also take a look at both your COT and HPC Codes of Ethics and Conduct and the HPC Standards of Proficiency for Occupational Therapists.
I hope you now feel you can you show your CPD has been continuous and is up to date, that you have completed a range of activities, that these have improved the quality of your practice and that it has been of benefit service users.
On this page you can find completed examples of a practitioner, manager or educator profile.
My final suggestion would be that we all aim to complete our profiles over the next few months rather than waiting for the audit, reviewing how far you’ve progressed over the last two years can be a positive experience and it can help show what we still have to learn so that we can plan goals for the next two years (after all it is called Continuing Professional Development). Why not do this as a departmental CPD activity and review your profiles with your colleagues?
Hoping this has been helpful – look forward to reading your comments and queries.
