Recovering Ordinary Lives
The strategy for occupational therapy in mental health services 2007-17
COT provides three valuable documents about mental health and occupational therapy:
Recovering Ordinary Lives - A Vision for the Next Ten Years
This document clearly describes key messages for the profession and others to work towards to improve mental health services.
Download Recovering Ordinary Lives - A Vision for the Next Ten Years
Recovering Ordinary Lives - Results from Service User and Carer Focus Groups
This document gives important information about what people who have received occupational therapy services feel about its quality.
Download Recovering Ordinary Lives - Results from Service User and Carer Focus Groups
Recovering Ordinary Lives - The Literature Review
This document provides definitions, a policy context and a summary of the some of the challenges for the occupational therapy profession in mental health.
Download Recovering Ordinary Lives - The Literature Review
A guiding vision for occupational therapists working in mental health
The College felt there was a need to raise the profile of the profession in mental health, develop professional leadership and a need to promote occupation and its relationship to mental health and wellbeing. Other drivers were COTs involvement on the New Ways of Working initiative, and changes in UK policy drivers towards more service user and carer involvement, social inclusion and recovery, health promotion, employment and the need for increasing choice and access to services.
The aims of the project were to create a vision for the delivery of mental health occupational therapy services for the next 10 years, to produce a guidance document through a collaborative approach and to identify who is responsible for identified actions in the document.
The consultation process involved a survey of members at COT conference in 2005, questionnaire sent to stakeholders and occupational therapists, telephone interviews with chairs of the specialist sections and a web based forum. A total of 581 written responses were received. In addition three focus groups were carried out with the Highland User Group, a carers group and a black and minority ethnic group.
The result was the trilogy of documents which have been implemented via 20 road shows around the UK to approximately 900 occupational therapists, nurses, medics, psychologists and service users. Two national conferences have been held by COT to hear how occupational therapists have used the strategy and it has been internationally presented to much interest at COTEC Hamburg 2008 and WFOT Chile 2010.
Our vision for mental health provision in the UK
By 2017 mental health services provision in the UK will be better for the active role and inspirational leadership provided by the cultural heritage and identity of occupational therapy which at its core is social in nature and belief. It will therefore deliver the kind of care that service users want, need and deserve. The document is centred on five themes:
- Valuing occupation emphasises that occupation is pivotal to health and wellbeing.
- The added value of occupational therapy asserts that occupational therapists are experts in doing, helping people to develop skills and overcome barriers. Timely interventions can prevent hospital admission, facilitate early discharge and reduce incidents on wards.
- Occupational therapy leadership recognises that services will only benefit from the vision and expertise of occupational therapists if the profession is represented at a strategic level.
- Occupational therapy education and training acknowledges that preregistration training must continue to strive to meet the needs of service users in modern mental health services.
- Occupational therapy workforce development challenges the profession to diversify to better reflect the populations serviced.
For each theme there are a total of 89 key messages for practitioners, managers, COT, educators, commissioners and researchers. The following documents are a summary of the key messages:
Download Key Messages for OT Practitioners
Download Key Messages for OT Managers
Download Key messages for OT Educators
Self assessment
Self assessment toolkits have been developed to allow both individuals and services to audit themselves against the key messages in the document using a colour coded system.
Two tools exist; one for practitioners and one for managers. The key messages are listed with columns to indicate who the lead contributor is, what evidence exists to support progress, the colour coded rating and an action plan if required. The end of the document contains practical examples from practitioners and managers which are suggestions about how to work towards key messages. The tool will take approximately 60-90 minutes to complete.
Download Self Assessment Toolkit for Practitioners
Download Self Assessment Toolkit for Managers
Get in Touch
Contact
