Community Advocacy and Occupational Therapy in Schools

As a school-based occupational therapy practitioner (OTP), I have many responsibilities. Between planning, paperwork, evaluations, goal writing, meetings, and actual service delivery — OTPs in schools are stretched thinner than ever before. Shrinking school resources and budget cuts have left us in a vulnerable position, and we have come to a defining moment.

Our actions in the next few years are crucial to occupational therapy remaining an integral part of the education team and it is our duty to do the most that we can to promote our services and our role in schools. Not only do these cuts threaten our services, but they weaken schools’ capacity to develop the next generation of workers and entrepreneurs.

As many of our students are impacted by the shrinking resources in our schools, the time has come to enhance our advocacy skills. Advocacy is defined as the process of increasing support, recommending, vocalizing, negotiating and debating to promote a cause or policy. As advocacy efforts have evolved, people are forming groups and communities in which to advocate, focusing on the systemic change that can help all children. This is called grassroots collective activism or community advocacy. There is value in making systemic changes over individual issues, and it is crucial that we move towards these new models of advocacy, as they account for the inequities that occur at the individual level.

Now that you understand what advocacy is and why it is important, how to do we start? Before you begin your advocacy journey, know that it requires integrity, and using one’s values, which implies ethical behavior. When guided by a moral compass, goals can be achieved and efforts will be successful.

References

American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). (2018). Ask Congress to fully fund title IV-A of ESSA in FY19. Retrieved from http://cqrcengage.com/aota/app/onestep-write-a- letter?5&engagementId=484013

Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). (2018). Budget cuts threaten special education. Retrieved from https://www.cec.sped.org/Policy-and-Advocacy/Current-Sped-Gifted-Issues/Budget-Cuts-Threaten-Special-Education

Levitt-Rosenthal, N. (2013). Ethics, values, and decision making. Frontiers in Health Services Management, 30(1), 27–32.

Sauer, J.S., & Lalvani, P. (2017). From advocacy to activism: families, communities, and collective change. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilies, 14(1), 51–58.

Millstein, R.A., Woodruff, S.I., Linton, L.S., Edwards, C.C. & Sallis, J.F. (2016). A pilot study evaluating the effects of a youth advocacy program on youth readiness to advocate for environmental and policy changes for obesity prevention. Translational Behavioral Medicine 6(4), 648–658.