Sustainable occupational therapy
Consideration of the environment is integral to occupational therapy models and interventions, yet if we are not addressing the issue of climate change and the probable impacts on service users and ourselves, are we being truly holistic?
The World Federation of Occupational Therapists, Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) and Swedish Association of Occupational Therapists have all produced papers exploring sustainable occupational therapy (OT) practice. The RCOT code of ethics encourages OTs to ‘expand our clinical reasoning about occupational performance to include sustainable development’, and service users can benefit from this incorporation of a sustainable healthful approach to practice.
Sustainable occupational therapy
Common occupations already explored by OTs with service users such as gardening, cooking, craft and exercise could all be viewed through a ‘sustainable lens’ and are known to promote psycho-emotional well being, often resulting in ‘peak’ or ‘flow’ experiences. The co-benefits to service users are likely to include better health awareness, cost savings and improved quality of life. A brief overview of sustainable occupational therapy practice is given in this consensus statement from a networking day.
There are also other ways that Occupational Therapists can utilise a ‘sustainable lens’. Smith (2015, p31) suggests that OT’s can:
- Raise awareness locally about sustainability with TLC (turn off, lights out, close doors and windows
- Use proactive prompting to decrease do not attends, and time waste by using technology e.g. text and email
- Monitor history of prescribed equipment to avoid duplication and reduce waste
- Allocate referrals to staff so they are clustered by geography to decrease waste from travel
- Introduce single MDT visits as a more efficient alternative to repeat home visits and equipment delivery
- Encouraging staff to accept suitable recycled equipment
- Ensure durability of equipment purchased and efficient collections to enable longer term recycling
- Address waste in time, travel, and cost
- Use social media as a tool to promote sustainable OT actions
- Promote the OT role in reducing challenging behaviour and PRN medication
Smith, G. (2015). Saving resources, Improving health. Occupational Therapy News, 23(1), 30-31.
How To Be A Sustainable Occupational Therapy Practitioner
The WFOT (2018) Sustainability Matters, Guiding principles for Sustainable Occupational Therapy Practice publication has outlined 5 principles for Sustainable Occupational Therapy practice:
- Principle 1: Understanding Sustainability – An Occupational Therapy Perspective. Occupational therapy practitioners shall be encouraged to educate themselves about issues of ecosystem sustainability as it impacts ability to pursue chosen meaningful occupations and subsequently human health and well-being
- Principle 2: The role of Occupational Therapy in contributing towards mitigation of environmental damage due to unsustainable lifestyles. Occupational therapy practitioners shall work with interested service users and communities to help them explore ways of participating in healthy, meaningful occupations in such a way that they contribute towards mitigation of environmental damage due to unsustainable lifestyles
- Principle 3: Helping Occupational Therapy service users adapt to the consequences of environmental damage due to unsustainability. Occupational therapy practitioners shall be encouraged to work collaboratively with service users to help them adapt to deleterious and health-impacting effects of environmental degradation due to unsustainable lifestyles so that they can continue to participate in meaningful occupations in a sustainable manner
- Principle 4: Community sustainability in the face of environmental catastrophes. Occupational therapy practitioners shall be encouraged to develop competences for empowering communities to find ways of facilitating meaningful occupations in a sustainable manner among community members, taking into account the need to maintain equitability and occupational justice
- Principle 5: Developing professional competence for administering occupation-based interventions to address sustainability issues. Occupational therapy practitioners shall be encouraged to develop and maintain competence in administering occupation-based interventions to help interested service users and communities address ecosystem sustainability issues
Sustainable healthcare courses
For occupational therapists looking to learn more about sustainable healthcare, we recommend starting with one of our multidisciplinary or specialty-specific foundation courses in Mental Healthcare or Green Space for Health.
Sustainable occupational therapy network
The Occupational Therapy Sustainability Network started life in 2009 when Tamara Rayment, an occupational therapist who had seen what we were doing to create a community of people and practice in Green Nephrology, approached us with the determination to do the same in OT. Tamara worked with us entirely on a voluntary basis and helped the Green Occupational Therapy network to grow to over 250 people. Ben Whittaker joined her later that year and together they wrote papers, presented at conferences and created an energetic network.
The network now numbers over 600 and is inspiring international accolades as well as local action.
Sustainable occupational therapy resources
To read articles relating to sustainable occupational therapy and other areas of sustainable clinical practice please visit our resources page. More discipline-specific resources are listed below.
Occupational Therapy Sustainability National and International Association papers:
World Federation of Occupational Therapists – Sustainability Matters: Guiding Principles for Sustainability in Occupational Therapy Practice, Education and Scholarship
World Federation of Occupational Therapists – Environmental Sustainability, Sustainable Practice within Occupational Therapy
Swedish Association of Occupational Therapists – Sustainable Development
Sustainable Occupational Therapy Journal Articles:
Occupational Therapy and Environmental Sustainability
A call for sustainable practice in occupational therapy
Sustainable occupational responses to climate change through lifestyle choices
How to contribute occupationally to ecological sustainability: A literature review
Sustainable Global Wellbeing: A Proposed Expansion of the Occupational Therapy Paradigm
Key posts on the Sustainable Occupational Therapy Network:
10:10 Occupational Therapy Checklist
5 ways to integrate sustainability into your Occupational Therapy practice
Identifying the sustainable value of virtual care in occupational therapy