THE COMMUNIQUÉ
H O M E L E S S N E S S : W H AT O T C A N D O
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creating fieldwork sites, or any of a number of other
forms of outreach, OT can begin to take steps into
improving the lives of people experiencing homeless-
ness. The more we push our field into this emerging
area of practice, the more evidence we will create
showing that OT interventions can be effective in
helping people experiencing homelessness . This, in
turn, will make our roles more meaningful and useful,
and will allow us to continue helping those who need
it. This semester long project has already shown me
the diversity and adaptability of occupational therapy,
and has changed how I view my role as a future clini-
cian. I hope that by sharing what I have learned, I
can do my part to advocate for occupational therapy
as a service provided to people experiencing home-
lessness, as well as bring awareness to the need for
research in this steadily growing field.
References
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2014).
Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain
and process (3 ed.). American Journal of Occupa-
tional Therapy, 68 (Suppl. 1), S1-S48. doi:10.5014/
ajot.2014.682006
rd
DiGiacomo, M., Reidy, A., Sefandonakis, A., &
Vance, K. (2019). Occupational therapy: A neces-
sary service to finding and maintaining meaningful
employment for people experiencing homeless-
ness [Unpublished manuscript]. Department of Oc-
cupational Therapy, University of Illinois at Chica-
go.
Henry, M., Watt, R., Mahathey, A., Oullette, J., & Sit-
ler, A. (2020). The 2019 Annual Homeless Assess-
ment Report (AHAR) to Congress. https://
www.files.hudexchange.info/resources/
documents/2019-AHAR-Part-1.pdf
Salsi, S., Awadallah, Y., Leclair, A.B., Breault, M.L.,
Duong, D.T., & Roy, L. (2017). Occupational needs
and priorities of women experiencing homeless-
ness. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy,
84(4-5), 229-241. doi: 10.1177/0008417417719725
About the Author
Amy Reidy is a first-year
student in her Master’s in
Occupational Therapy at
The University of Illinois at
Chicago. She obtained
her undergraduate B.S. in
Kinesiology at The Univer-
sity of Alabama in 2019.
I L O TA 2 0 2 0 A N N U A L C O N F E R E N C E
Dates and Location
The 2020 ILOTA Annual Conference will be held Oc-
tober 15-17 at the Doubletree Hilton Lisle Naperville.
This year’s conference theme is “Celebrating Con-
nections”.
Call for Papers
Call for papers are now open through April 5, 2020.
You can submit your proposal at: https://
www.ilota.org/call-for-papers.
Award Nominations
nominating them for our annual awards! You can lo-
cate information and nominate outstanding members
of our organization at the ILOTA website: https://
www.ilota.org/award-information. We would love to
recognize those individuals who are making a differ-
ence throughout our state!
Volunteering
If you are interested in volunteering for the ILOTA
Conference prior to or during the conference, please
email the 2020 Conference Committee at ilotaconfer-
[email protected].
As you work alongside other wonderful OT practition-
ers, students, and community members, consider
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