Occupational Therapy News July 2020 | Page 53

MENTAL HEALTH FEATURE worker, with overarching distance support from our team leader and psychology and psychiatry services. Together we began offering telephone contact and support to our client group, which consists of around 65 older adults living in their own homes, some of whom attend the service multiple times a week. As occupational therapists we felt we were in a unique position to use this opportunity to not just consider and manage risk, but also to explore the structure, routine and roles that each individual was engaging with on a daily basis, in order to support the individual in maintaining their holistic wellbeing during the isolation period. Given that the core of our practice revolves around in-person engagement, with emphasis being given to the therapeutic use of groups, we started trying to think creatively about what we could deliver to support our client group to maintain the sense of connection and belonging they experience through attending Orchard House. The majority of our client group are not computer or technology literate, and so while there was felt to be a big national push for the use of technology in order to support connection, through video calls and webinars for example, we were aware that this would be a struggle for many of our attendees. We were also mindful that there is a proportion of our community with sensory deficits, and so we wanted to ensure we were offering an equitable service to our clients. After some consideration, we landed on the idea of a postal newsletter. Our clients are of the generation where communicating from a distance was done through letter, and we felt that there would be a nostalgic factor to engaging with our client base in this way, alongside promoting community and belonging. Our initial plan was for this to be a fortnightly pack that we sent out with updates from the service, information on coping strategies or wellness tips, a quiz put together by one of the clients, and additional resources, for example word searches and mindful colouring pages to provide further meaningful activities. The positive response we received from our clients was phenomenal. They started talking about it in our telephone calls and saying how much they enjoyed reading it and completing the activities; not only that, but they were asking when the next one was coming. With that our fortnightly newsletter turned into a weekly one. At the beginning we pulled together ideas each week based on the struggles our clients were reporting to us in our telephone calls, good news stories from the week, and other resources that were being shared by wider professionals, including mindfulness strategies, sleep tips and tips for maintaining routine. We also used our knowledge of individual likes and dislikes, alongside the conversations we were having over the telephone, in order to make the best effort to personalise the resource packs that went with the newsletters to ensure clients were getting the activities that were most meaningful to them. As the weeks went by and more conversations were had, we tried to incorporate more and more content from our client group – poems or short stories they had written, photographs they had shared via email or post, ‘shout outs’ from one client to the others, tips and tricks that they were finding valuable while isolated, personal quotes and affirmations, and more. We wanted to try to encourage a sense of ownership of the newsletter, and from knowing our client group we understood how much meaning many of our clients get from contributing to the community through sharing friendship, ideas, skills and acts of kindness. The newsletter not only became a hot talking point, but it also became a shared experience. Each client knew that their peers were sharing in that moment of reading and activity with them. And even if they chose not to contribute, they felt like they were still part of the community. Not only did the newsletter provide a sense of belonging, but it also prompted opportunities for social engagement in their own family and friendship groups, outside of the service. Many clients reported doing the quiz and word puzzle activities with their significant other each week. One client, who was more computer literate, began acting as quiz master and hosted a weekly online quiz for his friends using the quiz materials provided in the newsletter. Another client used the mindful colouring and art resources to create art work to send to her friends, just to brighten their day. On reflection, it could have been really easy to get caught up in how much work it would be to send out newsletters and personalised resource packs to 65 individuals each week, as it was a time consuming task in and amongst all the telephone contact and practical support we were trying to provide to aid our clients to maintain their wellbeing and mental health while in isolation. But we quickly realised how important this piece of work was for helping to keep our clients well. It was allowing us, on a much smaller scale, to replicate the sense of belonging they gained from attending the service, to maintain strong connections and deliver person-centred care, even in this ‘new normal’ that we have found ourselves in. Creative problem solving is at the heart of what we do as occupational therapists. This does not need to involve reinventing the wheel, nor does it have to be new, up and coming or technologically driven. Creative problem solving can be taking an old idea and making it work for your service right now. As a team, we are immensely proud of how well our clients have dealt with the situation so far. They have proved, beyond even their own expectations, how resilient they truly are. Reference Shanker A, McMunn A, Banks J and Steptoe A (2011). Loneliness, social Isolation, and behavioural and biological health indicators in older adults. Health Psychology, 30(4): 377-385 Jordan Burrell and Stephanie Leeks, senior occupational therapists, Orchard House Day Hospital, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust OTnews July 2020 53