Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2020 | Page 21

TECHNOLOGY FEATURE
Project work
Reflections
While working alongside the project participants, Jane realised just
how many occupational therapy skills and approaches were being
used.
She says: ‘Environmental adaptation, rehabilitative and
compensatory approaches, collaboration, and problem solving,
all facilitated participants’, family members’, friends’ and carers’
engagement in the project’.
Completing an MSc in Occupational Therapy taught Laura about
action research and the value of listening to and learning from the
people who use services. Acknowledging that she would not give
as much emphasis to disabled people leading and being involved
in research if it was not for these seminal experiences, she says: ‘It
is an absolute privilege to be able to continue to work with disabled
people on technology projects.’
Fiona has completed action research projects whilst studying
for an MSc in Rehabilitation at UWE, Bristol, and is committed
to working alongside individuals to gain actionable learning from
their first-hand experiences of using services. The new knowledge
created is then used to inform how those services are provided in
future.
The team appreciates its unique position, to be able to work from
the bottom up, while simultaneously benefitting from
a top down decision-making approach.
Gaber et al (2019) conducted a cross-sectional
study of older people with and without dementia to
explore their participation in public spaces in relation
to everyday technologies (ETs) used. People with
dementia (n=35) and a matched control group with no
known cognitive impairment (n=34) were interviewed
using the Participation in Activities and Places Outside
Home Questionnaire and the Everyday Technology Use
Questionnaire. Data analysis used modern and classical
test theory. Findings included: both groups participated
in a number of places, but participation and relevance
of ETs were significantly lower for the dementia group.
The authors identify the need to address the complexity
of participation within an increasingly technological
society and suggest there is a role for occupational
therapists in enabling participation for older people with
and without dementia.
Some of the projects are funded externally by government
programmes. One successful project bid provided the opportunity
for engagement with external organisations to learn project
management methods.
These included completing a discovery phase, developing logic
models, identifying outcomes and impacts.
The team was also introduced to government digital strategy
service standards. These help teams to create and run public
services by setting out guidance for project delivery.
It became obvious there is a clear link between the core skills of
occupational therapy, these methods, and the personal values held
by the team members (see figure below).
© GettyImages/kate_sept2004
Reference
Gaber SN, Nygård L, Brorsson A, Kottorp A,
Malinowsky C (2019) Everyday technologies and public
space participation among people with and without
dementia. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy,
86(5), 400-411
Engagement with individuals and collaboration across the health
and social care sector have been invaluable to the success of the
work of the TEC team.
It has also resulted in the team being offered several varied
opportunities to showcase their work at various technology events,
and in an interview with Emma Britton for Radio Bristol, ‘Technology
in Tamar’.
The future
As far as the team is concerned, it plans to: continue to ensure
Service standards:
Core occupational therapy skills
• identifying and assessing occupational
needs;
• analysing and prioritising occupational
needs in co-operation with service user;
• facilitating occupational performance/
engagement; and
• evaluating, reflecting and acting on
occupational outcomes.
Figure 1: Comparison of core occupational therapy skills
and service standards
• understand users and their needs: understanding as much of the context
as possible gives you the best chance of meeting users’ needs in a simple and
cost-effective way;
• make sure everyone can use the service: government services must work
for everyone who needs to use them;
• agile working: using agile methods means getting your service in front of
real users, observing and generating data on how they use it, and iterating the
service based on what you’ve learned;
• iterate and improve frequently: respond to changes in user needs,
technology or government policy so the service stays relevant; and
• define what success looks like and publish performance data: means
that you will know whether the service is solving the problem it’s meant to solve.
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