Occupational Therapy News OTnews July 2019 | Page 35

CREATIVE ARTS FEATURE
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Circle dance was also integrated into a community programme
and a postgraduate programme. Furthermore, as a lecturer in
occupational therapy in the University of Sorocaba, I also introduced
circle dance in the undergraduate occupational therapy course and
in the University of the Third Age programmes.
From 1997 to 2000, as a member of one of the research
academic groups in the School of Occupational Therapy at the
University of São Paulo, I designed and delivered extra-curricular (or
continuing professional development) circle dance training courses
for students and healthcare professionals working in the Public
Health Service in São Paulo.
The professionals I trained in circle dance – occupational
therapists, psychologists, social workers, speech language
therapists and health educators – subsequently started using circle
dance in various health services throughout the city of São Paulo.
Over time, this has turned out to have had a major impact on the
Public Health Service in São Paulo.
In March 2017, circle dance, along with Yoga, reflexology,
meditation, music therapy, art therapy and other complementary
therapies, was officially recognised by the Minister of Public Health
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in Brazil as one of the 12 complementary therapies to be made
available within the National Health Service of Brazil (Ministério da
Saúde 2017).
This represents a significant step in understanding circle dance
in the field of health promotion and wellbeing, and helps validate the
practice of many professionals who have introduced circle dance in
various health and social care settings.
Practice in the UK
In 2003, while working in a mental health service for adults in
the UK, I started incorporating circle dance into the occupational
therapy inpatient programme. One development of this was the
establishment of a community circle dance group, which was a
partnership between the mental health service (NHS trust) and
social care (mental health division).
This partnership also included collaborative work between
myself, as a circle dance teacher and occupational therapist,
and the staff from the social care service, who provided all the
necessary support for those service users who wanted to attend
the sessions.
OTnews July 2019 35