Occupational Therapy News OTnews November 2019 | Page 30

FEATURE STUDENT EDUCATION
Promoting health and wellbeing
with domestic violence survivors
Lisa Eagles, an occupational therapy student at Canterbury Christ Church
University, discusses the impact of occupational therapy on the wellbeing of
survivors of domestic violence
L
isa Eagles is an occupational therapy student
at Canterbury Christ Church University, and
one of her second year modules enabled
her to creatively engage with the community
by setting up a project that gave her the opportunity
to reflect and develop her ability to collaborate
therapeutically with individuals who are struggling
with everyday occupations.
‘Our cohort was encouraged to use an
occupational therapy lens to promote social inclusion
among non-traditional occupational therapy settings,’
she says. ‘I had always had a personal interest in the
field of domestic abuse and decided to explore how
survivors are left in occupational deprivation while in
recovery from their life experiences.’
She goes on: ‘As a profession we are encouraged
to be advocates for groups who live on the margins
of society, yet research on the effect of domestic
violence on occupational participation is limited.
‘The UK charity Standing Together Against
Domestic Violence suggests that 50 per cent of
women who have experienced domestic violence
have a clinical mental health diagnosis (www.
standingtogether.org). Evidence, if any were needed,
that occupational therapy could be utilised more
widely among survivors.
‘As well as the impact that the physical and
emotional exhaustion has on wellbeing, victims
of domestic violence are likely to be struggling
with activities of daily living, such as their self-care
routines (Gorde et al 2004), and we wanted to be
able to evidence the impact that something as simple
as participation in a leisure activity, a manicure for
example, can have on improving positive feelings of
wellbeing.
‘Our research also discovered that UK charity
Jewish Women’s Aid already offers complementary
therapies to some of their clients and has found that
this can help the women to address body images
and reduce stress (www.jwa.org.uk).
‘With this in mind, we devised a project ‘Time
For You’, which aimed to run free sessions in beauty
30 OTnews November 2019
colleges for domestic violence survivors. By offering
therapeutic treatments in a safe and accepting
environment we hoped to boost self-esteem and
also to enable these women to relax and enjoy social
interaction with others.’
Lisa says that the students’ plans came together
much easier than they had anticipated.
‘After a brief introduction detailing our plan, the
salons and the charity were all very keen to be
involved,’ she says.
‘The domestic violence charity kindly promoted
our project among the clients who were attending
their community support groups and collected
contact details of those people interested in
attending.
‘This part did prove difficult at times because a lot
of the service users attending the charity for support
are in a very low emotional state, feeling anxious and
apprehensive, and have withdrawn from society over
a period of time due to their circumstances, so we
didn’t have as much uptake as we would have liked.
‘This was a valuable lesson, and something we
would do differently if we were in a position to run
it again. In hindsight, it may have been better to
ask the charity if we could have attended a group
to introduce ourselves to their service users, which
would have potentially enabled us to gain trust from
those that were nervous.’
Lisa reflects that when doing risk assessments
they were conscious of the fact that some individuals
could be in safe houses, away from their perpetrator.
However, she says, she was assured by the charity
that the individuals knew their own risks and would
not engage if it wasn’t safe for them to do so.
‘The colleges also gave assurance that all
students cover confidentiality as part of their course,
and that they would be briefed again by their tutors,
prior to the event, on the sensitive nature of the client
group.’
She reflects: ‘On the day of our first of two events,
the nerves were well and truly present, however we
really need not have worried. The salon staff were so