Occupational therapists with Long Covid launch support group
Occupational Therapy for Long Covid was founded by Jenny Ceolta-Smith , Laura Maloney , Helen Skiffington and Kirsty Stanley , to combine their lived experience of Long Covid and professional experience of occupational therapy , to promote the value of occupational therapy for adults and children with Long Covid .
The group wants to support the development of occupational therapy services and research that centres on lived experience for the benefit of the worldwide Long Covid community . Their aims include :
• Creating a useful resource to help people with Long Covid live well and engage in their everyday occupations .
• Promoting and collating the evidence on the value of occupational therapy in Long Covid services .
• Connecting occupational therapists worldwide – both those who are living with Long Covid and those who are supporting people with Long Covid .
• Supporting co-produced occupational therapy research into Long Covid .
• Providing education and training to occupational therapists and occupational therapy students centred on the lived experience .
• Working alongside other Long Covid peer support , advocacy and lived experience led groups .
‘ We want to make the potential role of occupational therapy in supporting people with Long Covid more visible and raise the profile of the profession , in order to better support requests for funding and provision of occupational therapy services ,’ the group told OTnews .
The group also intends to make connections with occupational therapists living and working in this area across the UK and internationally , and to highlight the value of co-producing services and research with those people with lived experience . The group can be found on @ OTforLC on
Instagram and at https :// otforlc . com .
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54 OTnews April 2022