Feature
Working for occupational justice
A group of occupational therapy students share their experience of exploring the relevance of occupational justice in a developing country , through a virtual international placement opportunity .
A s a result of the COVID-19 pandemic , Glasgow Caledonian University has taken a different perspective on providing placements for students .
We are a group of four MSc pre-registration occupational therapy students and we were given the opportunity to embrace an innovative virtual placement with a UK charity that supports projects in Fiji .
This was an opportunity to do develop our knowledge and understanding of occupational therapy in a public health context . This placement moves away from the traditional approach of working with individual service users , focusing on communities and populations .
Think Pacific and a virtual placement
Think Pacific works with a range of partner organisations in the developing country Fiji , with the aim of supporting the country ’ s 20-year national development plan , which provides a plan to transform Fiji towards a more developing , vibrant , and inclusive society , together with its five-year development plan , which provides a more detailed action plan for the coming years .
Students select an individual action project from a range that the organisation wishes to be completed . However , due to Fiji ’ s COVID-19 travel restrictions at the time of the placement , all Think Pacific programmes were adapted so that they could be completed online .
Completing a virtual international placement with the organisation gave us the opportunity to learn about the Fijian people , their culture , history and ways of life , from our own homes .
As part of our placement , we were required to apply occupational justice to developing countries , as well as communities and populations .
Occupational justice and applying the concept
Occupational justice was developed by Wilcock and Townsend in the late 1990s and highlights the association between health and occupation ; participation in a range of occupations and having access to various occupational opportunities are core to subsequent health , wellbeing and quality of life ( Hammel 2017 ).
Prior to our placement , we had learned about the theory of occupational justice and our understanding was that people ’ s occupations are shaped by contextual and structural factors . However , our placement provided us the opportunity to further develop our knowledge of the subject . We did this by using the Occupational Justice Framework ( Stadnyk et al 2013 ) to help guide our application of occupational justice concepts to Fijian communities and populations .
The framework provided a guide for gathering information about Fiji and helped us identify occupational issues that are unfair and unjust . For example , a possible injustice that may occur is occupational marginalisation , as within Fijian communities there is a lack of awareness and understanding of disability in the general community .
Therefore , people with disabilities and those experiencing difficulties with their mental health may face prejudice , discrimination and rejection .
In turn , this means individuals may experience occupational deprivation , as they are deprived of engaging in occupations that are meaningful to them . This may also be the case for girls in Fiji ; they could potentially face occupational deprivation due to poor accessibility to water and sanitation facilities , which may act as a barrier for them attending school during menstruation .
Creating resources to target needs
Further learning showed us that occupational therapists should take a justice-orientated approach to practice . From our understanding , this means that we need to be aware of the socio-cultural environmental issues , as well as
44 OTnews June 2022