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Feature
© Pavle Bugarski via Getty Images
Developing a rural outreach service
© SimonSkafar via Getty Images
Amy Greening reflects on the challenges of setting up a communitybased occupational therapy service , to promote health and wellbeing in our farming communities .
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COT ’ s Workforce Strategy vision is to have an occupational therapy workforce that is based primarily within communities , working closely with local populations to meet their health and care needs and ensuring that services are accessible to everyone .
During my five years of conducting occupational therapy community visits to people in West Somerset and Greater Exmoor , I got to experience what rural isolation looks like in our county , how the close knit communities hunker down and help each other , and how some people are unseen and left behind .
I am not from a farming background , but I ’ ve been bought up in a household of gundog enthusiasts and equestrians , so covering Exmoor , with its untamed wilderness , rural and farming communities , suited me down to the ground .
What I did observe over time was how long it took for people to trust and accept me . I will always remember one very old established farming family whose elderly relative – the purpose of my visit – had been struggling for some time .
18 OTnews November 2024