Black History Month and RCOT

The theme of this year’s UK Black History Month is ‘Reclaiming Narratives’.

This theme marks a significant shift towards recognising and correcting the narratives of Black history and culture. It underscores a commitment to correcting historical inaccuracies.

Join in on social media with #ReclaimingNarratives. Use your reach to celebrate and educate on the history and historical inaccuracies of Black history.

Black History Month is a brilliant time to talk about Black culture and heritage with your group, but make sure everyone knows that Black history is a part of history that can (and should) be learned about all year round.

What are we doing this year?

Our hero ‘O’

As we do every year to mark this month, we'll be changing the ‘O’ in our RCOT logo for this month to show solidarity with our Black members, colleagues and people everywhere.

Using a design celebrating the colours red, green, gold and black – colours with significant meaning, used widely to denote BHM.

The ‘O’ in our logo represents our identity as an organisation as well as ‘occupation’. We wouldn’t be here without the Black people who have significantly contributed to our profession.

OTnews

This year, we’re featuring a significant number of articles in October’s OTnews – written by members and non-members from across the world of OT.

You’ll also be able to read several blogs about people’s experiences working as Black occupational therapists, and personal stories on our website across the month.

Thank you to our members for their contributions, we’re excited to share them with the wider RCOT membership.

To read last year's October edition, you can visit rcot.co.uk/news/otnews (members only).

Internally

Our internal Ethnos colleague network continues to grow, and support colleagues from historically marginalised and racialised groups, we’re grateful for its presence and proud of the work it’s doing.

They’ve been working hard with colleagues from across our organisation to provide opportunities to engage with Black history. This includes a journal club, an interactive virtual event with Dr Blaine Robin and a reflection session.

They’ve also been encouraging colleagues to share their reflections alongside stories of influential Black people.

Black History Month is every month; this one is just marked in the calendar.
Ketan Davé, Equity, Diversity and Belonging Lead

Words into actions

Read

If you’re looking for a place to start making a profound and positive impact, you may want to read Savania China's, Head of Inclusion and Involvement, new blog – Six ways to be inclusive.

You may also want to read:

Learn

Explore our first ever Equity, Diversity and Belonging toolkit. This first toolkit focuses on critical self-awareness and will help you build insight into your own biases and guide you in overcoming them.

Join

If you’d like to join the Caribbean Network of Occupational Therapists please contact Dr Blaine Robin via b.robin@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

Discover

If you'd like to find out more about B.A.M.E. OTUK you can visit their X (formerly Twitter) profile, which is frequently updated on activities and actions.

BHM Blogs

Aicha Djalo Balde, OT lecturer, University of Huddersfield

Occupational therapy lecturer, Aicha Djalo Balde, shares how being at the vibrant intersection of culture and identity has informed her teaching and what it means to work as an educator in Britain today.

You can read her full blog via our blog section.

Sarah Selina Macmillean on her guest lecturing experience at Leeds Beckett University

In January 2023, Sarah Selina Macmillean was invited by Leeds Beckett University to guest lecture to the first year BSc occupational therapy students. She was joined by fellow guest lecturers, Steven Delsol and Stephen Antoine. Together they spoke on mental illness and the black community and promoting occupational justice: using music, song writing and poetry as meaningful occupations.

You can read her deeply moving reflection via our blog section

Ebenezer Baiden reflects on the impactful mentoring he received while studying

Former occupational therapy student, Ebenezer Baiden, shares with us the experience he had with his mentor while studying in Leeds and how it helped shape his learning experience.

You can read his full blog via our blog section.

Eden Samuels-Coke on how reading can be a means of connecting with Black identity, history and consciousness

Eden Samuels-Coke shares with us his thoughts on how reading gives us a way of connecting with Black identity, history and consciousness. Reading is an occupation that offers us chance to reflect on who we are, to explore rich and varied histories and perspectives, and a means of contextualising our own experiences – see Eden's recommended reading list at the end of his blog.