EDB Insights sessions

On Thursday 17 October 2024, we welcomed Jo Gaffney, Occupational Therapist and Image Coach and Jacquie Da Costa-Myers, Occupational Therapist to talk about menopause. How can occupational therapy support people experiencing menopause when we may not even be managing our own?  Whether we are there yet or not, how well do we actually “OT” ourselves with anything anyway?   

The session covered: 

• Jo’s story from corporate leadership to style consultant, supporting clients and OT learners.   
• Introduction to the menopause - what is it and how to cope. 
• How OTs can support people who are experiencing menopause.  
• Where to find resources and get help.
• EDB aspects of menopause including menopause for women of colour 

The session was delivered by Tell MAMA, an independent, non-governmental organisation which works on tackling anti-Muslim hatred. Its aims were to:

1. highlight and raise awareness of how to identify and to address anti-Muslim hatred 

2. increase understanding of what anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia are, its scale and reach

3. build an understanding of the drivers of anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia

4. understand anti-Muslim hatred online, its impact and pervasiveness

5. provide recommendations on how to tackle and challenge anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia.

The Antisemitism Policy Trust presented a 90-minute training session that focused on antisemitism: what it is, its roots and modern manifestations. The session aimed to leave participants with: 

1. Increased understanding of who Jewish people are and the community in the UK
2. Increased understanding of what antisemitism is, its scale, and reach.
3. Knowledge about the different manifestations of antisemitism including but not limited to; conspiratorial, Holocaust denial, Israel and Zionism-linked.
4. Understanding of antisemitism online, its impact and pervasiveness
5. The ability to identify antisemitism when they see it and explain why something might be antisemitic. 

There were opportunities to put questions to the Trust.

Speaker:
Danny Stone is the Chief Executive of the Antisemitism Policy Trust, an organisation recognised by Government and across parliament as helping to lead efforts to understand and address anti-Jewish racism. Danny has spearheaded these efforts for nearly two decades, previously working for major NGOs and as an advisor to a Member of the British Parliament.

Danny has degrees from Nottingham and from Birkbeck, University of London in Government, Politics, and Public Policy. He was awarded an MBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours list for services to Combating Hate Crime.

The event designed to support our members to enable safe and inclusive working environments, free from discrimination, promoting collaboration and respect.

Session blurb

This session is the start of a conversation to explore the meaning of allyship during global conflicts. While some AHPs will be sharing their experiences, the session is more about a call for compassion. It’s about finding the common thread that unites us through compassion, empathy and humanity.

We want to create a safe space for authentic and meaningful conversations. Attendees will be asked to be mindful, kind and show compassion and empathy to those having a difficult time and not to use the platform to make political, religious, or inflammatory statements.

As a safe and trusted space, we also want everyone to be able to share in the session, without concern that they’ll be identified and attributed to information afterwards. This means we won’t be recording the event and will ask participants to follow this guideline, as set out in Chatham House Rules.

We encourage all AHPs to attend, this isn’t just for occupational therapists.

Facilitators: 

Dr Anita Atwal 
Dr Anita Atwal is an occupational therapist and Allied Health Professional who specialises in interdisciplinary research that is fair and inclusive. Anita’s work is strongly service user, community focused and collaborative. Anita is currently seconded for 2 days a week to Health and Care Research Wales to develop a research action plan for Nurses, Midwives, and Allied Health Professionals (AHP).  In 2021 she was nominated by her peers to deliver the prestigious Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture. 
No Barriers to Brilliance: Social and Creative Courage to innovate and disrupt Occupational therapy practice. Anita has held many senior volunteering roles at the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) including member of the Research and Development Committee and Professional Practice Board. She is currently a RCOT/BAOT Council member for Research and Development.

Dr. Gita Ramdharry, Consultant Allied Health Professional in Neuromuscular Diseases, National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, UCLH 
Gita is a physiotherapist working as a Clinical Academic at UCLH NHS Trust in the area of neuromuscular diseases. She is active in the area of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and is the Chair of the EDI committee for the Department of Neuromuscular Diseases at UCL Institute of Neurology, lead for the Institute of Neurology Disability Awareness Group. Gita is a member of the Diversity Committee for the international Inherited Neuropathy consortium and is also leading work to develop recruitment strategies to increase diversity in participant recruitment in the Department of Neuromuscular Diseases, UCL. She is part of a team that have been exploring the experiences of physiotherapists from Global Majority backgrounds in the workplace: 10.1136/leader-2023-000816
 

Meera Sharma, Radiographer and Freelance researcher
Meera works in dual clinical and academic settings. In her current roles, she caters for the duality in the needs of both the students and the professionals within the healthcare system which is very exciting as it allows for growth and application in both settings which are continuously evolving. She has many years of experience as a lecturer to develop as a leading educator, where she has had responsibilities with radiography/healthcare programme deliverables at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She is a doctoral student, focusing on Lung Cancer patients and carer experiences with diagnosis (medical imaging) and treatment (radiotherapy) for African and Caribbean communities. Her additional research projects include AHP career decision making, FAIResearch, career progression opportunities workforce retention, career, upskilling workforce to meet service demands.

This event was not recorded to comply with the Chatham House Rules

The event will be hosted under Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed (Including on social media and or any other media)

First, we need to acknowledge and respect that people presenting and listening may be personally affected by global conflicts in the past and the present. The speakers and the audience are not to invalidate their feelings and experiences. We wish to understand how the majority in the AHP professions unaffected in this way can be more aware of how others can feel isolated or fearful in the workplace. We want to encourage them to be mindful, kind, to show compassion and empathy to those having a difficult time. It is too easy to just ignore to avoid discomfort. Speakers and the audience are not to use this platform to make political, religious, or inflammatory statements. We are not here to debate the right or wrong of a specific conflict. We are not here to change people’s minds. We are here to find the common thread that unite us through compassion , empathy, and humanity.

These workshops explored case scenario discussions on real life anonymous incidents that have been reported. They discussed barriers to reporting and explore actions that can be taken. And, co-produced reflections on how support can be improved.

On Tuesday 27 September 2022 we welcomed Simone Welch, Senior Occupational Therapist in Stroke, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, to give us her talk about building confidence and skills in reporting EDB incidents across placements and work.

In this session, Simone looked at the impact of a workshop developed in response to the under reporting of EDB incidents and microaggressions by staff and students on placement.

The workshop aimed to raise awareness, educate and engage participants in co-production of support tools to increase the likelihood of reporting and challenge organisations to creatively consider support available post incident to protect wellbeing. Outcomes of the workshops were then presented to stakeholder managerial groups to explore how support for managers could be provided to increase confidence in responding to reported incidents.

Download the presentation

On Tuesday 19 July 2022 we welcomed Hannah Spencer (they/them), NHS Occupational Therapist, and Dr Rebecca Swenson (she/her), Senior Lecturer of Occupational Therapy, London Southbank University, to give their talk about trans and non-binary awareness, and occupational therapy practice. Both are also among the founding members of the LGBTQIA+ OTUK network.

In the session Hannah and Rebecca drew on personal, professional and research experience and considered:

• Context and importance of insight session around trans and non-binary awareness in occupational therapy.
• Discussion around ethical, professional and legal duty to undertake best practice with reference to key legislation and professional standards.
• Reiterated evidence of how occupational therapy is ideally placed to support this population.
• Practical suggestions around personal, environmental and occupational aspects of support for trans and non-binary people, and simple cues towards understanding.

The presentation slides and video are below:

On Tuesday 17 May 2022 we welcomed Musharrat J. Ahmed-Landeryou, Senior Lecturer in Occupational Therapy and Student Success and Antiracist Education Practitioner, at London South Bank University, to give us her talk about the good intentions and lack of impactful change within occupational therapy. 

To do this Musharrat evoked colonial terms in relation to the current efforts to improve equity, diversity, belonging and justice in occupational therapy to provoke critical thinking and invoke active change.

The presentation slides and video are below:

On Tuesday 15 March 2022 we welcomed Karen Whalley Hammell, Honorary Professor, Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy, at the University of British Columbia, to give us her EDB Insight session on Occupational Rights.

‘This [session] seeks to highlight the ways in which occupational therapy promotes a particular ideological agenda that nourishes ableism, renders invisible the oppressions of racism, gender binarism, heteronormativity and patriarchy and obscures the structural inequities impacting people’s capabilities to be healthy and to engage in occupations they value.’

The presentation and the Q&A videos are below:

On Wednesday 20 April 2022 we welcomed Dr Wendy Bryant, Honorary Professor in the School of Health and Social Care, at the University of Essex, to talk to us about disability and inclusion in the occupational therapy community.

This session reflected on particular challenges that face disabled occupational therapists, and how working with disabled colleagues may challenge our professional practices. To do this, Dr Bryant took a series of different perspectives, revisiting disability theory, professionalism, two body practice, pragmatic reasoning and occupational form.   

AbleOT UK, a UK occupational therapy network/advocacy group for practitioners, students, researchers, educators and people with disabilities/long term health conditions, worked with Dr Bryant to develop the workshop, and joined Dr Bryant for a panel discussion and Q&A with attendees.

The presentation slides and video are below:

On Wednesday 27 October 2021, we held our first session with Wayne Reid, BASW England Professional Officer, Social Worker and Anti-racism

Visionary who give his insight session on Anti-Racism in Social Work. Wayne has over 20 years of experience in the social care sector and spoke about anti-racism reforms that can be applied not only in social work but across all Allied Health Professions.

In the insight session Wayne covered:

• His social work background
• George Floyd’s murder
• Black Lives Matter and why it’s relevant to Social Work
• Barriers to anti-racism in Social Work and organisational responses
• Implementing anti-racism reforms in Social Work

You can view Wayne’s full presentation and supporting documents below. A recording of the event is not available.