Occupational Therapy Week 2022

In OT week 2022 we launched a campaign to raise the profile of occupational therapy, called ‘Lift Up Your Everyday’.

You can access our ‘how-to’ guide and other resources to create and share your own OT Life Hacks. Just scroll down this page and have a look.

The nation’s health is being impacted by crisis after crisis, from the pandemic to the worsening economic situation. Access to GPs and hospital appointments are hard to come by.

Occupational therapists help people to help themselves. You support people to do the things they want and have to do, to overcome challenges, such as completing everyday tasks or activities.

However, not everyone is able to access your support. All areas of health and social care are experiencing increased demand which is expected to rise.

That’s why, we’ve created ‘Lift Up Your Everyday’. This campaign is about giving people the knowledge to make changes that will have a positive impact on their lives – it’s always easier with a little help from an expert.

We want you to share your OT Life Hacks and help people everywhere make positive changes to their lives.

By putting you front and centre, this campaign will promote occupational therapy in the minds of the public as health care experts whose advice they can trust, while growing their understanding of occupational therapy.

With your help, we want to empower people to help themselves by providing advice to enable them to keep doing what they love and need to do. The focus will be on small steps people can take which could make a big difference to their everyday lives – at home, at work, at school and in play.

You are key to the success of the campaign!

So that we had OTs at the centre of the campaign, we asked you to create your own campaign materials. Look at our 'how-to' guidance on creating your own OT Life Hacks.

We’ve also got posters and social media images and templates for you to use. Get creative, pop the posters up in your workplace and share the materials on social media.

Look out in your emails, on social media and on this webpage for more information about the campaign and how to get involved.

Getting OT Week started!

Create OT Life Hacks that would give help to people in different areas of their lives. You have the knowledge to help people get the most out of their lives.

Use our social media templates and posters to create your life hacks. Follow our step-by-step guide and see what you need to do to create your life hacks across these four areas:

Home
Work
School, and
Play.

‘How to’ guide for creating OT Life Hacks (PDF, 348.62KB)

Drop in and learn more

You can join us at our next virtual session and we’ll be there to answer questions you might have about OT Life Hacks and ‘Lift up your everyday'.

All member drop-in: 12.30-1.00pm on Thursday 10 November
Click here to join the meeting

Social media images, posters and email resources

English language social media images

Lift up your life everyday social media images and customisable templates.

Customise your images

Print it out and write down your life hack, or download the image on your phone and write over it on your photo/social media app.
Keep it simple and short.
Take a photo (if you printed the template) and save / upload it to your phone.
Share on social media – include the hashtag #OTHacks in your text, and the relevant hashtag for your life hack – #OTHacksHome, #OTHacksWork, #OTHacksSchool or #OTHacksPlay.

English language posters

Lift up your life everyday posters with QR code

Customisable Lift up your everyday posters

Print out and write your OT Life Hacks text on our customisable posters, or
Save the poster to your computer and type your OT Life Hacks text before you print it out.

Welsh language social media Images

Lift up your life everyday social media images and customisable templates.

Customise your images

Print it out and write down your life hack, or download the image on your phone and write over it on your photo/social media app.
Keep it simple and short.
Take a photo (if you printed the template) and save / upload it to your phone.
Share on social media – include the hashtag #OTHacks in your text, and the relevant hashtag for your life hack – #OTHacksHome, #OTHacksWork, #OTHacksSchool or #OTHacksPlay.

Welsh language posters

Lift up your life everyday posters with QR code

Customisable Lift up your everyday posters

Print out and write your OT Life Hacks text on our customisable posters, or
Save the poster to your computer and type your OT Life Hacks text before you print it out.

Email signature banner

Lift up your everyday email signature banner.

Lift up your everyday email signature banner (PNG, 185.59KB)

Getting involved in OT Week

There are three ways you can share the life changing power of occupational therapy.

1. Create and share your own life hacks.

Create your own OT Life Hacks. Life hacks are small, simple steps that people can make changes in their life that will benefit them.

See our 'how-to' guidance for how to create and share your life hacks.

2. Share the campaign videos on social media.

Share our launch video and launch OT Hacks for Home, Work, School and Play. By sharing them you will help to make sure that they are seen by as many people as possible.

3. Promote

Tell the people who use your services, your colleagues, family and friends about the campaign, directing them to our dedicated webpage. Useful OT Week links to help share the campaign:

FAQs

Why does Occupational Therapy Week take place?

We want to share what occupational therapy is all about and why it’s important. Occupational Therapy is often overshadowed by other easier to understand professions, and so until everyone understands the life changing power of occupational therapy, OT Week is here to stay!

How are we going to be front and centre of the campaign?

As OTs you work with people to improve their everyday. Your knowledge and advice will be the focal point of this campaign. You are the experts, and we want people everywhere to value the life-changing power of occupational therapy.

What’s the aim of this campaign?

The aim of this campaign is to promote occupational therapy to the general public and introduce OT to those who don’t already know the power of it. To engage with them and to give them the knowledge and power to make meaningful changes in their lives, in simple and accessible ways.

Why do we use the term 'life hacks'?

A ‘life hack’ is a widely accepted term that's understood to be a way of changing something to make things more efficient and effective for someone, however that may be. We’re using this term to highlight some simple and small ways that people can make changes in their life which will benefit them, as recommended by you, occupational therapists.

What are OT Life Hacks?

OT Life Hacks are small, simple ways that people can make changes in their life which will benefit them.

Who can create OT Life Hacks?

This campaign is about you and your expert knowledge. The OT Life Hacks will come from you, as healthcare professionals.

Do you have examples of OT Life Hacks?

We will have some to share with you soon. We’ll be sharing a launch video along with four launch OT Life Hacks. These will start the campaign and give you guidance on how to create your own.

What resources will be available for us to use?

There are resources available to help you get involved in each aspect of the campaign.

To help you share the campaign there will be a launch video, a few core hacks and some graphics to use on social media.
To help you promote the campaign there will be posters.
To help you create your own hacks you’ll have some guides on how to create them and share on social media.

Will there be printed resources?

Over the last few years, we’ve moved the campaign online as part of our commitment to sustainability. By taking the OT Week campaign online, not only has it meant we’re more sustainable, but we’ve also made a bigger measurable impact. Last year our campaign achieved a reach on social media of 8.9 million,

What can I do in my teams?

You can use the networks of occupational therapists that you have and pool your knowledge, and once the campaign has launched, you can share the information far and wide, using those networks of OTs to reach as many non-OTs as possible.

How can I get involved?

Create OT Life Hacks that you can share with people, looking at the areas of home, work, school and play.

Now that OT Week is here we want you to share the launch and campaign videos, promote the campaign and tell your friends, service users and everyone you know about it, sending them to our dedicated website, and finally we want you to create your own OT Life Hacks and share them far and wide.

Continue to look out for our emails, social media posts and updates on this page for more details about how you can get involved before, during and after the campaign. Keep visiting this page for updates.

Does my OT Life Hack video need to look designed?

No, it does not. Raw and unedited videos are very relatable and make the OT Life Hacks feel more accessible and real.

What is ALT text and how do I add it to my social media images?

To make your social media posts more accessible you can add ALT text, which is text that can be read by a screen reader that describes the image shown. You can watch this simple video and read the following posts to see how to add ALT text to your social media posts.

What are GIFs and how do I add them to my social media posts?

GIFs are digital stickers that move, you can put them on your social media posts to animate social media posts. There are some specially designed RCOT themed GIFs that you can share. Applications such as Instagram have these built into their search systems, watch this video to see how to find them. You can also find them on this website.

I’d like to add an OT Week banner to my email signature. Where can I find it?

You can find our OT Week email signature banner under the ‘Social media images, posters and email resources’ section on this page.

What happens after OT Week?

OT Week was the start of the ‘Lift Up Your Everyday’ awareness raising campaign. We’ll use materials created, advice given and stories told to develop the campaign more over time. We’ll also take insights from how the launch campaign performed to guide our future planning. This is just the start of our activity over the next five years to Rise Up and raise our profile so that more people understand the power of what occupational therapists do. We’ll keep you in the loop with what we’re doing and invite you to stay involved.

Find out more about last year's OTWeek campaign

Occupational Therapy Week 2021: #OTsForEquity

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