Raising the profile of occupational therapy

Check with your supervisor, tutor, line manager or equivalent leader and communications team (if you have one) to ensure that you have their support and your organisation’s policies and procedures support any planned activities.

Your communications team might be able to support and advise you. They may also be able to help promote your activity to a wider audience. If you don’t know how to get in touch with your communications team, have a look for the contact details on your employer’s or university’s website.

If you’re talking about someone else, or sharing photographs or videos, make sure you have their full permission first. Check your organisation’s General Data Protection Regulations policy for information on how to get consent from the people you want to involve in your plans.

Use our narrative, briefing guides, presentation and graphics to help you talk about the value of occupational therapy.

To further help you talk about occupational therapy and how it needs to be positioned in the future, familiarise yourself with the Workforce Strategy and action plans. And join our lecture series about the complexity of occupation, which will help you talk about what occupation means and the unique role of occupational therapy in health and social care.

Some activities are simple and don’t take too much time. Others require planning, to make them more manageable. Why not connect with peers, colleagues and others within your occupational therapy community?

We’re here to help you. If you have questions or want guidance, reach out to us at marketing@rcot.co.uk.

Advocating for the occupational therapy workforce is in our Career Development Framework and included in HCPC standards of proficiency. When carrying out your profile-raising activities, think about what that means for you, your practice, and the relevance to occupational therapy now and in the future. Remember to log your CPD activity on the CPD portfolio platform.

This guidance is a starting point; we want to build on it based on feedback from you. To help us do that, let us know what else would be helpful and what you’ve done that’s made a difference. Email marketing@rcot.co.uk.

Sharing real-life stories is an impactful way to raise the profile of occupational therapy. Stories give context and meaning to the facts and figures occupational therapists use to evidence the value of occupational therapy.

Consider collecting a range of different types of data that demonstrate the impact of occupational therapy to different audiences. Coming along to our innovation measurement drop-ins will help you. Let us know at innovationhub@rcot.co.uk if you’d like to join us.

You can use stories to show new and different ways of doing things to help people understand how they, too, could benefit from occupational therapy. Your stories could also inspire people to choose a career in occupational therapy.

Here is an impactful story example:

• Sudbury's therapy courtyard garden
• NHS therapy garden boosts wellbeing for patients

Think about the stories you like

Before you start to think about your story, take time to think about the types of news stories you’re personally interested in. What is it about the story that makes you want to read, watch or listen to it? Interesting stories tend to be heart-warming, unusual, or about ‘overcoming the odds’.

Identify your story

We all have a story or stories to tell. You might have a story about:

• a new way you’re working in your service
• how your team has been organised differently
• how you’re using technologies to work smarter, faster, with fewer human errors
• a piece of research you’ve completed that demonstrates the impact you've had on a person accessing your services.

Sharing your story might feel daunting, but it helps to bring a situation to life and helps people connect with occupational therapy.

Think about your audience

Think about who you’ll be telling your story to. Consider what matters to them. Not everyone will have the same understanding of occupational therapy as you do, so you might need to adjust the language you use.

Think about what you want your audience to think, feel and do when they hear your story. Our Think/feel/do matrix will help you with this.

Structure your story

What’s the purpose of your story? Is it to drive people to reflect or to take action? Having a clear purpose before you start is essential.

When telling your story, always include a beginning, middle and end. To help set the scene and give your story some structure, think about the who, what, when, where, why and how.

• Beginning: Set out the situation. Introduce the main character(s). Explain the challenge(s) that needed to be solved. Grab attention.
• Middle: What happened? How did it impact the main character(s)? What does your reader need to know?
• End: How was it solved? What impact did it have on the situation or the characters?

Always use simple language. Don’t assume people have the same knowledge as you do. Avoid jargon, abbreviations or acronyms. Keep it short – people are more likely to stay until the end that way. Use data and evidence – these will provide the proof to back up your story.

Tool

• Think/Feel/Do matrix

There are many actions you can take where you work or study that will make an impact. First think about what you want to achieve. Then think about:

• Who are the key decision-makers that you need to influence? And why?
• What do you want them to think, feel or do as a result?

We’ve included here some ideas for activities you could do locally. If you have any other ideas, come along to one of our profile-raising cafés to share them.

Feed into your organisation’s communications channels

How does your organisation communicate with its staff? Does it have a newsletter? Intranet page? MS Teams channels or staff networks? You can use the narrative about the value of occupational therapy to share. The narrative comes in different lengths so you can choose the version that works best for you.

Have coffee with a colleague

Sometimes an informal approach is best. Perhaps you have some ideas you’d like to share, or you could explore how you could work together to make a bigger impact. Reach out to a colleague or colleagues you don’t know that well and invite them to have a coffee so you can find out about each other’s roles.

Add an agenda item to a regular meeting

Ask to tell your story about the impact of occupational therapy at an upcoming meeting. It could be a team meeting, department or organisation-wide meeting.

Use our presentation as a starting point and personalise it so it’s relevant. You don’t need to adjust the slides, use the time to share a story.

Meet senior leaders, stakeholders or influencers

Set up a meeting, or ask for time in an existing one, where you can meet with senior leaders, stakeholders or influencers. Before you make the request, think about what you want to achieve.  Use the resources available to help you talk about occupational therapy, from the narrative to the presentation. But make sure you tailor it to make it relevant to the outcome you want to achieve.

Host a lunch and learn

Hosting a lunch and learn could help you reach a wider group of people. Remember, check with your supervisor, tutor, line manager or equivalent leader first. Think about the purpose first and if there are specific people you want to invite or if you want to make it an open invitation.

You could use our presentation as a starting point, but add to it so that it’s relevant to your work and the purpose of the lunch and learn.

Hold an event or set up a stand

You can speak with lots of people about what you do by holding an event or setting up a stand. If you’re a learner, is there a shared space you could use to set up a stand where you’ll reach fellow learners or academics? If you have learners with you on placement, think about how you could get them involved with setting this up.

Depending on how it’s run, there may be a cost. See if there are options for funding outside of your team – perhaps your communications team could support.

Our events toolkit will help you plan and organise your event – it can be adapted for large or small events to suit your needs.

Tools:

• Campaign resources

The media can be a powerful tool to spread the word far and wide about occupational therapy.

Think about what you want people to remember

Start by writing down what you want people to remember. Use these as the basis to create your key messages. If you have lots, pick the top three and focus on those. Use simple language, and don’t assume people have the same knowledge as you do.

Identify your story

Find a story that supports your key messages. Have a look at the ‘prepare your story’ section for guidance on how to do that.

Get in touch with our press office

If you have any questions and your communications team can’t help, or you don’t have a communications team, get in touch with us. You can email us at pressoffice@rcot.co.uk.

We’re always looking for stories to share with the media and on our own channels – from both occupational therapists and the people accessing our services, so we’d love to hear from you.

Phone in to a radio show

Local and university radio shows often have opportunities for listeners to phone the show and offer an opinion or advice on a particular topic. Don’t be afraid to call in and offer your point of view.  Remember to speak with your employer’s or university’s communications team first.

Make sure to say that you’re an occupational therapist with a very brief explanation of what you do – for those who don’t know what occupational therapy is – before answering the question.

Find local journalists

Think about your local media. What’s your local newspaper, news website or radio programme? You can usually find contact details on the publication’s website. If you’re a learner, many universities have their own media outlets run by students; these would be a great starting point.

Pitch your story to media

Once you’ve got your story and you’ve found your local media, it’s time to pitch your story to them. Start by sending a journalist a short email summarising your story with your key messages. Here’s  a sample email to help get you started. You can get in touch with more than one publication at a time. You can get in touch with more than one publication at a time.

Think about why their readers/listeners would be interested. Talk about benefits to the local community or your university.

If the journalist is interested in your story, they will get back in touch with you. There is never a guarantee that they’ll cover your story; it could depend on what else is happening at the time that’s newsworthy.

We’re here to help. Get in touch with us at pressoffice@rcot.co.uk if you want to talk through your story idea or approach.

Write a press release

Our template will help you write your press release. Using your key messages as the basis, fill in the template with the information you think people will find interesting.

Remember: Always use simple language. Don’t assume people have the same knowledge as you do. Avoid jargon, abbreviations and acronyms. Keep it short – people are more likely to stay until the end that way. Use data and evidence – these will provide the proof to back up your story.

We can help review your press release; send it to us at pressoffice@rcot.co.uk.

Getting coverage

Let us (and your communications team, if appropriate) know if you will be or have been featured in local media as we may be able to help promote it on our social media channels.

Tools:

• Press release template
• Sample pitch email
• Press release template in Welsh
• Sample pitch email in Welsh
• Campaign resources

Watch our profile-raising café with an influencing focus and how to engage local decision makers below.

As well as using social media in your personal life, it can also be useful for reaching a wide audience to promote occupational therapy.

Social media is a great place to share stories. But it’s worth remembering you often only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention before they scroll on, so it’s important to get straight to the heart of the story as quickly as possible.

Work within the policies

Social media policies protect reputation and sensitive information and prevent legal issues. Here are the policies for RCOT and the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC):

• RCOT social media policy
• HCPC guidance on social media

In addition, each social media platform also has its own set of guidelines that must be followed to keep users safe.

Choose a platform and channel

While you might want to use your personal account, you could also set up a separate one to use to talk about occupational therapy. Is there a platform you enjoy the most? Think about the type of content you want to create, the platform you are most comfortable using, and the message you want to share.

Some tips to help you choose which platform is best you:

• TikTok and Instagram are best for visual content. Use these platforms to share videos and photographs.
• If you want to share news, stories, informative articles or longer updates then Facebook and Threads are the best platforms.
• LinkedIn is designed for professional use and works well for longer content. It’s also great for networking.

Make your content accessible

Remember to use alt text on all your images and videos with no sounds. With videos, you should also make sure you add closed captions and keep background noise to a minimum. When posting, always make sure you use accessible language.

Take a look at our guide on how to be accessible on social media.

Share someone else’s post

Sharing someone else’s post (including one from RCOT) about occupational therapy is a quick and easy way to get more people to see it. It’s also an important part of building a community. When you support someone’s post with a share, they will really appreciate it and will no doubt repay the favour, helping to spread your message further.

Share our graphics and messages

In the narrative, you’ll find suggested messages you can share and also graphics you can use to go with them. Make them even stronger by amending them so they’re relevant to you and the work that you do.

Create and share a text-based post

Create and share your own post. If you want to mention someone, remember to get their permission first. Here are some ideas for posts:

• Share how you’ve helped someone you’re working with to overcome a barrier to doing something they want or need to do.
• Share what working in occupational therapy means to you, to inspire the next generation of occupational therapists.
• Talk about how occupational therapy positively impacts your local community.

Add a photo for impact

People will be more likely to notice a photo as they scroll through their timelines. A photo of the person featured (including one of you!) will give your post the personal touch.

Create and share a video

Videos are a great way to make your posts more enticing to your audiences. A lot of videos you’ll see on social media have been created on a mobile phone. Audiences tend to find these videos more authentic than ones that have been professionally created. If you would like to create your own video using a mobile phone, our guidelines will help you.

Here are some ideas for videos you could create:

• A simple video with you talking to the camera, sharing a personal experience, for example, talking about an intervention you used that’s made a difference to someone’s life.
• As part of relevant awareness campaigns, you could talk about the part you or your occupational therapy colleagues play in that area and share the video with the campaign hashtag.
• A video that shows what a day in your life as an occupational therapist is like.

Get others to share your story

When sharing your story on social media, tag in our RCOT accounts (X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads), or direct message us so that we can consider sharing.

Follow your organisation or university accounts so that you can direct message them and ask them to share your post, or contact them about sharing an original post from their account. Remember to get all the necessary permissions first.

Looking for inspiration?

Here are some posts that might provide some inspiration.

• Occupational Therapy technician, Amy, and Head Chef, Enrique, shared their story on Instagram with photographs and a quote.
• Amelia shared a video on Instagram about a day in her life as an occupational therapist.
• Occupational therapy students caught people’s attention on LinkedIn by addressing false myths about occupational therapy.
• Occupational therapy learners at Glasgow Caledonian University used photos to share their experience and learnings from a day out with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

Tools

• Campaign resources
• Creating a video
• Accessible social media
• RCOT social media policy
• HCPC guidance on social media