According to the Macro, Meso, and Micro levels (3Ms), the 3Ms of Occupational Engagement: Awareness of Entitlement and Support Programs for People with Disabilities (People of Determination) in the United Arab Emirates (AESPPD) is an educational program focused on educational programs designed to increase awareness of policies, regulations, and entitlements in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Promoting occupational justice, social justice, and improving employment are ways to break down social stigmas for people with disabilities (people of determination). Using a hybrid model of in-person and telehealth, the 24-week program proposed in this doctoral program will provide education on and facilitate access to entitlement and support programs for clients, caregivers, and occupational therapy students in the UAE and globally. The author aims to reduce the environmental barriers, including the lack of accessible community locations and transportation, as well as limited access to rehabilitation programs (WHO, 2001; WHO, 2006; Zhou et al., 2020). Reduced limitation to often necessary services results in success with paid employment (Andersen & Olsen, 2019; Bondia, 2019; Haza, 2019; Silva et al., 2019). Environmental barriers result in challenges in an individual's ability to support themselves financially, maintain healthy social participation, and engage in meaningful occupations (Adams et al., 2012; Marshall, 2009; Sheppard & Frost, 2016; WHO, 2011; WHO RCWP, 2018). The program will promote access, independence, opportunity, and change for this target population through awareness of occupational injustice and barriers to engagement (Hammell, 2008); collective occupations for change (Frank & Santos, 2020); awareness of cultural norms (Frank & Santos, 2020); policies and civil rights act change (WHO, 2011); developing intentional attendance using telehealth (Fogelberg & Frauwirth, 2010; Frank & Muriithi, 2015). Consequently, corresponding to the 3Ms telehealth program, the author can engage in employment and social participation for people with disabilities (people of determination) in the UAE and globally.

Neurodivergent occupations are ways of living and embodying life that speaks true for their neurotype. Examples include autistic play, ADHDer concepts of attention, and sensory processing differences. Though the neurodiversity movement is beginning to infiltrate health care services, neurodiversity-affirming practices within occupational therapy remains lacking. Neurodivergent occupations continue to be pathologized within occupational therapy, evident within the profession’s education, and all aspects of the occupational therapy process, such as assessment, treatment, and outcomes. Neurotypicality remains to be the benchmark for functioning within occupational therapy, much of which is secondary to the dominating medical model of disability and ableism proliferating the profession. These factors lead to OTPs creating occupational marginalization when attempting to support neurodivergent individuals, with neurodivergent OTPs pleading for the profession to reflect and modify current conceptualizations of occupational therapy. The proposed program, Embracing Neurodivergent Occupations, aims to answer this call. Embracing Neurodivergent Occupations is a knowledge translation tool incorporating tenets of disability justice, community-defined evidence practice, and lived-experience informed practice. The program intends to be an example of community-based participatory research (CBPR), with the program’s creation incorporating neurodivergent OTPs, scholars, and advocates from around the world for a holistic view on neurodivergent ways of living. Components of the Embracing Neurodivergent Occupations will include: (a) the first neurodiversity-affirming occupational therapy model (EMPOWER Model), (b) conversations on models of disablement and rehabilitation, (c) health and well-being priorities designated by autistic individuals, (d) steps for completing neurodiversity-affirming evaluations, (e) neurodiversity-affirming service and practitioner characteristics, and (f) a grading of commonly utilized occupational therapy programs and resources and their level of being neurodiversity-affirming. Embracing Neurodivergent Occupations has three phases: (1) an introductory workshop with OTPs within this author’s current work setting, (2) a website translating the program into a multimedia resource hub, and (3) morphing the introductory workshop into online modules. Embracing Neurodivergent Occupations aspires to support the profession’s ability to be anti-ableist, provide neurodiversity-affirming services through all aspects of the occupational therapy process, and ultimately empower neurodivergent occupational participation and well-being.

Our world is evolving into a global community. Increased access to travel, diversification of the population, human displacement and migration, and advances in technology contribute to this evolution. Globalization can impact the health and well-being of humankind. Organizations such as AOTA (2017) and WFOT (2018) advocate for occupational therapists promoting health, well-being and occupation as a human right globally (WFOT, 2006). However, therapists are mostly untrained and unmotivated to ‘think globally and act locally’. This problem is due to OTs adhering to traditional, practices and paradigms, learning the profession within a local context with an emphasis on western theories, a focus on individualized care and an inability to recognize human-rights issues with clients. OTs must become global citizens in order to bring relevant health promotion and wellness interventions to people with different worldviews and in global communities. The program was developed into a course for post-professional doctoral students at Boston University to learn skills and confidence to become an agent of global change titled “The Occupational Therapist as A Global Citizen”. This course was designed with an evidence base and theoretical foundation in Self-Determination Theory to improve the students’ motivation and confidence to act as a global agent of change and promote occupational justice. Preliminary findings of the program revealed three main themes in the students’ thoughts regarding global citizenship. Students reported a positive learning experience coupled with a curiosity to expand and apply their knowledge, feelings of motivation and inspiration and an increased sense of responsibility to use their role as an OT to promote occupation as a human right. The proximal goals of this program were achieved in a cost-effective manner. It will be repeated as a full-scale study in 2019 and the project will be widely disseminated to occupational therapy and global health audiences.

"September 2008" A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy. Typescript Project Advisor : Elysa Roberts Occupational justice recognizes that all people have the right to occupational engagement because it is through occupational engagement that people experience well-being. Occupational injustice occurs when outside forces prevent people from engaging in occupation, require participation in activities that they find meaningless, or prevent people from making choices about their occupations. People with developmental disabilities in a day program are at risk for occupational injustice because they require environmental support in order to engage in occupation. This phenomenological study explored occupational engagement of adults with moderate to severe disabilities in a day program by examining what the staff members and consumers found meaningful within the program activities and capturing how the consumers exhibited occupational engagement. This study understood occupational engagement in terms of meaning, self-choice, and motivation leading to involvement in occupation. The methods involved phenomenological interviews with 10 staff members regarding satisfying and dissatisfying experiences working with the consumers, interviews with 10 consumers with moderate to severe developmental disabilities regarding the activity groups using visual supports to enable participation, and four observations of consumers in preferred and less preferred activity groups using the Volitional Questionnaire. Strategies were employed to ensure trustworthiness of the data and analysis including dense description, data triangulation, member checks, peer review, reflexive journaling, and the use of a structured observation tool with demonstrated reliability and validity. Thematic analysis demonstrated that staff members found meaning in the day program activities through Consumer Engagement in Program Activities and Reciprocal Interaction, and the consumers found meaning in the day program activities through Doing/Active Engagement and Respectful Interaction. The consumers demonstrated occupational engagement through the following themes: Doing Activity/Initiating Action, Positive Affect, and Focused Attention. The findings demonstrated the influence of a supportive environment, choice, and relationships between consumers and staff members that may be reflective of co-occupation on occupational engagement. This information is important in order to build the body of knowledge regarding occupational engagement in an infrequently studied population, understand the implications related to such persons' occupational justice, and include the perspectives of people with moderate to severe cognitive disabilities in the study of occupation.

Bakgrund: Forskning visar på att barn med funktionsnedsättningar vill delta i alla aktiviteter i skolan men att de inte kan. Detta kan bero på brist på anpassningar och stöd, insatser kopplade till arbetsterapeutens kompetensområden. I många länder är arbetsterapeuter anställda inom skolan men i Sverige är det mindre vanligt att en arbetsterapeut ingår i skolverksamheten.Syfte: Att beskriva hur arbetsterapeuter arbetar med barn med autismspektrumtillstånd i skolan. Metod: Studiedesignen som användes var scoping review. Datainsamlingen skedde genom en litteratursökning med sökord relevanta för syftet, sökningarna gjordes i databaserna AMED, PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Medline och ERIC. Litteratursökningen kompletterades med manuella sökningar i andra studiers referenslistor. Litteratursökningen resulterade i 14 artiklar samt 6 artiklar från de manuella sökningarna, vilket blev totalt 20 artiklar. Resultat: Studien resulterade i två övergripande kategorier; utredningar och interventioner, med sex underkategorier; intervju, observation, interventioner för utmanande beteende, hjälpmedel och träning i att använda hjälpmedel, sensoriska interventioner samt interventioner för sociala färdigheter. Slutsats är att det förekommer många interventioner för barn med autismspektrumtillstånd i skolan som kan bidra till att dessa barn får samma möjligheter att klara av skolan som andra. / Background: Research shows that children with disabilities wants to participate in all activities in school but that they can’t. This may be due to lack of adaptations and support, interventions linked to the occupational therapist's areas of competence. In many countries, occupational therapists are employees of the school, but in Sweden it is less common for an occupational therapist to be included in the school staff. Purpose: To describe how occupational therapists work with children with autism spectrum disorder in school. Method: The study design used was scoping review. The data collection was done through a literature search with keywords relevant to the purpose, the searches were made in the databases AMED, PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Medline and ERIC. The literature search was supplemented with manual searches in other studies reference lists. The literature search resulted in 14 articles and 6 articles from the manual searches, a total of 20 articles were included. Result: The study resulted in two overarching categories; investigations and interventions, with six subcategories; interview, observation, interventions for challenging behavior, aids and training in using assistive devices, interventions for sensory processing and interventions for social skills. Conclusion: there are many interventions for children with autism spectrum in school that can help these children to have the same opportunities to cope with school as others.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify ways in which the University of the Western Cape (UWC) occupational therapy (OT) curriculum could be developed to prepare its graduates to advance occupational justice in community service practice. The background to the study is the development of occupational therapy practice and education within a policy context of health reform that gave momentum to the shift in emphasis from a bio-medical to a more socio-political approach to health in South Africa. Underpinning this study was the assumption that OT education informs professional practice and that uncovering new graduates’ practice experiences can inform the development of the UWC OT curriculum. The aim of the studyn was to examine how UWC OT graduates conceptualised occupational justice and how it manifested in their daily practice of community service in three provinces in South Africa. The study is framed within the theories of occupational justice and critical curriculum theory, in particular, critical pedagogy. A literature review pertaining to the application of occupational justice in OT practice and education is presented. This includes the background values that inform the practice of occupational justice, the application of occupational justice as it relates to OT practice and the relationship between OT education and occupational justice. The research design that was adopted is that of a single, interpretive case study. Through purposive sampling seven occupational therapy graduates from UWC who graduated in 2009, and who practiced in under-resourced, rural community service settings in 2010, were selected to participate in the study. The methods of data collection that were utilised were participant observation, a reflective journal, semi-structured paired or dyadic interviews and document review. The findings revealed that occupational justice held considerable value for the participants. They conceptualised occupational justice as enhanced health and well-being, and broader social change as an outcome of the facilitation of occupational enablement. The nature of their community service practice settings, however, posed several challenges for the participants. From the perspective of the participants, the dominance of the medical model, lack of resources and system of bureaucracy appeared to be the biggest challenges they encountered. While the participants’ education was geared towards equipping them to provide appropriate services as indicated by local needs, the health system was not ready tob accommodate their practice. Consequently, the participants appeared to encounter hegemony in practice. In encountering hegemony, however, they displayed an attitude of defeatism, leaving them with feelings of guilt, despondency and powerlessness. They lacked the skills to respond to power dynamics and to interact with people in positions of power. The main conclusion drawn from the study findings is that for OT graduates to impact the contexts in which they practice in South Africa, OT education must ensure that students develop competence to deal with the complexities of community service practice. This implies that transformational learning as pedagogical practice is of the essence, as it frames student preparation not just as learning but as a process of critical reflexivity that equips them to respond to power dynamics and intervene in matters related to occupational justice as active agents of change. The role and practice of occupational justice are subjects of debate in the context of OT education as they are for the profession broadly. This study contributed to this conversation through its examination of UWC OT graduates’ actual practice and the transmission of occupational justice-promoting practice through UWC OT education. The study highlighted that it is imperative that OT curricula in South Africa provide opportunities for students to engage in critical reflection on ways in which indigenous knowledge and a local understanding of occupational justice, as it relates to collective agency and critical consciousness, can be made more explicit in everyday practices. To this end, recommendations for the development of the UWC OT curriculum are made in respect of curriculum structure, content and approach; interdisciplinary education and practice, support for community service graduates and occupational therapy continued professional development.