As the population ages and individuals with serious illnesses continue to live longer, they are experiencing disruptions in habits and routines, roles, and rituals that provide meaning to their lives. Many individuals receiving palliative or hospice care and their family members are unable to maintain their quality of life (QOL) and well-being due to the negative impact of the serious illness. Individuals and their family caregivers experience difficulty in participating and engaging in activities of daily living (ADLs) (i.e., dressing, bathing, eating) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) (i.e., making meals, working, finances). Individuals are unable to maintain their independence, return home due to environmental barriers, and receive support from family members due to a lack of training. Family caregivers are thrust into the role of caring for their loved ones without training. Currently, there is an increased need for more health professionals to work in palliative and hospice care. Occupational therapy is one profession that can fill this gap; however, there is a lack of education for occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) at both the entry and post-professional levels. Occupational Therapy in Palliative and Hospice Care: A Certificate Program contains key components of related professional certification programs in palliative care. Program content aligns with palliative care principles and specific evidence-based occupational knowledge so OTPs will become integral interprofessional palliative care team members. It aims to demonstrate occupational therapy's value in this setting and prepare OTPs to work successfully. Modules provide the foundational information needed to facilitate the use of the principles of palliative care, understand the clients, collaborate with members of the interprofessional team, and provide meaningful occupational interventions during this transition. This program addresses the gap and need for occupational engagement, health promotion, and occupational justice for these individuals and their family members at the end-of-life (EOL).

Culturally diverse clients often face barriers to accessing and using health and education services, which may affect the clients’ performance outcomes and impact the quality of services. These barriers include practitioners’ insufficient cultural competence and humility and an ineffective health care system. The Cultural Humility program aims to train and educate occupational therapy practitioners to gain confidence and improve their cultural humility and practical communication skills to maintain, establish, and manage therapeutic relationships. The program duration will be twelve 2-hour biweekly sessions over 6 months, in person at clinical settings or on a virtual platform. The program includes learning modules, such as lectures, simulation or video modeling, and discussion sessions with brain-based learning for occupational therapy practitioners. The program will provide meaningful opportunities for practitioners to reflect on their practice attitudes, gain confidence, change their mindsets, and learn practical communication skills for use with clients from various cultural backgrounds. The aim of the Cultural Humility program is to apply these practical techniques related to cultural humility, bringing synergy and authenticity to practitioners’ daily practice, and improving their clients’ performance and outcomes.

Family and Adolescent Balanced Education and Leisure Occupations (FABELO) is a training program designed for occupational therapy practitioners (OTP) who work with learning-disabled adolescents in school and community settings. BACKGROUND: Adolescents with a learning disability are often missing opportunities to engage in play and leisure as essential occupations. The results can be detrimental to sense of freedom, independence, autonomy, self-confidence, meaning, ability to socialize, response to stress, and perceived quality of life. Parents and caregivers may lack awareness of how to address this occupational deficiency. The author’s aim in this project is to pilot-test a prototype program designed to train OTPs to incorporate therapeutic group intervention (TGI) into service provision with clients. OBJECTIVES: By participating in the author’s project, OTPs will learn to incorporate TGI inter-family transactional techniques into their practice that will empower adolescent clients and their parents or caregivers to embrace expanded leisure and recreational possibilities, thus leading to achievement of goals in areas of mental health, well-being, and life satisfaction. METHOD: Evaluation of this single group pilot program with 6–8 carefully selected OTPs is non-experimental. Program delivery will take place through a secured online platform with teleconferencing capabilities. Instruction over 6 weeks will incorporate a training manual, demonstration videos, prompted role-playing exercises, and discussions. Quantitative data will be collected via Likert-style survey questions and performance rating. Short answer survey questions and focus group discussion will yield qualitative information. ANTICIPATED FINDINGS: Findings based on quantitative data will yield a preliminary indication that desired changes have occurred in OTPs knowledge, performance of TGI skills, and in self-perceived rating of competence, confidence, preparedness, and enjoyment. Qualitative analysis will provide information on likes, dislikes, satisfaction, and recommendations. Implications: In the long-term, the author would like to see progress toward filling gaps in OTP service provision for adolescents with LD who have insufficient experiences with play and leisure occupations. Limitations. Program development and program evaluation research are in the initial stages and have not yet been implemented in any practice setting.

The author examined current literature supporting the use of innovative, music-based interventions to support young children with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities engage in the things that they want, need, and desire to do. The author introduced Song-based Interventions for Navigating Gains in Occupational Therapy (SING-OT), as an innovative, music-based educational intervention program designed to support the engagement, participation, and performance needs of young children with disabilities. SING-OT uses an evidenced-supported, client-centered, and interests and strengths-driven approach. This proposed multi-phase program focuses on improving knowledge on the literature connecting evidence to song-based interventions and providing access to uniquely composed, occupation-inspired songs, that support children’s performance and participation needs. Additionally, conducting an initial feasibility study that assesses the effectiveness of task completion in a common personal hygiene and grooming task within the preschool setting was recommended. Future developments extend to improving caregiver health and wellness outcomes through training opportunities. The author provided a comprehensive program evaluation plan that highlights key stakeholders, a proposal for a single-subject study design, and implications of the program. The SING-OT program can be utilized as (1) an additional intervention tool for practicing occupational therapy practitioners and other professionals, (2) an avenue for interprofessional collaboration, and (3) a vehicle for improving the occupational performance outcomes among young children with disabilities.