Q&A: Emerging Practice Areas with Chair Jess Harney and Lecturer Heather Gilbert
- What are “emerging practice areas?”
Heather: Traditional settings where occupational therapists work include hospitals, outpatient rehabilitation facilities, schools, and home care. Emerging practice areas are settings where OTs don't typically work, but where our training and perspective can make a positive impact on a population’s health and well-being. Emerging practice areas, like the field of OT broadly, is ever-evolving. Society, communities, and individuals’ needs are always changing, and OTs are here to adapt to these changes. We’re trained to be flexible problem-solvers with an eye to the future. We bring a lot of foresight, creativity, and valuable skills to burgeoning practice areas.
- What are some examples of emerging practice areas?
Heather: There is a wide spectrum of emerging practice areas. You can find OTs working with refugee populations, helping them acclimate to life in a new country; you can find OTs working with people in emergency rooms, providing therapeutic interactions amid long wait times; you can find OTs working with first responders, helping them live with the effects of witnessing traumatic events. Increasingly, you can find OTs working with people who have been incarcerated or are incarcerated; new moms in postpartum health settings; vulnerable populations in dental health settings; people who are newly diagnosed with serious health conditions; individuals struggling with substance use; and youth involved with the juvenile justice system.
Jess: An interesting activity that I've done with students is to take a job posting that is not for occupational therapy and assess it to see where occupational therapy might fit within it. Nearly one-hundred percent of the time, students can see where an OT could fit in this particular job or how they could adapt the job for an OT. This exercise helps students to understand emerging practice areas and see that OTs can have a positive impact in so many settings.
- What emerging practice areas interest you the most?
Heather: My background is in mental health and acquired brain injury, and I’ve worked in several emerging practice areas. In the past, I worked as the director of rehabilitation at an inpatient forensic psychiatric facility for men who were detained or incarcerated. As a result of my time there, I’m so passionate about getting OTs involved in re-entry work. Our training makes us well poised to help people who are awaiting release or are recently released from prison. We have a major crisis in this country of high rates of incarceration and recidivism, so this practice area gets me so jazzed up. OTs have the skills to be an effective part of addressing this crisis, so let’s get going – let’s be part of the solution!
Jess: When I came to Tufts eleven years ago, adaptive sports was generally considered an emerging practice area, including adaptive skiing which I teach. I will always, to quote Heather, be jazzed up about adaptive sports. I will always be considering how we can expand the role of OTs in this area even though we’re making a big impact now. Tufts, in particular, has been a change agent in adaptive sports. I’m proud to say we have many fieldwork and doctoral capstone opportunities for students in different areas of adaptive sports.
How does Tufts prepare its students to work in emerging practice areas?
Heather: There's a strong emphasis on emerging practice areas throughout the Tufts curriculum. During their first fall semester, OTD students conduct community-based fieldwork placements where oftentimes an OT isn’t present. Right away, our students have to consider what the needs of an organization might be and what they can offer as OTs. In the spring, they take the Topics in Emerging Practice class, which introduces themes that are woven into many of our other courses. We’re constantly asking questions like: What is our traditional practice? How can we reimagine what’s possible? It would be easy to stay inside the box, but we’re always pushing students to be creative and consider new ideas. Before they reach the second full year of courses, they have already worked together in project groups to conceptualize their own community-based program addressing a population’s unmet need.
Jess: Every year, I’m impressed by our students who are navigating opportunities in emerging practice areas in their fieldwork placements and doctoral capstone projects. Seeing their projects in various communities come to life and make an impact has really wowed me. There are so many innovative opportunities to explore within OT and I'm excited to see our students forge new paths.