October is Occupational Therapy (OT) Month in Canada, a time to celebrate the profession and raise awareness of the important work occupational therapists do to help people participate in daily activities.
Health professionals’ roles often stretch beyond the norm in rural healthcare, so having access to professional development and connections within the field is key.
Through RhPAP’s Rural Education and Advanced Learning (REAL) program, rural health professionals such as nurses, midwives, nurse practitioners, and allied health professionals can receive funding to stay up-to-date and gain new knowledge as it is introduced.
Occupational therapists (OT) Leah Young and Kelsey Kenway have both accessed REAL funding to keep them on top of the latest learnings in their profession.
“I’m more of a generalist, but with specialist areas,” explains Kenway, who lives near Eckville and travels across much of central Alberta to assist her clients.
“Cancer is definitely a specialty area because I’ve spent a lot of years doing that, but I would also say my newer (specialty), is mental health.”
Kenway enrolled in a course on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy through REAL, which helps clients managing chronic pain live a life consistent with their values and acknowledge the impacts pain can have on mental health.
She had no idea how many mental health factors are related to other aspects of a person’s life when she first started as an OT in 2013.
“When I started working, I realized that underlying a lot of these physical health conditions are also mental health concerns that maybe haven’t been addressed or people are unaware that they may be having difficulty with this.
“The (REAL-funded course) kind of tied into both elements for me. It’s trying to understand how these apply to different populations that I’ve seen over the years.”
Leah Young helps children of all ages with feeding issues.
Working out of Okotoks, the OT finds she often needs to venture into dietitian and lactation consultant territory in her role to help get a better understanding of the challenges facing her clients in communities such as Longview, Diamond Valley, and High River.
“Eating challenges have a huge impact on kids and their families. If that daily activity of feeding is a challenge for whatever reason, it impacts them day in and day out.
She was planning to take the internationally renowned Sequential-Oral-Sensory (SOS) course for some time, but the mother of three needed it to work with her family’s schedule and budget.
“I’ve been kind of keeping my eyes open for an opportunity to take it, hopefully nearby. So, when it was in Edmonton, I thought, ‘I’m going to make this happen.’”
REAL covered the registration fee of about $1,000 for the five-day in person course—something Young says was a huge help professionally.
“When you work in Okotoks or even further rural, we do have a team, but it’s not a big team,” she says.
“Taking this course, I’ve now connected with clinicians across Alberta and across Canada. Once you go through this approach to feeding, they let you into their private online community….
“It’s really nice to have a sounding board and other people I can connect with who have more experience.”