Occupational risk factors and preventative practice reflections during COVID pandemic

ABSTRACT Occupational therapy within community mental health teams (CMHT) has a unique potential for upstream preventative practice [Letts, L. (2004). In B. C. Crepeau E. & B. B. Schell (Eds.) Health promotion in Willard & Spackman’s occupational therapy (18th edn., pp. 160–177). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins]. Practicing preventatively, was an opportunity posed by the COVID pandemic, we saw an opportunity to realise our professional potential here and preventative practice as a professional strength. However, working in a fast paced, medically driven environment, has historically been a barrier to authentically accessing the service user [Letts, L. (2004). In B. C. Crepeau E. & B. B. Schell (Eds.) Health promotion in Willard & Spackman’s occupational therapy (18th edn., pp. 160–177). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins]. Further, in the light of the pandemic, we had lost our usual ways of working. In place of face-to-face contact, we were left with the medium of the telephone. We decided to become our own occupational therapists, to reconsider our professional roles by reflecting on the body of knowledge which informs our clinical reasoning, in an ethically driven light, to include the values of occupation, sustainability and client centred practice.