Occupational therapy role development: Strategies for success (January 14, 2025)

Presented by: Erin Lawson and Maggie Harkness

Occupational therapy (OT) is exciting in its breadth and diversity of roles. Even more exciting are the current role possibilities – hospital team-based care, advanced practice roles, novel practice areas and nonclinical leadership. With these possibilities comes the responsibility for individual clinicians and leaders to show value and ensure sustainability of their role. This webinar will explore occupational therapy role development from both a leader and clinician perspective and provide practical tools for planning, implementation and evaluation. First, the literature on health care provider role development will be reviewed, followed by an outline of the journey to recent successful role development experiences in these areas: 1) Paediatric Intensive Care Unit; 2) mental health: the eating disorder day hospital and somatization program; and 3) OT and physiotherapy (PT) practitioner roles to address ambulatory surgical backlog. The therapists who developed these roles will highlight their key learnings and most successful strategies. This leader and clinician experience in role development led to the establishment of a streamlined, practical framework that incorporates activity suggestions applicable to many contexts and informed by the literature. There will be several opportunities for interactivity as aspects of the role development framework are described including collective learning on successful role development strategies.

After taking part in this webinar, participants will be able to: 

1. Describe key components of successful role development in occupational therapy (OT) from a leadership perspective
2. Describe key components of successful role development in occupational therapy (OT) from a clinical perspective
3. Identify role development strategies applicable to their own role expansion or role development opportunities

Level  Beginner (0-2 years of experience in this specific practice area), Intermediate (3-5 years of experience in this specific area of practice, Advanced (6+ years of experience in this specific area of practice)