OC TH 6010 - History, Foundations, Leadership & Scholarship of Occupational Therapy Practice

This foundational course provides a broad and critical overview of occupational therapy practice through the context of time. The core concept of occupational therapy, occupation, will be presented against a backdrop of historical events, enabling the student to develop a basic understanding of the growth and development of occupational therapy as a health profession. Occupational science will be introduced as an academic discipline that examines occupational therapy's core idea: occupation, and its role in human life and current and future occupational therapy practice. Students will learn theories of flow, complexity, and occupational development across the lifespan, and conceptual frameworks and practice models used by the profession to establish, maintain, and restore occupational engagement, performance, participation, justice, and health. Students will learn to search, critique, and apply research evidence to clinical scenarios. Students learn to utilize the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework, research evidence, and occupational therapy practice models to evaluate and design intervention plans for clients with varying ages and conditions. Clinical reasoning, standards of practice, values and ethics, and professional roles of OTR & COTA will be introduced. Various professional, leadership, advocacy, and supervisory roles will be introduced and self-evaluated, culminating in a leadership development plan that the student will reflect on and refine throughout the program.