Social Occupational Therapy: Committing to Social Change 1

Headnote

Abstract

In this article we will argue that in a world full of inequities and social injustices, occupational therapists should use their knowledge and direct their actions to deal with different realities. Social occupational therapy, developed in Brazil, emphasizes interdisciplinary and inter-sectorial practices, which link the micro and macro social dimensions in different contexts. It refers to politically and ethically framed professional practices that target individuals, groups and/ or systems to enable the rights of people disadvantaged by social conditions. Based on METUIA Project experiences, a Brazilian inter-institutional group, that develops teaching, research and community-university partnership, we present a theoretical framework and practical experiences in the social field.

Key words

Citizenship, professional practice, rights, vulnerability groups.

Reference

Malfitano, A., & Lopes, R. (2018). Social occupational therapy: Committing to social change. New Zealand Journal of Occupational Therapy, 65(1), 20-26.

First of all, we would like to thank you for this invitation. It was a thrill to see the theme "committing to social change" in your national conference and a great surprise to be invited to come from Brazil to share our experiences with you. It is an honor to be here and we would like to thank you for your recognition of our work and the opportunity to share with you, to learn with you and to build an international dialogue on expanding the role of occupational therapy and of occupational therapists.

To begin with, let us apologize for our English language. Unfortunately, the worldwide occupational therapy dialogue takes place mostly in English and there seems to be little room for interacting with scholarly material in other languages. Coming from Brazil, where only 5% of the population speak English fluently (Education First, 2015), it is a major challenge to get our ideas into circulation. This is another reason to thank you for this opportunity.

We start by asking why societies need occupational therapists, emphasizing the social role of the profession. To answer this question, we will argue that the social context is both: a starting point and a final goal of occupational therapists practice. After that, we present social occupational therapy, based on Brazilian experiences, reporting the background, theoretical framework, principles and some experiences applying social technologies. Social technologies are created based on the local...