Occupational Therapy, Disability Activism, and Me
Challenging Ableism in Healthcare
Visit the link below to download the full version of this book:
https://medipdf.com/product/occupational-therapy-disability-activism-and-me-chal
lenging-ableism-in-healthcare/
Click Download Now
Occupational
Therapy, Disability
Activism, and Me
Challenging Ableism
in Healthcare
GEORGIA VINE
First published in Great Britain in 2024 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
An imprint of John Murray Press
Copyright © Georgia Vine 2024
The right of Georgia Vine to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress
ISBN 978 1 83997 667 4
eISBN 978 1 83997 668 1
Jessica Kingsley Publishers’ policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable
products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.jkp.com
John Murray Press
Part of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
An Hachette Company
With thanks to my mum, dad and sister Matilda, for your continued support
and love.
To Margaret and Georgina, this book wouldn’t be possible without you.
Contents
PREFACE
Part One: Reflecting on My Childhood Experiences
1. Analysing My Diagnosis Through the Perspective of an Occupational
Therapist and Disabled Activist
2. Reflecting on My Time in Children’s Services
3. Typical Teenage Years Plus Cerebral Palsy
4. The Sudden Stop in Services
Part Two: Reflecting on My Occupational Therapy
Training
5. The Lead-Up to Studying Occupational Therapy
6. Navigating University and Placements with a Disability
7. My Virtual Role-Emerging Placement
8. Calling Out Ableism in Occupational Therapy Studies
Part Three: My Early Career Experiences
9. Becoming a Registered Occupational Therapist
10. The Accessible Job Hunt
11. Re-Evaluating Activism as an Occupation
12. Thinking Critically About My Future as a Disabled Occupational
Therapist
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
USEFUL RESOURCES
Preface
Image 0.1. Georgia, a white female with dark curly hair, is standing outdoors. She has her
sunglasses on her head and is wearing corded dungaree shorts and a top underneath, with flowers
on.
Hey! I’m Georgia, a disabled, white, cisgendered female with lived
experience of cerebral palsy, and my pronouns are she/her. I am an
occupational therapist and graduated with a first class honours degree in
occupational therapy from Sheffield Hallam University in 2021.
Throughout my degree I developed my blog, Not So Terrible Palsy , 1
and it became more powerful than I could have ever imagined as it enabled
me to analyse and contextualize my experiences as a disabled occupational
therapy student. I did many series on my blog, a pivotal one being about my
organically grown virtual placement during the second year of my degree in
2020. From this placement my blog grew, and I found that I had a platform
within both the disabled community and the occupational therapy
community – so much so that in the summer of 2020 I won the CP Teens
UK 2 Upcoming Disability Blogger of the Year award. Having so much
online growth and winning this award made me evaluate the content on my
blog and how it was delivered. How could I keep on progressing? So I
sharpened my activism tools and began to talk more openly about being a
disabled occupational therapy student to critically evaluate my ableist
experiences.
My passion for making an impact continued as my degree finalized,
leading me to become a founding member of AbleOTUK. 3 AbleOTUK is a
hub of advice, collaboration and peer support for those with health
conditions, either within occupational therapy training or as graduates
within the profession, and continues to be important to me.
After experiencing a huge delay in becoming a registered occupational
therapist, my mental health was impacted and I felt the need to raise
awareness of being both an occupational therapist and a disabled person. I
wrote many guest blogs, which raised the profile of my work, and led to me
gaining another accolade, becoming a Rising Star on the Shaw Trust
Disability Power 100 list. 4 My content resonated with many readers, both
disabled and non-disabled, and led me to give presentations at both national
and international conferences. While writing this book, I was invited to
present at the National Accessibility, Inclusion & Disability Expo (Naidex),
which is a large event in the UK with over 8000 visitors. 5 This gave me the
validation I desperately felt like I needed so early on in my career. My
content actually had meaning that others could relate to and, most
importantly, was making others question their own practice. This surprised
me as I was initially utilizing my blog as a stream of consciousness to
record my experiences as a disabled occupational therapist. To find that
most of my experiences were universal was eye-opening and impactful, as I
realized that my passion could also be my career.
Adding to this surprise, I also received a rather unexpected email from
Jessica Kingsley Publishers in September 2021 about writing a book of my
experiences. Me, writing a book? I am hugely passionate about blogging,
but I never saw myself as a writer. I was never the best at English at school,
and quite frankly still viewed my blogs as unstructured rambles. It never
crossed my mind that they would make a good book or that I could ever be
an author. But I was up for the challenge, and during the time that I put my
book proposal together I began to really develop my passion for writing. I
submitted my proposal in March 2022 and this solidified my goal of writing
something that would be published to help my own mental health, never
mind change the perceptions of others.
I knew that I could easily write about my experiences throughout my
degree and my struggles to become a qualified occupational therapist.
However, I was still questioning whether I could analyse my childhood
experiences, as they were only those of one person, and so needed to be
backed up by research and my knowledge gained from practice. Yes, I could
write my stories and raise awareness, but I was longing for something
deeper to connect my experiences to. When my proposal was accepted in
April 2022 and I started writing the book, I was only a few months into my
first job as a clinical demonstrator at the University of Huddersfield. Within
this role I was a placement supervisor supporting occupational therapy
students in their placements within a primary school, so I was carrying out
research in this area. This led me to come across theories and research
surrounding children’s occupational therapy that backed up my blogs and
life experience, validating my work and adding critical depth to my book.
When the job finished in July, I had a few months between that and my next
role, and I did nothing but write. I was so inspired by my work as a
supervisor on a children’s placement that I just kept writing about my
childhood, and unpicking events that I had never intended to reflect on.
Writing this book then went from something that could be of interest to
others to something that might start a very important conversation that
many of us need to be having. My intention with the book is to create
conversations and tangible action points that can be transferred to a wide
variety of audiences. When I first experienced ableism, I thought it was just
normal and accepted. Similarly, my own inner ableist voice quite often
impacted my professional life as I felt the need to excel in order to ‘prove’ I
was good enough as an activist and an occupational therapist. Looking
through the lens of an occupational therapist as well as a disabled person,
this book aims to question ableism within the integrated healthcare system.
I acknowledge that this book only gives my own physical health
perspective, and also tends to lean heavily on my occupational therapy
background, but this is what my experiences cover, and it would be wrong
of me to enter territory where I don’t belong. However, I hope that the way
this book is written means that such topics can still be interpreted by a
variety of audiences including those with lived experience of disability,
parents, teachers and other healthcare professionals.
Different people will get something different from reading this. Whether
this alters your progress as an ally or as a fellow disabled person, we all
need to continuously be learning from each other’s experiences. If you can
develop this further and apply some goals to your own life experiences with
universal applicability, then please let me know!
I hope you enjoy reading this book and continue your journey towards
#ChallengingAbleismInHealthcare. Please also fill out the ‘Not So
Terrible…P.A.L.S.Y.’ reflective log after each chapter. The reflective log is
there to help you contextualize your learning and start your allyship journey
by setting future goals that challenge ableism and ableist structures.
1 https://notsoterriblepalsy.com
2 www.cpteensuk.org
3 https://affinot.co.uk/ableotuk
4 https://disabilitypower100.com
5 www.naidex.co.uk
PA RT O N E
Reflecting on My Childhood
Experiences
CHAPTER ONE
Analysing My Diagnosis
Through the Perspective of an
Occupational Therapist and
Disabled Activist
I’m in my early twenties and I have a publishing contract that I
never would have received if I wasn’t disabled. I’m pretty sure that
I’m living my best disabled, chronically fabulous, life.
When I was younger, I, of course, had no perception of what disability was
and what it meant, never mind ableism and disablism. As I’ve aged, my
disability has become a bigger part of my identity. I know what you’re
thinking…hasn’t it always been a part of your identity? Yes it has, but it’s
only in recent years that I have realized just how much my disability
positively affects my identity and the role it plays in how I interpret
everything around me. This skill has taken me a while to get the hang of,
and is probably something I’ll be forever trying to master. However, having
the skillset of a disabled activist has made me analyse my life and look at it
through a different lens, so throughout this book I will be using this skillset,
as well as my own occupational therapy viewpoint, to highlight ableism
within healthcare.
These first few chapters were the hardest to plan and write. Yes, it’s
hard to write chapters about stages of your life that you can barely
remember. Emotionally it was much more challenging, as it made me
realize how much ableism and disablism had been rooted in my life from
the very beginning. But what is ‘ableism’ and ‘disablism’? Scope defines
ableism as ‘discrimination in favour of non-disabled people’ (Scope n.d.).
Ableism often results in disablism: ‘Disablism refers to the ways in which
people with impairments are disabled and disadvantaged by ableism’s
inequitable social structures and unjust practices’ (Whalley Hammell 2022,
p.1).
I experienced both of these when I was a young child, but it was never
direct discrimination; it was simply because my disability was never
accommodated due to society’s ‘inequitable social structure’ (Whalley
Hammell 2022, p.1). Nevertheless this discrimination was still there, and
much of it was rooted in an approach that focused on what was ‘wrong’
with me rather than society’s failings (Swaine 2011).
To find out more about the early stages of my diagnosis, I spoke to my
parents Glenda and Darron Vine .
How was the diagnosis of my cerebral palsy delivered to you?
Mum: The delivery of the diagnosis was horrendous and very
emotional. The appointment I was given said that you were going to
see a physiotherapist. I was informed that they’d thought you’d had a
stroke in the womb [there were other possible causes of my cerebral
palsy, which I discuss later]. We went with your grandma who came
to entertain Matilda [my younger sister] during the appointment. I
walked in and, to my surprise, the consultant was also there. After a
few assessments, I was given some distressing questions about my
pregnancy. That’s when the consultant bluntly said you had cerebral
palsy, as simple as that. It was so overwhelming, I couldn’t take it all
in. I just got told you needed all this intense support from speech and
language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, and that
they would be in contact with us to develop a programme.
The drive home was awful, with both your grandma and I crying
due to the shock and anticipation. When you are in an emotional state
and getting bombarded with information, you can’t take it in. No
thought or sensitivity was given to this delivery; I felt as if I was a
number just going through a procedure, that was it. No person-centred
practice was demonstrated.
Dad: As I wasn’t in the initial consultation, I found out through your
mum, who I then had to console. I didn’t really take this in, I was in a
state of shock, and I knew your mum was unable to give me the full
picture due to her distressing experience. I didn’t have any separate
input; it was all through your mum. I only went to the main
consultations due to the constraints of work. I felt like I was on the
sidelines and no effort was made to look at us as a family.
What were your initial worries?
Mum: I was worried about your future. What the diagnosis entailed
and what it meant for your life. I understand that cerebral palsy is an
umbrella term and is different for everyone, but it’s only through our
experiences, knowing you, talking to others and seeking advice from
the professionals ourselves that we’ve learned about CP [cerebral
palsy]. We knew nothing back then, and I had to ask for this
information from professionals to enhance my own knowledge rather
than the knowledge being freely given to me.
Dad: I was scared as I didn’t know what the outcome was going to
be, and the minimal indication from the professionals didn’t help
either. I understand why so little information was given due to the
variations of cerebral palsy, but the little communication given didn’t
help this process for us as a family. The lack of resources available for
us to understand the scope of cerebral palsy and range of outcomes
was also limited, resulting in more worry and confusion.
Did you receive any support?
Mum: Family supported us through this, and the professionals
involved in your care were supportive once you started your regular
programmes and they knew you more. This is when your support
became more person-centred, yet it took a while to establish these
relationships with the professionals.
I didn’t have time to seek support elsewhere, such as attending
parents’ groups, as balancing work, life and all your medical
