Will My Activism Look Different as a Qualified Occupational Therapist?- Disability Pride Month 2021

Happy Disability Pride Month 2020!! Now, I know this is the first time mentioning Disability Pride Month on the blog but, I have been very busy this month (and the last few weeks of last month preparing) so I have lots to tell you!

Guess what’s back for Disability Pride Month…? ‘Dear OT Community’ is back. So, for National Cerebral Palsy Month this year, I decided to do letter style tweets to the OT community from the CP Community to raise awareness and I LOVED it. So, I decided to do it again for Disability Pride Month and it’s been amazing we’ve had so many tweets from all over the world, far too many to make a blog! I even think someone from the US has started letter styled tweets to the physio community. 

The online community is powerful and such a meaningful occupation and this gets me into today’s blog…

We’re over a year on from my virtual role-emerging placement now and I’m so thankful that I still get to do these kinds of blogs and post these posts on my Twitter as I am so passionate and love what I do.  However, as I am in the process of applying to be on the Health Care Professions Council Register (HCPC), I can’t help but feel nervous about the future. 

When I say nervous I don’t mean nervous about my commitment to the blog as I’ve already rambled on about this topic. I’m talking about feeling nervous about the content I am going to produce and to be quite honest I’ve already been in limbo about the content I’m putting up on my blog this summer. Online communities and virtual healthcare, aren’t going to disappear from NSTP, don’t worry. However, I am quite worried about the content I produce in terms of challenging the status quo. 

If you’ve been a reader a while you’ll know that in the early days I was very cautious about what I said and always was aware and still am very much aware of professional boundaries. Yet, over the years, and especially since my role-emerging placement I occasionally like to drop a post challenging and questioning practice, again in the most respectful way. But what if now that my student status has gone and now I’m almost on the HCPC register I can no longer do this?

I know this sounds extreme but since I’ve been writing guest posts for Disability Pride Month which have of course given the topic been political and I can’t help but feel a little imposter syndrome. Who am I, a barely qualified occupational therapist who hasn’t even had her first job offer yet to challenge practice and put out this kind of content?

I have to think carefully about what the future of Not So Terrible Palsy is going to look like.  Of course, I’ll be doing all my disabled practitioner posts (well hopefully). The question is how will I as someone on the HCPC register present this? 

I will never stop advocating for disability awareness and I know I want to do more collaborations especially with AbleOTUK (the new affinity group launching July 27th check it out). Yet a lot of my work is solo, and therefore I question if I have the right knowledge to now articulate my content at a professional capacity. 

I know that I will get there with the power of reflection and I know that for now, everything is fine and that I’m probably overthinking it. Challenging practice has to be okay as otherwise, practice will never improve. But do I as a 21-year-old feel knowledgeable enough to do so? No, and I don’t think I ever will be confident and knowledgeable enough. What I do know is that I will always do my best to raise awareness and stick up for what I believe in.

I hope you’re having an awesome Disability Pride Month, however, you’re celebrating and if you’re not celebrating that’s okay too!

Thank you for reading,

Georgia x
@georgiavine4213
@GeorgiaVineOT