Lecturer behind international occupational therapy guide book

Glasgow Caledonian University lecturer and Allied Health Professions (AHP) Practice Placement Lead Anita Volkert has co-authored a book for the occupational therapy profession worldwide.

Supervision for Occupational Therapy: Practical Guidance for Supervisors and Supervisees, published by Routledge, is a practical text book that helps supervisors and supervisees to make the most of supervision opportunities.

Anita spotted a gap in the market for a practical guide when in discussion with friends and former colleagues Dr Karina Dancza, an Associate Professor in the Health and Social Sciences Cluster at Singapore Institute of Technology, and Dr Stephanie Tempest, a UK Consultant Occupational Therapist. They got together before the COVID-19 pandemic to begin writing the book.

Anita, a lecturer in Occupational Therapy in the Department of Occupational Therapy, Human Nutrition and Dietetics in the School of Health and Life Sciences, said: “Pre-pandemic we noticed there was a real problem with supervision in the occupational therapy profession.

“There is an expectation, generally, that all practising occupational therapists have a supervisor and someone to talk to about their caseload, career development and what’s going on with them at work.

“However, the way that it’s implemented is very patchy. For some people it’s a really good relationship and a good experience, and they get a lot of support and development, but for others it can be a less positive experience, even being described as pointless and hostile, and until we published this book there was no guidance in place for the supervisors or for the supervisees.

“We hope that this guide book can be used by occupational therapists all over the world because we collated different examples and case studies from as many different countries as we could for the book such as Singapore, China, Pakistan and Australia.”