Jamie Grant
Aug 29, 2018
Updated: Aug 3, 2022
A retrospective piece, sharing an intervention idea from an occupational therapy placement
I was given the chance to work with a UK mental health charity, supporting young people in a variety of role-emerging OT settings. Experiences included designing and facilitating group sessions on resilience, to a secondary school for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. I know from experience how stressful teenage life can be, but communication and engagement with the wider social environment is clearly an additional barrier for this community.
Although a sign-language facilitator was present, this provided an extra layer of challenge, as I'm sure you can imagine. Frankie and I were keen to rise to this and we loved our time at the school.
We brought the Five Ways to Wellbeing to pupils, via a variety of weekly classes. These were designed to be fun, engaging and mindful of the stressors faced - both by those with hearing impairments and by teenagers in general.
The Kawa Model of occupational therapy practice was used, to engage students in a creative activity. This model was developed in Japan by Dr. Michael Iwama. For information and the theory behind Kawa, visit the Kawa Model website.
We wanted each person to consider the personal challenges they currently face and the skills and supportive structures to help overcome them.
"Designed to be fun, engaging and mindful of the stressors faced - both by those with hearing impairments and by teenagers in general"
We designed a basic river template and then laminated a copy for each child. This could then be written on with wipeable pen ink. We felt that the visual element could be supportive to learning!
You can download a copy of the river template here:
Objects to place in the river were then cut out and laminated. This formed a blank canvas for each pupil to map out their life flow. This would be a changing picture...
KEY
Rocks = circumstances that block life flow and cause dysfunction or disability
Driftwood = skills and resources that support and enhance daily living
Fish = personal qualities that help to overcome challenges faced
River bed = social, physical, cultural and institutional environment (a hinderance or help)
Each student could experiment by placing objects in different places within their river, to assess how one could support or hinder another aspect of their life. Check out my example river at the top of this post. Whilst the concepts could be considered abstract, most pupils engaged well with this interactive and visual learning tool!
Why not utilise the Kawa Model in your work with those you support? It's a tool that works across ages and cultures.
Jamie Grant
Occupational Therapist, UK
Director, The Occupational Therapy Hub