Equity, diversity and belonging

Speaker: Musharrat Ahmed Senior Lecturer, London South Bank University

A senior lecturer in occupational therapy courses at London South Bank University, 18 years. Two days a week a student success and antiracist education practitioner for the allied health department. Co-founder of BAMEOTUK, a campaigning and activist group making collaborations to speak up and tackle institutional racism in the profession.

Host: Dr Duncan Pentland, Council Member, RCOT

Outline content: Allyship is relevant for all in occupational therapy in education, clinical, management and leadership because it actively enables a culture of belonging, inclusion, antidiscrimination, equality and equity (Kline 2020). If occupational therapy as a profession want to truly align with the principles of social justice, inclusivity and antiracism, then they must visibly show this in their words and actions (Bishop 2015). The workshop will introduce allyship with reference to different frameworks, to provide a platform to share knowledge and experiences of allyship

Access the Google doc worksheet for this presentation here

Speakers: Musharrat Ahmed-Landeryou , Senior Lecturer, London South Bank University; Almudena Fernandez-Alonso, Recovery College clinical trainer, South West London & ST Georges Mental Health Trust

Host: Dr Kee Hean Lim, Council Member, RCOT

Background: The ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ students’ movement demonstrated how the world’s education, healthcare and history are still dominated by ideologies of the Global North (western centric) (Ahmed, 2020). Despite occupational therapy commitment to social justice, this is evident in occupational therapy education (Grenier, 2020).

Critical analysis: The key argument is that occupational therapy education is western centric (Grenier, 2020). It is hypothesised that by decolonising occupational therapy education, it willprovide a diverse and inclusive global knowledge base to occupational therapy philosophy, theory and practice, with contextual meaning for each country (Bhambra et al, 2018; Liyanage, 2020).

The key questions:
1.    Why has occupational therapy not included equally the knowledges from the Global South in its curricula?
2.    What are the potential outcomes of decolonising occupational therapy education for students and applicants?

Conclusion: This topic is of contemporary urgency for occupational therapy education and practice to remain authentic. If students transition as qualified practitioners from decolonised education, we need to gather intelligence on the impact of how this contributes to disrupting, and longer-term dismantling, institutional racism in our profession, and wider still, disrupting structurally race and health inequalities in health and social care.

References
Ahmed AK (2020) #RhodesMustFall: How a decolonial student movement in the Global South inspired epistemic disobedience at the University of Oxford. African Studies Review, 63(2), 281–303. DOI:10.1017/asr.2019.49.
Bhambra GK, Gebrial D and Nişancıoşlu K (2018) Decolonising University. London: Pluto Press.
Grenier M-L (2020) Cultural competency and the reproduction of White supremacy in occupational therapy education. Health Education Journal, 79(6), 633–644. DOI: 10.1177/0017896920902515. 
Liyanage M (2020) Miseducation: decolonising curricula, culture and pedagogy in UK universities. Debate paper 23. Oxford: Higher Education Policy Institute.
 

More about the speakers:

Almudena Fernandez-Alonso, Recovery College clinical trainer, South West London & ST Georges Mental Health Trust
A final year occupational therapy student (at the time of recording) soon to become graduate with a passion for social justice, occupational science and occupational therapy. Member of the London South Bank University affinity group Allyship Cultural and Equity group and AHP+ Anti-racism practice learning group.