Why choose to study for an MSc degree in Occupational Therapy?

When you study Occupational Therapy at UEA you are choosing an exciting and rewarding caring profession that focuses on developing extraordinary partnerships with people and helping to make lasting, positive changes in their lives.

Occupational therapists view people as occupational beings. People are intrinsically active and creative, needing to engage in a balanced range of activities in their daily lives in order to maintain health and wellbeing. People shape, and are shaped by, their experiences and interactions with their environments. They create identity and meaning through what they do and have the capacity to transform themselves through premeditated and autonomous action. The purpose of Occupational Therapy is to enable people to fulfil, or to work towards fulfilling, their potential as occupational beings. Occupational therapists promote function, quality of life and the realisation of potential in people who are experiencing occupational deprivation, imbalance or alienation. They believe that activity can be an effective medium for remediating dysfunction, facilitating adaptation and recreating identity.

Occupational therapists work with people of all ages who are experiencing physical, mental and social difficulties and learning disabilities. Recently occupational therapists have begun to work in non-statutory settings, such as with homeless people and asylum seekers, seeking to enable individuals and communities to establish ways of living that are personally meaningful and sustainable.

Occupational therapists work as members of interdisciplinary and inter-agency teams in a range of different settings including hospitals, community health and social care services, industry, schools, prisons, individual homes, voluntary agencies and private practice. They work with others including carers and planners of social opportunity and change.

Occupational Therapy training at the UEA – a life-changing career

The whole programme adopts an enquiry-based learning ethos focused on student-centred independent learning, problem solving and decision making, which will be facilitated over the two years of the programme. There will be an evolving level of complexity; from engaging with straightforward case scenarios that develop baseline theoretical and therapeutic understandings, through to complex scenarios addressing service development needs.

Integral to the programme are the Practice placements where students will undertake 1 Level 2 (7 week) block in year 1 and 1 level 3 (7 week) block and 1 level 3 (8 week) block in Year 2. The placements are be non-M level aspects of the Professional Practice modules with a Pass/Fail mark and with level 1, 2 and 3 outcomes.

The first year Occupational Therapy Professional Practice M62X module focuses on the central theme of occupation. It supports the students’ in learning the core principles, knowledge and skills of occupational therapy for practising in current contexts. This will ensure that students are able to engage in professional practice as students. The module is structured around the human experience of occupation, deepening understanding of this concept through the module, beginning with the relationship between occupation and well being and moving through to facilitating occupation. This understanding will be informed by relevant biopsychosocial theory covered in the Human Sciences module, supported by the exploration of the evidence base in the Research 1 module and complementary to a developing sense of professionalism (professional development module). Learning will be contextualised in contemporary and emerging health, social and community environments.

Professional Development M63X module will frontload academic writing skills, critical appraisal skills, journal club activities, team working, professional communication, and presentation skills. In Year 1, professional development learning will inform the EBL trigger material and in Year 2, once the foundation learning has been achieved, professional development will be fully incorporated into the professional practice modules.

The first year Research M64X module aims to ensure that students are able to engage with the evidence base for their professional practice to become confident consumers of research evidence and incorporating the evidence base into their professional practice. They will have sufficient experience of research methods to carry out research or audit in clinical or academic environments.

The content of the Human Sciences M65X module addresses the foundation anatomical, physiological, sociological and psychological sciences. The learning will be closely aligned to professional practice and so the learning will be applied through EBL activities

The second year Occupational Therapy Professional Practice M67X continues to focus on the central theme of occupation. The module draws upon the student’s use of CPD tools, quality measures and service development tools, critical enquiry, research methodology and evidence based practice to promote advanced clinical reasoning and creative management strategies for clients in a variety of clinical setting. The students practice placement settings will provide, through negotiation with health trusts, social care services and other providers, opportunities to experience a wide range of settings developing transferable clinical, reflective and managerial skills to prepare them to for the modern health and social care setting

On completion of the Research 2 M68X module students will be equipped to contribute to a culture of enquiry within their profession and more widely in health and social care. They will have direct experience of the design and delivery of research so that they can make a significant contribution to developing and potentially delivering the research agenda.