Resilience - Anne Deveson
The author of "Tell Me I'm Here" ruminates on resilience. My synthesis of the OT implications with respect to refugee work as follows:
Abraham Kaplan's "law of the hammer" states that if you five a kid a hammer, eveything in sight will need a pounding". Armed with our hammer of occupational dysfunction, everywhere we look, we see the workings of occupational dysfunction; symptoms, diagnosis, consequences. So we pound away, despite the goal being occupational wellbeing and occupational opportunities. The label "refugee" is a snare for OTs to assume or to see what isn't, instead of the riches of what is.
Resilience is not a "washing list" of virtues inherent to a person, but the result of an interaction between the person (of which occupation is a key vehicle) and their environment. The eminent English psychiatrist Michael Rutter said that "resilient people are formed by more than just their genes and temperament. Rather it is the way they engage and respond to situations in life." This ressonates with occupational therapists who are busy enabling occupational performance and creating occupational opportunities for health and wellbeing - resilient people and communities.
Without risk, we wouldn't be talking about resilience. So personal characteristics will in one environment be a protective factor and in another context a risk factor. For example, a demanding baby may be at risk of violence in a socially isolated Australian home, yet more likely to be heard, and thus to survive, in an African refugee camp.
The right relationship between living skills and occupational opportunities is illustrated with a recovery story of a friend who lives with scizophrenia. "In the old days, the emphasis in his treatment was on his illness and absysmal daily living skills. . .David's living skills were indeed abysmal - and with good reason. . .where should David go on the bus? For whom should he shower? Which whom should he make eye contact - with those fearful strangers on the street who he knkows want no contact with him whatsoever?" Focusing on living skills when there are no meaningful occupational opportunities is just not effective or efficient.
The rest of the story illustrates how occupational opportunities are created and enabled and position David to access other occupational opportunities. "A friend recalled his in interest. . .and with David's timid consent, pottery and guitar lessons became the focus of the new treatment plan. After his first guitar leson, the teacher recognised he was unusually talented and told him so. Now that was worth taking a shower for, maybe the music teacher would say that again. . . Learn to ride the bus to get to the pottery studio. You bet. . .The $215 he made in a a pottery sale a year later produced even more than eye contact. Now that he had the experience of pleasant interactions with a few people other than family and professionals, he dared to take on a job at a restaurant. He has never missed a day. . ."
Why don't we relinquish the grip on living skills and focus on creating occupational opportunities for refugees? Enabling living skills serves that main object but is not the default focus. Rather than being in the grip of an illness impairing living skills, they will press on to adapt to the environment as opportunities allow. Opporutnity to build relationships beyond the professionals and their community. Opportunities to contribute, to earn, to teach. Opportinities to share music, culture, hospitality. Opportunities to learn the unwritten ways of their new culture.
Deveson, A. (2003). Resilience. Allen & Unwin: Australia
"But I'm an OT, not a writer!"
Let's face it. Like myself, you're a keen OT. If you wanted to be a writer you'd have studied journalism.
However, most of OOFRAS's aims of inspiring, empowering and equipping OT initiatives with refugees are progressed with writing. For example:
- Inspire (eg write to share ideas and raise awareness)
- Empower (eg write to educate)
- Equip (eg write to highlight learning opportunities)
- Initiate (eg write feedback about initiatives)
Furthermore, your opportunities to communicate will grow as your interest in refugee issues grows:
- You will see latent opportunities (eg I'll write an article for world refugee day)
- Formal opportunities will emerge (eg Can you give us an in-service about refugee kids at school?)
- Informal opportunities will emerge (eg Can you write up why you're involved with OOFRAS in our staff newsletter?)
- Many forums at your disposal (eg Newsletter, website articles, power point packages, fact sheets, needs analysis submissions)
So effective writing becomes paramount to connect the right message with reader needs. After all, global plane tickets and phone calls could be rather time consuming and expensive!
What's Your Writing Goal? Writing to represent OOFRAS and refugee issues will have a primary message of information, values or action.
- Inform (eg explain how occupational deprivation effects child play role.)
- Clarify values (eg explain harmony of OOFRAS with OT philosophy, occupational justice and occupational science)
- Call for action (eg to explain what and why OTs should do or think differently)
What Will You Write? You will need to decide your article focus.
- Specific kind (eg women's, child or employment issues)
- Specific time (eg timings of detention and child development)
- Specific place (eg occupational impact of war, camps, detention, settlement)
- Specific number (eg non English speaking background statistics)
- Specific person (eg narrative from refugee, student, key worker)
- Specific type (eg visa's, service type)
- Specific aspect (eg the subjective experience, the academic response)
- Specific example (eg how a policy creates and compounds occupational dysfunction)
- Specific experience (eg refugee workshop, festival)
You will need to find an interesting introduction. . .
- Pose a significant question (eg What would it take to see OOFRAS multiplied in other countries?)
- Make a claim (eg OT has been slow to respond to refugee issues because we have allowed others to define our roles)
- A compelling description (eg The vibrant song held a sobering message: "no condition [life circumstance] is permanent". Each refugee at the festival had experienced the disintegration of life's order, certainty and stability)
- Interesting fact or figure (eg One out of every 200 people in the world is a refugee or internally displaced person)
- An example or story (eg Like many OTs, Ange wanted to "do something" but wasn't sure what the next step was. She heard about OOFRAS then-)
- Relevant analogy (eg Just like a foot needs to collaborate with other body parts and be coordinated by the brain to run, OTs need to collaborate and coordinate initiatives through OOFRAS to really run)
- Quotation (eg "Multiculturalism without equitable economic participation reduces it to a display of exotic food and dance")
- "How To" Tips (eg five top tips for using an interpreter)
The degree to which we inspire, empower and equip other OTs will largely be a function how we communicate the primary message.
- Know your reader (eg Knowledge, attitude and needs)
- Appropriate amount (eg No more or less content than necessary for goal)
- Evidence based (eg Current, unbiased, sufficient evidence avoiding false assumptions, faulty analogy or generalisation)
- Relevance (eg "Connect the dots" for why content is important and how it links together)
- Clarity (eg Ordered, unambiguous, simple)
Writing Booby-traps - This list of "writing sins" is a great prompt to sharpen personal editing and learning from others mistakes:
- Unclear purpose ( eg Readers get frustrated "what's the point" or confused "what's the take home message" or bored with "bland communication")
- Inappropriate content (eg Too much assumed shared knowledge is alienating and too little is insulting)
- Unorganised content (eg Reader has to work to establish context, structure, relevance, linkages)
- Wordy content (eg Reader has to work hard or decrease engagement)
- Poor word choice (eg Jargon, vague, undefined or inconsistent terms weaken arguments and effect tone)
Effective Writing is a Journey. After deciding raw enthusiasm could only excuse my weak writing skills for so long, I needed strategies to help my journey. The following have been useful:
- Learn more. My flat mate (conveniently has a communication degree) recommended an excellent book: Petelin, R., Durham, M. (1993). The Professional Writing Guide: Writing Well and Knowing Why. Longman Professional: Melbourne
- Read more. Pretend I'm giving "reader feedback" (where writing could have been simpler, briefer, structured etc)
- Self edit more. Print off emails, reports etc at work before use to sharpen critical skills.
- Write more. Don't let fear of imperfection stop me from bashing out a first draft. Writing is editing.
- Seek feedback. A colleague said she understood my writing because she "knows me and how I think". This valuable feedback highlighted the risk of expecting and assuming too much from readers.
