ERIC Number: EJ1438144
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2573-1378
"Putting on Our People Lens": Lived Experience as Pedagogy
Tessa Zoe Milman; Sarah Bream; Celso Delgado; Erin McIntyre; Tristan Scremin
Journal of Occupational Therapy Education, v8 n2 Article 13 2024
In the professional education of mental health practitioners, including occupational therapists, there has been a lack of meaningful inclusion of people labeled with mental illness into curricula, beyond guest speaker panels and presentations. This study explored the experiences of students, faculty, and 'Experts by Experience' within a mental health occupational therapy course that incorporated Experts with lived experience as co-facilitators of weekly fieldwork debriefs. The study utilized focus groups and interviews to understand the experiences of students, mental health faculty, and 'Experts by Experience'. Key themes that emerged from the qualitative data analysis were organized under three broad categories: 1) Students experienced powerful insights, 2) Experts conveyed the complexity of the work, and 3) Faculty grew from co-creating learning experiences with the Experts. This research makes a significant contribution to occupational therapy education by shifting the Expert's role beyond traditional speaker panels or storytelling. This broader responsibility elevated experiential knowledge into the realm of practice in clinical reasoning by shifting the context of the knowledge from storytelling to support practice reasoning. While this created significant learning opportunities for the students, it also did appear to cause emotional risk for the 'Experts by Experience'. It is important that efforts to include 'Experts by Experience' in curriculum also include sources of support and financial remuneration.
Descriptors: Occupational Therapy, Allied Health Occupations Education, Allied Health Personnel, Mental Health, Experiential Learning, Clinical Experience, Expertise, Graduate Students, Masters Programs, Student Experience
Journal of Occupational Therapy Education. 521 Lancaster Avenue, Richmond, KY 40475. e-mail: jote@eku.edu; Web site: https://encompass.eku.edu/jote/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A