Social Justice: What would Dr. Kielhofner say?

This article draws sharp distinctions between resident perceptions of barriers (being more systems-oriented) and staff perceptions of barriers (being a combination of systems and personal/client factors).  The authors suggest that there are no clear answers about how to resolve these differences, although they state that some integrated understanding of disability studies within a Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) context might be fruitful.  Again, this article seems to be rather even handed.In my understanding of MOHO, there is little need to integrate some new model because MOHO itself is based on a broad General Systems Theory framework where these broad considerations are supposed to be already happening.The issues raised by those who adopt a Disability Studies perspective are very closely aligned to the social justice model in that the focus of problem identification is inequity and oppression by powerful system forces and less attention is paid to personal or client factors.  These initial articles acknowledged disability studies concerns, but something happened along the way to finding and articulating a practice model.  Rather than integrating this information into OT practice models, some academicians took a road of adopting the Disabilities studies models - and turned them into conversations about occupational (social) justice, occupational deprivation, and so on.  These conversations have not served practice well.The question left in the wak...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - Category: Occupational Therapists Tags: Disability rights OT Education OT practice Source Type: blogs