Why did you choose occupational therapy as a career?
I obtained a spinal cord injury in Kamloops during a mountain biking accident and it changed my life. As a wheelchair user, I wasn’t able to return to my previous career (or so I thought then…) certifying river guides, swift water rescue and high-angle rope rescue technicians and the adventure guides of the future. I have a very good, old friend who is and was a new OT at that point in time and talked to me during my rehabilitation about OT work, its flexibility, empowerment, the ability to travel with it and how she felt it would suit my personality. All the while slapping my atrophying feet with hair brushes and spikey dog toys, nattering away to me in my morphine induced euphoria about neuroplasticity and bright futures. I always knew she is crazy smart, but that was some great advice!! No reportable results from the hair brush or dog toy, but eternal appreciation for the life and career that one decision has made for me! Thanks Jenny!
What is your favourite thing about CAOT-BC?
I love the community it creates and the connections it facilitates between professionals province and country wide. For SiP Global Adventures we hope to make friends with therapists across the country (and around the globe) who can help to identify and refer kids and young adults to our programs! We’re really intending to run highly professional, therapeutic programs within expeditionary style kayak schools. We hope to provide adventures and education that will allow participants to not just survive, but to thrive with their disability. We can only exist with the support of the therapeutic community who we hope will trust us to run these programs and take care of their clients! I am so appreciative to CAOT for including me in the newsletter and allowing me to tap into this great community!
Where have you worked over your career? Where do you work now?
My career has mostly been spent working with various NGOs (non-governmental organizations) on spinal cord Injury peer training/ advocacy and education and wheelchair provision and related service development projects in less resourced countries. Much of this work was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and supported by educational materials created for and by the World Health Organization (WHO). I have been very lucky over my career to work on many amazing projects in countries from Sri Lanka, to Afganistán, to Ethiopia & South Africa, to Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, to Ukraine and Romania, to mention a few. The great news is that therapists, and especially OTs, are super cool people all over the globe! Highly dedicated & creative professionals who bring a valuable and unique perspective to teams they work within. Yeah us!
Years of working with those organizations and providing solid but dated and lacking designs of wheelchairs because that was all that was available, pushed a few of us to try and make a change, with the belief a Nicaraguan child requires and deserves the same quality of wheelchair as a Canadian child. So we founded Participant Assistive Products, a social enterprise, where we are aiming to democratize mobility aids and provide better quality products at highly affordable prices (www.participant.life). We have designed and prototyped a full support paediatric wheelchair that is ready to go into mass production and help development projects around the world provide better wheelchairs. We would welcome your thoughts and contributions on this or at any time in the future. I think it's time therapists start to talk about the cost of these mobility devices and are they justified or fair?
Also currently, I am the founder and executive director of
SiP Global Adventures. SiP stands for Society for Inclusion and Participation...its
a mouthful we know! We are a not for profit society, registered in BC
that will provide 5+ day whitewater kayak camps with evening time discussion
topics on neurorehabilitation including, pressure/skin management, bladder
control and catheterization, bowel care, sexual functioning, and mobility
skills in wheelchairs. The programs are designed to strengthen participants’
sense of self and ability, while also providing them with the education
required to live with their spinal cord injury. We will offer courses across
Canada each summer, with a continuously progressing around the world driving
tour each fall and winter offering a kids program and adults program in each
province/country as we go. In the less resourced context, young people are
dying of preventable complications related to their spinal cord injuries and we
want to try and help our brothers and sisters while also providing amazing
adventures!
What has been your most interesting job?
**Trigger warning: This response mentions war activity and
violence.**
My most interesting OT job, so far, was with a charity out of the UK where we went to Kabul, Afghanistan to deliver a 3 week zero to intermediate level wheelchair seating course to therapists working with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They were all physiotherapists and Orthotists/Prosthetists, sadly no OTs at that time working with ICRC in the region. They were extremely clever before our arrival and ordered an extra container of wheelchairs, while also inviting all the people they knew from all over the country that required a wheelchair and were beyond their capabilities to provide. So we arrived to quite a party. We delivered a full course from 7 am to 4:30 pm each day and then ran a wheelchair seating clinic from 5:30 to 9:30 pm each evening, providing about 350 wheelchairs in the evenings available to our team. Daily high speed convoy transport from our hotel to the ICRC compound, both behind high cement walls, was a tense experience at times through crowded, loud and dusty streets where the majority of people, including young children sitting in doorways, had machine guns in their hands, guns pointed out towards the street. My mind flashed back to neuro-development lectures and the knowledge that 5,6 and 7 year old boys are holding AK 47s and making decisions about friend or foe. The fact that they have to with their still developing frontal cortices. City block after city block of bombed out buildings with open businesses on the ground floor and ruin above. Everywhere guns and people, watching intently. All of that around expressions of profound joy from users and family members after receiving a wheelchair fit for them. Cup after cup of the most delicious cardamom tea. The rhythm of days around calls to prayer, the almost out of body magnitude of cultural shock and working long long hours beside an international team looking to provide rehabilitation services inside an active war zone. Yep, up there on the interesting meter!!
What has surprised you most about working as an OT?
I have always been pleasantly surprised by the acknowledgement of
OTs and the recognition of the skills we bring to projects from all levels,
from local therapists, to mid level management and even to various ministers of
health. Everyone has responded positively when I have introduced myself as a
Canadian OT, and it has definitely opened doors to me throughout my career. It
makes me proud because it's a recognition of the quality of education that we
receive in Canada and the recognition of the high practice standards we
maintain. This has been true on projects even in countries that don’t
officially have OTs in the health service, or where OT programs are extremely
new and often coupled with a PT certification. Our reputation is strong
internationally and that's because of all of you.
What is your personal philosophy about volunteering and giving back to the profession?
I think volunteering and giving back to the profession is our professional responsibility. None of us would have qualified our certifications without OT mentors to show us the path. We have a responsibility to support the next generations of therapists entering the profession. And, what better way to stay current than to have one, or more, highly motivated, research savvy students to keep us on our toes (atrophied or not)?
I would welcome hearing from anyone that wants to reach out with questions, comments or criticisms even!
Dave Calver
SiP Global Adventures: IG sip.global.adventures. www.sipglobaladventures.ca paddlesip@gmail.com
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