Emerging Areas - A Broader Scope in Schools

AOTA has created their Vision 2025, and it states:

Occupational therapy maximizes health, well-being, and quality of life for all people, populations, and communities through effective solutions that facilitate participation in everyday living.

AOTA also lists several emerging areas of practice within occupational therapy. I chose to learn more about A Broader Scope in Schools. Within this area of practice, therapists are encouraged to use scientific-based research to address learning disorders and needs within the school population as a whole. The practitioner may be advocating and working within different areas of school life such as: safety, mental health, and social justice. There is so much opportunity and possibility in the school system and that excites me! 

This area of practice relates directly to the Vision 2025. In the school system, every therapist should be seeking to serve in the "health, well being, and quality of life for" everyone in the school: high functioning, low functioning, and in between. Every student is important and has potential to make a difference. I think it is important to bridge the gap between the general population of students and the students who are different and unique, those with various disabilities. I think the school should be a community where all students, work together and learn to value and appreciate the gifts, the challenges, and the abilities of each other. 

I would love to work in the school system and be a part of encouraging, influencing, and seeking potential and talents within students that they may not yet see. I would love to be a part of finding ways to include everyone and lessen the divisions that are sometimes created.