The present study examined how practitioners conceptualized culture and used their understanding of a client's culture to provide culturally responsive caring. Descriptions of practice were elicited from experienced practitioners serving culturally diverse clients. Twelve practitioners completed a written questionnaire and participated in a telephone interview. Half of these same participants also participated in a follow-up interview, which was confirmatory in nature. Grounded theory methodologies were used to identify and conceptualize key processes inherent in these practitioners' descriptions of providing culturally competent care. Practitioners' perceptions of providing culturally responsive care were categorized into five interrelated constructs: building cultural awareness; generating cultural knowledge; applying cultural skills; engaging culturally diverse others; and exploring multiculturalism. One environmental construct, the diversity context was also defined in the data. Culturally responsive caring is described as a process of actively developing a synergistic relationship grounded in mutuality and an intentional respect for a person's cultures. The findings add to the discourse on cultural competency in occupational therapy and may help to examine conceptual models of cultural competency for the profession. Possible implications for culturally responsive professional development, education, practice and research are presented.

The profession of Occupational Therapy advocates for new and emerging areas of practice that more fully embrace our moral responsibility to address significant social injustices that exist in our communities (Kronenberg, Algado, & Pollard, 2005). The service-learning pedagogy is impacted by the philosophical and theoretical influences of John Dewey, the mission and purpose of American higher education including Boyer's (1994) call for an engaged citizenry, and the social vision of occupational therapy. The pedagogy of service learning provides a natural context for students to experience community practice while contributing to reducing existing social injustices. This paper provides an overview of service learning (SL) as a philosophical and pedagogical approach in occupational therapy education, key processes in developing successful service learning experiences and community partnerships to support service learning. Characteristics of effective service learning, assessment of community and institutional outcomes of service learning and the scholarship of service learning are also discussed. Most importantly, strategies for developing service learning scholarship, an important but frequently neglected requisite to validate any educational practice, are delineated. The authors conclude that service learning provides educators with an opportunity to provide students with experiences in natural, community contexts while developing life-long commitment to civic engagement and social responsibility.

There is a priority for research to validate tools to assess outcomes of occupations in secure settings, and the use of these tools to focus on which rehabilitation practices are correlated with establishing positive outcomes after release. Research evidence is also needed that demonstrates that occupational enrichment can result in observable and measurable outcomes that mitigate the negative effects of incarceration and support successful community re-entry of persons with mental illnesses who are offenders.

This study sought to examine how occupational therapists (OTs) who utilize the Model of Human Occupation as their primary practice model applied concepts of this model to describe the occupational functioning of their clients. A telephone survey method was created to elicit quantitative and qualitative data. The findings suggest that therapists value the holistic approach of this model and often incorporate parts of other practice models into it, although sometimes they ignore conceptual differences between the models. Therapists questioned found major concepts of the model useful for conceptualizing their clients' occupational functioning, but found the further subdivision of major concepts into several variables to be less useful. These preliminary findings and how they relate to the model as a practice theory are examined, and the parts of the theory that may bear refinement or change are discussed.

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