A Community Based Experience to Enhance Occupational Therapy Student Clinical Skills with Clients with Mental Illness

Abstract

Despite the high number of individuals living with severe mental illness and the evidence to support effective interventions, only a small percentage of occupational therapy practitioners work in community mental health settings. To address the need for more occupational therapists in this area of practice, schools must provide educational experiences that facilitate interactions with individuals experiencing severe mental illness to increase students' competence with this population. The Washington University Program in Occupational Therapy fosters students' clinical reasoning skills throughout a two semester case-based learning course. For the community mental health module at the end of the 2 nd semester, the program partnered with two local community agencies to provide an opportunity for students to work with clients experiencing severe mental illness. Students administered assessments, planned and implemented interventions, and completed documentation. Following the experience, students reported increased ability to facilitate interventions and adapt to client needs and clients reported an increase in independent living skills. This paper will describe the development of the course module, collaboration between the academic institution and community based agencies, and student learning outcomes and feedback. A case study illustrates the benefits for one client participant.