University of East Anglia (UEA), MSc, Occupational Therapy (pre-registration)

Occupational therapists view people as occupational beings. People are intrinsically active and creative, needing to engage in a balanced range of activities in their daily lives in order to maintain health and wellbeing. People shape, and are shaped by, their experiences and interactions with their environments. They create identity and meaning through what they do and have the capacity to transform themselves through premeditated and autonomous action. The purpose of Occupational Therapy is to enable people to fulfil, or to work towards fulfilling their potential as occupational beings. Occupational therapists promote function, quality of life and the realisation of potential in people who are experiencing occupational deprivation, imbalance or alienation. They believe that activity can be an effective medium for remediating dysfunction, facilitating adaptation and recreating identity.

Occupational therapists work with people of all ages who are experiencing physical, mental and social difficulties and learning disabilities. Recently occupational therapists have begun to work in non-statutory settings, such as with homeless people and asylum seekers, seeking to enable individuals and communities to establish ways of living that are personally meaningful and sustainable.

Occupational therapists work as members of interdisciplinary and inter-agency teams in a range of different settings including hospitals, community health and social care services, industry, schools, prisons, individual homes, voluntary agencies and private practice. They work with others including carers and planners of social opportunity and change.