A cross-sectional survey of Australian service providers' emergency preparedness capabilities.

Purpose: Emergency and disaster management planning is an emerging role with limited practical guidance on how it should be implemented by community, disability, health and rehabilitation service providers. This study examined the emergency preparedness of service providers and how they viewed their role and contributions to disaster risk reduction, including their capacity and willingness to facilitate preparedness planning with their clients.

Materials And Methods: A questionnaire was developed and administered nationally.

The experience and role of mentorship for paediatric occupational therapists.

Introduction: Within Australia, the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme has led to a growth in paediatric occupational therapists working in community settings. This growth has increased the demand for support from more senior paediatric occupational therapists to novice clinicians. Mentoring has long been valued by occupational therapists as a means to provide this support.

Exposure to risk and experiences of river flooding for people with disability and carers in rural Australia: a cross-sectional survey.

Objectives: In this paper, we explore the exposure to risk and experiences of people with disability and carers during a flooding event and the subsequent mental health impacts.

Design: A cross-sectional survey between September and November 2017. Binary logistic regression models were used to investigate associations between the mental health of people with disability and carers and their exposure to the flood.

Exploring well-being services from the perspective of people with SCI: A scoping review of qualitative research.

Objective: Well-being after spinal cord injury is affected by a range of factors, many of which are within the influence of rehabilitation services. Although improving well-being is a key aim of rehabilitation, the literature does not provide a clear path to service providers who seek to improve well-being. This study aimed to inform service design by identifying the experience and perspective of people with SCI about interventions targeting their well-being.

Expectations and Assumptions: Examining the Influence of Staff Culture on a Novel School-Based Intervention to Enable Risky Play for Children with Disabilities.

Risky play is challenging, exciting play with the possibility of physical, social, or emotional harm. Through risky play, children learn, develop, and experience wellbeing. Children with disabilities have fewer opportunities than their typically developing peers to engage in this beneficial type of play.

The experience and perspective of people with spinal cord injury about well-being interventions: a systematic review of qualitative studies.

Purpose: Promoting well-being is a key aim of rehabilitation. The intentional design of interventions to address well-being requires an understanding of the factors that affect this complex phenomenon. A growing body of qualitative literature has identified determinants that people with SCI report affect their well-being.

Creating play opportunities on the school playground: Educator experiences of the Sydney playground project.

Introduction: Children with disabilities often experience unsupportive environments that restrict their play opportunities and inclusion on the school playground. This exclusion can perpetuate inequities for children with disabilities, with lifelong implications. The Sydney Playground Project uses a simple, innovative intervention consisting of placing recycled materials on the playground and engaging parents and educators in risk reframing sessions to create increased playground choice, control, independence and inclusion for all children.

Mothers supporting play as a choice for children with disabilities within a culturally and linguistically diverse community.

Play is a right for children; an essential childhood occupation influenced by their family environment. Despite increasing recognition of unstructured outdoor play benefits, children with disabilities experience limited play opportunities. To apply a capabilities approach lens to understand outdoor play decision-making by mothers of children with disabilities within a culturally and linguistically diverse community.

Construct Validity and Test-Retest Reliability of the Coping Inventory (CI) for Children With Developmental Disabilities.

Objective: A reliable, valid, and readily usable method of measuring coping is essential for occupational therapy practitioners and researchers working with children with developmental disabilities. The aim of this study was to examine evidence for the construct validity and internal and test-retest reliability of the Coping Inventory (CI), a 48-item survey designed for use with children.

Method: School staff (N = 39) completed CIs for 79 students with developmental disabilities age 5-13 yr (mean = 8.

A Scoping Review: Social Participation as a Cornerstone of Successful Aging in Place among Rural Older Adults.

Despite obstacles, many rural-dwelling older adults report that positive aspects of rural residence, such as attachment to community, social participation, and familiarity, create a sense of belonging that far outweighs the negative. By being part of a community where they are known and they know people, rural elders continue to find meaning, the key to achieving successful aging in this last stage of life. This scoping review explored factors influencing social participation and, through it, successful aging among rural-dwelling older adults.

Advancing emergency preparedness for people with disabilities and chronic health conditions in the community: a scoping review.

Community-based service providers are optimally positioned to contribute to the inclusion of people with disability and chronic health conditions in community-level disaster risk reduction. However, little is known about how to enable emergency preparedness within existing community health care, disability, and rehabilitation service delivery. This study synthesised findings from a scoping review of the literature on how community-based service providers can enable emergency preparedness for clients in the community.

Planning for outdoor play: Government and family decision-making.

Background: Despite indisputable developmental benefits of outdoor play, children with disabilities can experience play inequity. Play decisions are multifactorial; influenced by children's skills and their familial and community environments. Government agencies have responsibilities for equity and inclusion of people with disabilities; including in play.

The Sydney playground project--levelling the playing field: a cluster trial of a primary school-based intervention aiming to promote manageable risk-taking in children with disability.

Background: Providing children and adults with opportunities to engage in manageable risk taking may be a stepping stone toward closing the gap in life conditions currently experienced by young people with disabilities. We aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of a simple, innovative program for 1) changing the way parents and teachers view manageable risk-taking for children with disabilities and 2) increasing the level of responsibility that children take for their own actions, as seen on the school playground.

Methods/design: We will employ a cluster repeated measures trial with six Sydney-area primary-school-based programs for children with disabilities.

A systematic review of the effectiveness of stroke self-management programs for improving function and participation outcomes: self-management programs for stroke survivors.

Purpose: A systematic review of stroke self-management programs was conducted to: (i) identify how many and what self-management support strategies were included in stroke self-management interventions and (ii) describe whether self-management programs effectively improved outcomes, focusing specifically on function and participation outcomes.

Methods: Twelve databases were searched for the years 1986-2012 to identify self-management programs for stroke survivors. Pre-post, quasi-experimental and randomized controlled trial study designs were included.

Learning together for effective collaboration in school-based occupational therapy practice.

Background: School-based occupational therapy (SBOT) practice takes place within a complex system that includes service recipients, service providers, and program decision makers across health and education sectors. Despite the promotion of collaborative consultation at a policy level, there is little practical guidance about how to coordinate multi-agency service and interprofessional collaboration among these stakeholders.

Purpose: This paper reports on a process used to engage program administrators in an examination of SBOT collaborative consultation practice in one region of Ontario to provide an evidence-informed foundation for decision making about implementation of these services.

The everyday experience of living with and managing a neurological condition (the LINC study): study design.

Background: The impact of neurological conditions on individuals, families and society is increasing and having a significant economic impact in Canada. While some economic data is known, the human costs of living with a neurological condition are poorly understood and rarely factored into future burden analyses. The "Living with the Impact of a Neurological Condition (LINC)" study aims to fill this gap.

A critical examination of school-based occupational therapy collaborative consultation.

Background: Although collaborative consultation has been widely adopted in school-based occupational therapy practice, there is limited conceptual understanding of how collaboration contributes to educationally relevant outcomes for students with disabilities. Even without a clear understanding of the evidence related to school-based occupational therapy services, there continue to be decisions about funding and delivery of services.

Purpose: This paper synthesizes and critically appraises the research literature on collaborative consultation services in school-based occupational therapy in order to provide program administrators with direction for critically examining decision making for service delivery in their districts.

Factors predicting applicant outcomes in occupational therapy education.

Background: Student selection for health science programs is a complex process designed to identify individuals who are most likely to succeed academically and professionally. There is limited evidence supporting specific admission criteria beyond the pre-admission GPA, and no strong evidence substantiating the need for specific academic prerequisites.

Purpose: This study examined the predictive value of selected pre-admissions criteria relative to student outcomes in a master of occupational therapy program.