Academic perspectives on OT in youth mental health

Background: Occupational therapy services to youth with trauma experiences and mental health challenges may follow unique practice concepts that deserve to be explored and illuminated.

Results: Four major themes emerged: trauma lens, practicing attentive empathy, complex development mindset, and therapeutic unstructured structure.

Discussion: Themes illuminated three interrelated concepts guiding OT practice: intellectual humility, shared humanity with clients, and skillful accommodation of clients' personal and environmental contexts.

Background: The Double OT (DOT) assessment is occupation-based and dynamic, designed to support youth transitioning into the workplace.

Results: Participants showed high engagement and learning. The DOT was found to be “fun and engaging,” “vocationally informative and applicable,” and fills a gap in commonly used assessments for vocational transitions.

Conclusion: Results support initial validity of the DOT, with good usability and evidence that it facilitates participant learning.

Explores how occupational therapy supports at-risk youth in transitioning to the workforce, with a focus on community-based practice models and vocational skill development.

Background: Describes how OTTP occupational therapists use play activities to facilitate life skill acquisition by youth in detention, aged 14–18.

Results: Participants reported very high engagement. Over 90% of worksheets and artworks were complete and relevant. Engagement scores varied by gender and activity type.

Conclusion: Play activities may be an appropriate way for OTs to encourage youth in detention to acquire life skills.

Background: Students at a continuation high school attended an OT program to acquire life skills in preparation for postsecondary education (PSE) transition.

Results: Students consistently reported PSE as essential for adulthood but were unable to describe basic entry requirements. Entrenched behaviors, particularly truancy, were identified as potential barriers.

Conclusion: OT interventions should focus on guiding students to access PSE knowledge and set realistic goals with incremental action steps.

Background: Explores how at-risk youth experiencing psychosocial and environmental barriers respond to client-centered, occupation-based OT in the community.

Results: Three themes emerged: client-centered OT interventions, increased self-advocacy, and enhanced perception of the future.

Conclusion: A non-prescriptive approach that validates the individual may prove especially effective in serving the at-risk youth population.

Studies the merits of sensory and emotional regulation for youth within the juvenile justice system to promote occupational performance. Uses the community-based OTTP model in San Francisco as the research setting.

Background: Uses Dunn's model of sensory processing to investigate sensory profiles of youth in a community-based OT pre-employment program. Participants had been involved in the juvenile justice system.

Results: Analysis showed statistically significant differences from the norm in two quadrants — delinquent youth scored lower in Sensation Seeking and higher in Sensation Avoiding, demonstrating a high prevalence of atypical sensory processing patterns.