OT as Mental Health Providers

For as long as I've been an OT, I've been hearing about occupational therapy's advocacy to be recognized as behavioral health providers.

This is frankly a little confusing, since OT has deep roots in mental health care — and many of us became OT professionals because of the unique way the profession holistically considers mental health and physical health, and how the two intersect in everyday function.

Things honestly become even more confusing when you start to dig into what exactly it means to be recognized as a behavioral health provider. What doors does that open to us? What is the current patchwork of states — and what is our desired future?

There is no better person to help us speak to these questions than Halley Read. Halley is the lead author on "Occupational Therapy: A Potential Solution to the Behavioral Health Workforce Shortage," published in Psychiatric Services in 2024.

Which gets at exactly the right question: why are we limiting the mental health workforce, when mental health workers are so desperately needed?

This course is intended for OT professionals, to help us understand this situation — but also for our fellow members of the healthcare team, to understand what OT can contribute and what policy changes would let us work in our full scope.

1. Healthcare team members will be able to identify how OT  being recognized at the state level as qualified mental health providers, opens more access to clients.

2. You will be able to recognize at the federal level how OT being recognized as a mental health provider would open more access to care to clients.

Intro (5 minutes)

Discussion (40 minutes)

1. Tell me about your journey into mental health OT and then advocacy.

2. How did this paper come together and what stands out to you now?

3. What has changed since this paper was written?

4. How do OTs uniquely contribute to the mental health team?

5. Do we have the evidence based and scope of practice needed to move into this space?

6. What are concrete stories you know of OTs making differences in their communities?

7. Tell me about becoming a qualified mental health provider at the state level. What door does this open to us?

8. How would being recognized federally as mental health providers change our ability to serve clients?

9. What does the OT in mental health movement look like globally? Are the US leaders or laggards?

10. How can OTs and other health care providers get involved in this movement?

Live Q&A (5-10 min)

Closing (5 min)

• Occupational Therapy: A Potential Solution to the Behavioral Health Workforce Shortage 

• Providers’ Perspectives Regarding Factors That Influence Access to Occupational Therapy in the Veterans Health Administration Inpatient Psychiatric Setting

• Barriers and facilitators for the practice of occupational therapy in mental health: findings from a global practitioner survey of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists

It is the policy of OT Potential to disclose any financial and non-financial interest the provider or instructor may have in a product or service mentioned during an activity. This is to ensure that the audience is made aware of any bias of the speaker.

OT Potential pays guest speakers an honorarium for their participation, either directly or to an institution of the speaker's choosing at their request. We invite guests whose expertise often comes from practices, programs, or building products in their field. Where a speaker has a financial interest in the subject of a course, we disclose it below so you can weigh it for yourself.

OT Potential's interest in this topic: We have no financial stake in this topic.

Speaker interests: Halley Read has no financial interest in this topic to disclose. She is lead author of the primary journal article explored in this course, Occupational Therapy: A Potential Solution to the Behavioral Health Workforce Shortage, and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Occupational Therapy Association as Speaker of the Representative Assembly.