Evolved Living Podcast

Supporting Neurodiverse OT Leadership Pathways in New Spaces with Dr. Bill Wong, OTD, OTR/L: Part 1

• Josie Jarvis • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Shifting Perspectives and Supporting Neurodivergent OTs

Description: In this episode of the Engaging Occupational Science Podcast, the conversation delves into the importance of shifting perspectives within the occupational therapy (OT) community. The discussion focuses on partnering with the disability community, building relationships, and considering the well-being of individuals across the lifespan. The lack of infrastructure and support for young adults with disabilities after leaving the K-12 school system is highlighted, particularly in the United States.

The guest, Dr. Bill Wong, a publicly known autistic OT, shares insights into his journey and the challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals in OT education. The conversation touches on the need for representation, diversity, and support within the OT community. The host and guest discuss the significance of learning from mistakes and embracing challenges as opportunities for growth.

Overall, the episode emphasizes the importance of creating a more accessible and inclusive field of occupational therapy, where the voices and perspectives of individuals with disabilities are valued and integrated into the curriculum, practice, and leadership. Join the conversation to gain valuable insights into supporting neurodivergent OTs and evolving the profession for the better.

Links to Samples of Dr. Bill Wong's Scholarship: https://cris.brighton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/32107109/Twinley_Neurodivergent_occupational_therapists_original_text.pdf

Medbridge Course Coming Soon: https://www.medbridge.com/instructors/bill-wong-occupational-therapy/?utm_source=Google+Ad&utm_campaign=ind_rmk_dynamic_all-pages&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&mbt_adcid=ga-20250817580&gad=1

Bill Wong TedX Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaOADcEH_00

Evolved Living Network Instragram @EvolvedLivingNetwork
Free Occupational Science 101 Guidebook
https://swiy.co/OS101GuidePodcast
OS Empowered OT Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1569824073462362/
Link to Full Podcast Disclaimer
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13DI0RVawzWrsY-Gmj7qOLk5A6tH-V9150xETzAdd6MQ/edit

Josie Jarvis:

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining next episode of the Engaging Occupational Science Podcast. We're actually about to start a series of kind of having variety of different perspectives that I hope might compassionately challenge some OTs and maybe os scholars that could be in the audience. To con, expand our mindset a little bit and thinking about what it looks like to shift from a model of practice in the United States that looks at things at the individual level to start thinking about. How we can start partnering with the disability of community in a variety of different contexts to start building relationships and partnerships and thinking about lifespan, wellbeing and what it really looks like to partner with communities that we've volunteered to be of service to, either as a scholar or as an OT practitioner, or maybe both, and maybe just a community BA member, maybe just a human being, an occupational being in your community. There are right now people in the disability community that kind of need, maybe need our insight or our partnership and our care, and we might need to be thinking a little bit more creatively about how we can start to do this work. Because what I've discovered since being in the field is there's not a lot of infrastructure in the United States. For young adults with disabilities after they leave the K through 21 school system in particular. And I'm sorry to say that even in my own community here, where we do have a robust history of OT being involved in things like K through 12 and intervention and outpatient pediatrics often our services aren't quite connecting those dots to what in particular I'm hearing from a lot of autistic adults and adults with lots of different disability experiences about what they need to transition into adulthood. So setting that context, that's a big part of where I'm really excited to have on the podcast. Bill Wong. Somebody that I imagine isn't gonna be new to a lot of you really and Bill Wong, I'm sorry too. Do you prefer to go by doctor? Like I wanna be respectful to Yeah, let's go with doctor. Yeah. Yeah. So Dr. Bill Wong Dr. Bill Wong, he's been like a peer mentor for me throughout my career as an OT student and. He really was a leader in putting himself out there, not just as an O T P, but also as one of our first publicly known autistic OTs and a leader in getting the conversation going about social media. And that's something that might be woven into our discussion here because Dr. Wong and I are collaborating on a textbook chapter about the potential that engaging in informal publishing can have in building awareness of OT and the impact in our ability to translate theory into practice. So I'm anticipating that we're gonna have Dr. Wong on in the future too, for many different fruitful discussions. He's been very active in OT leadership, not only United States, but internationally. We're very lucky to have his wisdom, his example, and his insight, and much of the research projects that he's been working on lately. Are about how to support neurodivergent occupational therapy, clinicians in OT education. And he's returning to us now back in the United States after doing a great pilgrimage to Australia, where some conversation was sparked about how we're supporting autistic adults and neurodivergent adults, not just in the United States, but also in Australia, which also sparked some controversy. So something else that we might talk about today is how we start, getting ready, readying our nervous systems to have some c challenging conversations in the OT world. Hopefully without re regressing to going into passive aggressive stances and being open to listening from diverse perspectives. Dr. Wong, are you comfortable framing for the audience here a little bit about. How your journey with OT started and what your interest is in your current research that you're looking on about how to support autistic adults. And I just wanna welcome you the conversation. I hope that will flow somewhat naturally. But maybe you can also inform us a little bit about that research and that panel that you were telling me about yesterday in Australia. Maybe that would be a good place to jump off from.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Okay. So I guess we'll start off with my journey in the OT world first, right? Yeah. Before ot, I would say, actually I was not one of those people that like, oh, I wanna be an OT since high school. Oh, elementary school. Ot technically was my second career, so to speak because my bachelor's degree was in statistics. Oh. So I found OT by. Force in a sense. Cause after a year and a half of being unemployed, I was looking around in terms of what I really wanted to do in terms of whether I should continue to look for work. But now that at that time was like, it was pretty fruitless at that point, or pursue some sort of career in graduate school. And OT was my third choice, I believe, because hey, you know what it's like out of the two other, two other options. It's like I definitely had to take the most prereqs and I had to overcome my worst enemies in high school, which was anatomy and physiology. They were not my favorite subjects. The pre-reqs. So yeah, so that was why I overcome that I think. Yeah, so that's and then of course in terms of how I found ot, it was through my parents, particularly my mom. So at that time, my mom at the time was working at a school-based administrator, which is like a front desk job, and she had quite a bit of conversations with the school-based occupational therapist who would come by to the school and of course through the small talks that they had, that's how my mom found out, out about ot. And when she looked up the job prospects like, Hey, you know what, as long as you don't screw up, you should have a solid career and the pay should be decent. So I think that was what my introduction to OT

Josie Jarvis:

was. Were you aware of having autism at that time?

Dr. Bill Wong:

Nope.

Josie Jarvis:

Oh. When did you discover your autistic identity? If you don't mind? I hope that isn't too much of a tangent.

Dr. Bill Wong:

That would be between year one of year and year two of multi school.

Josie Jarvis:

Wow. Do you think that it would've been different in some ways if you had known, or do you think that there is a chance that maybe some of those challenges navigating undergrad or something like do you wish in some ways that it could have been different if you had known sooner?

Dr. Bill Wong:

I think I had known sooner. My parents would not have suggested OT in the first place, given how socially demanding it is. Because I think be more traditional. So I think that definitely finding out, I think it's more like at that point was like, okay, it's too late now. It's already like already invest so much and you're already halfway in the program, so it's like you might as well finish it,

Josie Jarvis:

now it's a happy accident in some ways though, Dr. Wong, because, now we get your lived experience expertise, which is very sometimes lacking in our demographic imbalance in the OT community. That we're more and more discovering a lot more OTs that have different disability experiences within our ranks. However it seems like OT education. Still is challenging for many people with disabilities to access, participate and succeed. And so I'm, so I guess even though it might have been a different trajectory, if you had known sooner, a happy accident is that we're very lucky to have your expertise and perspective on how we can help evolve our profession to be more accessible to other autistic OTs in the future.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah. Thank you. So definitely some of the stuff that were probably, it's either was, they were either in their infancy or some of the resources has not been developed yet. Like for example, I think one of the things that you might have talked about in your podcast, what about the OT for OT group? I did not, one thing, I did not realize that it was actually a radio at the time that. I found out my autism diagnosis. So that was a coincidence. I think that was about the time that it launched, so to speak. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's what I think. And then another very commonly used resource now among OTs and OT students, sorry, OT practitioners and students with disabilities. It's I know that there's a few OT Facebook group. It's that wasn't around when I was a student.

Josie Jarvis:

It's all these resources that you, I, in a way I do view you as a trailblazer in my mind. And it is. I think that's so often for a lot of folks with disabilities, and I know I didn't discover my neurodivergence until about Three years ago I didn't know about what developmental visual spatial disorder was or neuro nonverbal learning disability and it's definitely helped me know where some of my social challenges have come from in the OT community and I'm glad to know about it now. However, it's hard when you find about your diagnosis so late in life there isn't gonna be infrastructure to support you. Often, nonverbal a learning disability, they're just doing the scholarship on that just in the last two decades or so. And I think we forget sometimes just how new the autism diagnosis is in our culture, in our community. Cuz I don't think it really gained a lot of traction until the late eighties and early nineties.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah. And I think that, I was like, I think by the time I came out, I think I was like a struggling student. I was just, Desperate to find support. So I think that I was really shocked that there weren't really somebody out there in terms of probably who has set success in our field and actually can manage through the challenges. A lot of these stories, I think it is like they were unknown or undiscovered. And I think the stories I've heard during my student days, I think I heard more failures than assist in the field. I think probably it was, I think there was an n p episode and there was an autistic student who mentioned about like he dropped out of OT school because like he did not have a very good. Level two field work experience. And I think, yeah, so I think that incident definitely was, probably had the more, had more po negative press than say, positive press in terms of someone who is autistic can overcome.

Josie Jarvis:

Oh yeah. Yes. I think that's one of the things that I really am hoping that this series of discussions can bring to four. And I know it's hard to get feedback, right? It's hard to hear feedback, but that is something I've tracked over. Really over the last decade of me having connection to the OT community is there is a legacy of not practicing what we preach when it comes to traditional OT education. There's a lot of OTs with disabilities from a variety of different backgrounds that are constantly citing online, struggling to get access to accommodations in OT education awareness of things. So am I correct in from what I understand Dr. Wong, you've been working on some research to look at the needs for mentorship. For neurodivergent OTs and thinking ahead about what we might be able to start doing differently when it comes to OT education to make sure that we are supporting the success of our graduates and our occupational therapy practitioners that have disability experiences. And I'm wondering if you can speak to, from your perspective as an autistic ot, why it's important to have that representation and have those supports and how that can help us become better OTPs in the field if we're learning how to cultivate a diverse class of OTPs in our education environments to ensure that we have people with disabilities, perspectives of disabilities informing our curriculum, our science, our field. Is that something you've been looking at in your research?

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah. And I was at the leadership piece as well. Yeah. I think it's like my. My career in leadership, I think it's almost like I'm the epitome of somebody who go on a very high risk route in terms of really getting themselves out there. It's almost okay, I have a, I've achieved a therapy of success in my career, but on the other hand, I did not realize that I also put myself in a very risky spot sometimes because okay, if I were to lay low in my career, I think that is, like some of the stuff I was said may not have generate that much attention, but because of the fact that I'm in the limelight now, I'm in. In a fairly irregular basis over the last few years, I realized that any social plunders that I've made it magnified in a sense, so it's almost I think in the neurodivergent community, people talk about masking. I realized that because I'm so out there and the cost that I'm paying is that I'd amassed more and more because of the fact that it's okay, it's not only my offline conversations, but any online conversation that I make or any kind of social posts that I make is oh wow, that could bite me in the butt sometimes. And sometimes. Yeah, sorry. And for a neurodivergent individual, I find that is very difficult. I don't want my. Career to be like a cautionary tale, so to speak, in terms of okay, what you should do and versus what you shouldn't do, so to speak. But I think that my career has progressed to a point that is like, it has become like a cautionary tale in terms of especially when it comes to mentorship. I think in terms of I think it's really good idea. I think my career has become an example of okay, do you really want to invest not only your time, not only financial resources, but also social emotional leave? Would you want to invest that much to try to achieve the success that you want? I think my career has become like a discussion point because I think that every neurodivergent individual, how they might face their career aspirations, they might they might value stuff differently,

Josie Jarvis:

I think there's always, I think you're not I hope I, I can understand where having kind of the autistic perspective where things would be amplified in such a way I can feel a kinship to what you're saying cuz I'm very nervous about now that I'm putting things online and having some of these discussions in openly accessible spaces where these topics are triggering. It's hard for OTs to hear that our educational environments aren't always very accessible to people with disabilities. It's an ironic problem to have that it's not a comfortable thing to hear that and that can trigger some emotions. And that's a big thing that's happening at these conferences where we're learning about the impact of our discussion and our words and how it can impact different people and even how some of our silence can impact. The systems and in people sometimes it's the not saying things that also is risky and ca causes harm and it can be difficult to know what are the risks of having these conversations and what are the risks of not having these conversations because I don't think any of us are ever perfect, especially in those first couple of years of finding your identity as an ot. And I'm still in that box. I'm still in the first decade of my practice and I'm still trying to work out who am I as an OT and what is the work that I want to be my legacy. And there's so many things that I'm not super proud of. I worked in the schools for. Probably about five years. In and out from field work and whatnot. And even though I'm critical of fine mo motor only OT practice, I did that. I did fine motor only OT practice and that's not something I look back on as like a bright spot and my career, but it's something to learn from. And I think we all like when you're watching a movie it's boring if the main character's always perfect, like inviting people into the challenges and showing how we overcome them I think is also part of how we grow and build community. And what I would hope is that by I hope you feel that I'm a huge supporter of your work, Dr. Wong, and wanna see it grow. That sometimes it's also finding the right community and the right support to help you keep going and building your leadership identity in different contexts. But it definitely sounds like that is a huge pressure to represent a community, a marginalized community in this space. And that just shows to me that the more we can recruit other autistic OTs and neurodivergent OTs, that hopefully you don't feel so alone in having to represent so much of the perspective and that work. I think you deserve support and that's why it's so important to build community in this work.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it's definitely also maybe since we talk about being some, sometimes pioneers, hey, they make mistakes, right? Sometimes they make the mistakes can be lessons to learn from. Okay, you know what, maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe we should do that instead. I think definitely, I think it's like the representation piece. I think sometimes it's like in terms of social situations, I think I realize that the higher up I go, sometimes I deal with more imperfect social situations. It's are there times that I need to bite my tongue? Or there are times that okay, you know what, staying silence may not be a good thing. I need to speak out. It's definitely is very fine line in terms of these decisions and I feel that I'm still learning in terms of Went to say things and went not to say things. I think that is sometimes it's very tough because there's a, I think as my leadership journey has progressed, I realize that hey, there are situations where there is not a hundred percent correct answer. Sometimes you, oh, certainly sometimes you justly have to pick the least of ethos, so to speak. And sometimes it's okay, if the results tell you is Hey, you know what, maybe you didn't take the most optimal choice. And sometimes all you can do is you know what? Taking in stride and you just learned

Josie Jarvis:

that's happened with me. When I have, I guess in some ways I've maybe been a trailblazer for more holistic ot, which hasn't always made me. The most there's a lot of OTs that maybe don't like working with me because they might see it that I'm making their jobs so much harder. Because when you have an expanded lens of how you relate to your client and the ways that OT service delivery can take place, it can move from something where you know exactly what to expect each day, that you're always asking the same things all the time, and you have a template response where it feels like, oh, this is a 100% way correct way to provide OT services. If you start doing things a little bit differently where you start to get to know your client first and then develop the plan, it makes it a lot harder to set up your day for consistency. If you know that you're. Protocol and school-based practice is you do the very V M I or the Peabody and you see what statistical range their fine motor skills fall in, and that just makes an easy automatic decision on whether a student qualifies or not. That's Something you can build into a workflow. But if you go in and you work with a student and you then start first asking the questions about an occupational profile and understanding the different layers of context around the student and thinking about not just their immediate fine motor skills, but projecting what sort of supports will they need to support their success and school role performance over the next three years and thinking ahead, that does make the job a lot harder. So I will bring up things that will prompt backlash and push away. And often I've had to leave systems because they're not ready for change. But I have had the satisfaction now in my career of looking back at some of these places that I've left and seeing that the OTs that follow after me have picked up that momentum and they've been able to go farther than I was able to go to and being a champion for holistic practice. So like I've taken that rejection pretty hard of knowing oh, this school system isn't ready for what I have to offer. But at the same time, now that it's been a couple years, I can look back and see what the OTs that are currently doing there. And they're so much closer to providing holistic services in part because I think I brought up some of those challenging conversations. And I'm curious, bill, have you heard about this difference between empowered leadership versus tokenized leadership? Have you heard about that?

Dr. Bill Wong:

Little but very vague.

Josie Jarvis:

The way that I understand it is as we start to be more intentional about doing and maybe you can help define too for the audience, like what Jedi work means, and like the diversity, equity, and inclusion type work, as we intentionally try to include more diverse voices in leadership and research spaces and in our professions. One of the temptations that can happen is We can put people in a position where they could be easily tokenized, and that's where you want the image of a person from a diverse background, but you don't want the su substance of that input. And so there can be like a very toxic culture thing where voices from diverse communities will still end up being stifled, even though they're there to represent perspectives from different contexts. There will be pressure to stay silent about those concerns. And then it's not helping our organizations grow to be more diverse. And so what I've heard as an ally is we wanna com cultivate not tokenize leadership, but empowered leadership where we're actively recruiting. Members from diverse communities and we're actively working on being receptive to what they have to say and supportive of the possible backlash they could receive from advancing important messages in our profession. And so my hope is that if youve received some of that backlash from bringing in a different perspective, I hope that you don't internalize that always as there being something wrong with you. Cuz it could be that there's something in the system that is trying to resist really important and need and change so that we can become a more diverse and accommodating field to more than just one type of demographic. So it, it might not be always that you've said something wrong, it could be that you said something that the system wasn't excited to hear about, but you need support to also continue to bring light to those things. Cause I think a lot of people with disabilities, they need us to help bring some of their concerns into these spaces that they don't have access to yet.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Yeah, I definitely agree too. I think that's almost why, like when I heard about my story, think about my story as we're reflecting on it, of like definitely I think that out of the autistic OTs addition in United States or even students and even fact OT assistants, so to speak, I cannot forget our OT assistants is like amongst the autistic OT crowd, so to speak. Yeah. It's like I realized that out of those, I probably tried the most famous, I probably was the most daring, probably was the most adventurous, and because of that sometimes is like definitely I think I experienced some turbulence in my journey that I think other autistic folks in the community they might not have experienced because of the fact that's you know what it's like. They're laying low. So it was like, therefore it's hey, they probably are less likely to experience the turbulence.

Josie Jarvis:

Yeah. That's the thing about just thinking the metaphor of where trailblazing comes from. I actually, that was one of the more profound occupational experiences in my own life. I remember I was very depressed in my middle school years. My mom signed me up for kind of a summer camp that was doing trail work. So it was a volunteer camp where we could come, we, where we could help build out hiking trails in different parts. And I remember when I did that, it was so amazing because you would look at. The, you would work together on a team and while you were doing it, you just felt like you were digging in one place. It like didn't seem like it was going anywhere, but we really, we had a team of like a dozen people and you would just work like one inch at a time, but like clockwork, by the end of the day, we would've made like hundreds of feet of a trail that wasn't there before and it was so much harder for us to get through that, right? To build out and dig out the pass and clear the stones and patent it down and make sure it was safe. It was obviously harder for us cause we got, blackberry barbs digging into our arms, flies flying in our face and bees coming at us and all these things. But there was something so satisfying to know that we were part of making that natural world more accessible for the people that came after us. So I think that's in some ways it's built into being a trailblazer is, it's always harder for the first person that signs up for it. But the goal is almost so that it can be easier for those of us that follow and can see that example and be expired like for sure. Dr. Wong, just like the work that you've done to share your journey through social media and bring visibility as a clinician, as a neurodivergent ot, and as a researcher, which is something that I wanna do, applied occupational science research and I have very few role models to look out for. It feels especially folks from my generation that are out there doing research as a clinician. So even though it's challenging and you get backlash, I hope that you can receive like some of the gratitude of that example. It helps me feel like there's so much more possible for my career because I've seen you go out there and do it. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of this controversy has actually helped your career in some ways, cuz I feel like if you kept your head down, you wouldn't be as visible and we wouldn't have gained this example.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah. I think the Tableau turbulence I receive is almost like, in a sense, inform the one research that I'm doing, I think that we talked about earlier about what kind of research I'm doing. I think the research I'm doing is actually one of ones that we just finished gathering the data. We just analyzed the data and it's hopefully it's gonna be published within the next year or two. It's going to be about the life experiences of autistic students and new grads. I think that sort of it's reflective, like very similar to not only what experienced as a student, but also what I experience right now as a practitioner, as a leader of profess. I think it really reflects that because I realized that Hey, you know what? Because I think one of the findings to be found is about the same sense of belonging piece. And I realized that, I was like, wow, it's actually not very strong. And I realized that in terms of leadership, I think I, I'm beginning to find similar things as well in terms of leadership. Yeah, the people from diverse backgrounds in the field, but I realize that like among the neuro divergent folks, it's like at least it's not as visible, so to speak. So it's almost okay, I sometimes I really wish that Hey, you know what? I have a mentor to say, Hey, you know what? These are the things that you should look out for because some of the ways that might, you might work for you as an ordinary clinician, it will not fly when you are a leader. Sometimes it's I wish I had that guidance early on.

Josie Jarvis:

And, I think that a lot of these systems are actively changing too. So like some of the ways that are the right way to do it before or in this context, that might change too. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this is, we're learning as we're growing together, especially amid, the impacts of the pandemic. I'm trying to challenge some of the associations I'm involved in to look at, you know how we talk about, in my conversation with Mike s on this podcast, we talked about not losing connection to the impact that telehealth can have just because the pandemic has evolved into being less restrictive. Now there's still so many communities that could be better serviced in a telehealth model at certain times. And when I think about working with people with diverse disability experiences, I like to have as many tools in my toolkit as possible, right? Like when I work in post-acute care, which Dr. Wong, I know that's something we have in common. I know you're starting a home health journey and were previously working in skilled nursing. Past couple years I've been working in acute care and now I'm doing skilled nursing. And similar to you, I'm going into more PRN so I can make more space for these leadership projects. But in post-acute care like I have a variety of different cognitive assessments I use because often of folks I work with, they might have a stroke, so they don't have use of both hands. So I can't, like sometimes if you're dominant hand is stroke affected, it's not really fair to judge how you're drying a clock with your non-dominant hand. Or if you are blind, I need to use the mocha blind because the mocha blind is the only one that's set for low vision. I think that like similar to why we need to keep telehealth on the table for the clients, that accessible way to get the insight of an occupational therapy practitioner. I think our leadership associations, I want them to see that virtual events are a great medium to help translate our knowledge. In addition to in-person conferences and as an adjunctive, because there's just so many communities that are not gonna have access to these inbuilt experiences, which I'm excited to partner with you in innovating and demonstrating, especially how you've used the TEDx system as a way to make OT knowledge and some of your leadership as an autistic OT accessible to people not only on the front lines and in the field, but the TED system that gets viewership from all over the world to amplify these voices and getting out in other spaces. Kind of like you said, you got connected to OT through your mom networking in the community. And that, I think we gotta be thinking about that is how are we gonna recruit. Diverse OTPs from different disability experiences. We almost gotta start in the schools and we gotta start by thinking ahead about how we're recruiting students with disabilities and helping to support them to be set up for success in a career as an O T A or as a master's level OT, or a doctorate level ot. We have to start really e early and getting these supports in place if we want our field to gain and grow from the lived experience expertise of the disability clients that we serve. And I think we gotta think about admissions when it comes to that too. If you majority of people that will have Lived experience receiving OT services are gonna be often clients with fine motor and writing challenges. So if we make fine motor and writing challenges, a very high requirement to access master's or associates level OT education or doctorate level education, we might be pre-filtering out all of those disability communities that could help inform and evolve our practice as a service user.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah, I agree with that too. I think same thing with autism is the social communication skills. So it's like that kind of oh, reading social skills, reading social cues, social communication, online and offline. Sometimes like those little things is it is almost like a, it is almost like my experience is in a sense, it's on one hand it's okay, help brings a lot of visibility, but her hand is okay, the odd times that it make a social blunder, that's okay, you know what? It's almost like signaling that's okay. It's like this, the silence of the voice, because Hey, you know what? Every human, they have their fears, yeah. So I'm like, yeah. So it's it is almost like when these kind of incidents happen, it's okay, what's the fine line here? In terms of it's almost like thinking about the leadership environment. It's always okay, you know what? It's like I get it, hey, when you are representing known yourself, but also professional association, then it's like, Hey, you know what? To some extent it's Hey, the social standards gonna be raised a little bit because the stakes are higher. But at the same time, it is you don't wanna raise too high in terms of Hey, you know what? It's like maybe a little bit more leeway, a little more grace in terms of, Hey, you know what, maybe this person is speaking their mind and gotta verify what they really mean first. Sometimes just little things like that. Sometimes it's I think it's very important,

Josie Jarvis:

you kinda need an outlet, and I think that's one of the things I like about the potential of informal publishing is so many of these voices we just really haven't even heard to respond to until a lot of autistic voices starting being able to express themselves through things like YouTube and blogs and social media. If these present in the academy or in our institutions, they often start. Through the vehicle of informal publishing, which we then have tools as researchers that we can use to analyze, assess this data and try to get to a place where we're listening to these communities to develop approaches that can really be meaningful. And part of that is finding a way as OTPs. So you try to be emotionally regulated to a point where we're open to listening to these marginalized voices and knowing that it's at that point when we're trying to be of service to a community or we're trying to recruit a more diverse demographic. We need to put our own interests and some of our own emotional experiences aside, at least for the moment, and try to be present to listen to how our services might not be best serving the community, or how our educational environments might not be designed to support the success of our students, which I think goes back to being self-reflective and thinking about what our ultimate goals are. We have a lot of institutions now that do have goals around diversity education and no diversity, equity and inclusion outcomes. However, we're still reproducing systemic patterns that we know are adverse to those outcomes. Like you're saying, like you've met a lot of autistic OTs or autistic students that ended up leaving the academy cuz they were struggling so much. And I would hate for some of that to turn into internalized depression when really they're trying to get their needs met and able as systems. Dr. Wong, do you feel comfortable talking a little bit for those that are listening about what Ableism is? I'm sure that you've come across that in your scholarship so far.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah. So let me go back to the sco, the partnership. I think it also includes research as well, because I think that it is also important too. So I know that we talk about visibility in terms of me getting out there. I think that because I'm so publicly visible, so I, and then I think that over time, people have seen that actually I'm very capable to do research work, especially in terms of my competence in terms of designing I guess it's like, That actually matches the needs of the autistic community. I think that this is the fact that it's I think that it's important for people with disabilities, especially our own, to be visible because like I know that there's a huge movement in terms of getting more people from various ESE communities to get involved in research. So then's If these people are in our field, I think they need to be equipped with the right tools. No, mentorship in terms right tools, and also like opportunities to actually to make their presence known to the researchers out there. That's why I'm think thinking is like, Hey, you know what? Because it seems at least in the current configuration, it's Hey, if you want to connect with researchers in the field, the best way to get them in a one setting is actually going to a conference, which actually might not be very accessible for some folks, especially folks with sensory moderation difficulties. Actually me, social communication difficulties too.

Josie Jarvis:

Maybe that's something if you're comfortable Dr. Wong, like that's something maybe we can talk a little bit about. So I have outreach. This podcast is coming together because I am trying to put a panel together to have a really comprehensive discussion about how OTs and to a certain extent, potentially working with behavior technicians and applied behavior analysis professions to look at how are we gonna support neurodivergent adults to age in place in the community. Thinking down the line, cause I've been noticing in my cultural context, we don't have much infrastructure. In my state of Washington to support neurodivergent adults that are having challenges adapting to community-based living. And unfortunately in the hospital systems that I've worked in and just in my community in general, have been aware of several tragedies involving, especially autistic adults that are going through mental health crisis, around self injuries, behavior or aggression. That's led to involvement of legal system and possibly, displacement away from homes, which is obviously traumatizing for any human, but especially autistic adults really need to be around their supporting communities and Benefit more from a holistic, supportive environment than a punitive environment. That's something I've been hearing a lot from the autistic community over the years is how much of the external environment can be very like compliance heavy or punishing to different modes of expression, which leads to what you talked about, which is like masking, right? Which is where you learn to repress some of your natural ways of expressing yourself or engaging socially to match the expectations of people that don't have neurodivergence. So there's even been some dialogue that I've heard about. It's not always that people with neurodivergence have, quote unquote bad social skills. It's also that folks without neurodivergence aren't learning how to engage in how to communicate with neurodivergent people too. Cuz it really, communication is a two-way street. Building community takes accommodation and sacrifice of diverse voices, and so we all have to learn and it's not really fair to put the full burden onto the marginalized community. In doing that work, which we sometimes do in our therapy, is we put the burden of learning social skills often on children that are neuro divergent, rather than also encouraging the adults in that system to learn how to accommodate different. And to think and be empathic to the ways different brains might go through different challenges and also different body types. So the disability movement isn't just, it's very inclusive to lots of different experiences of navigating life with different have you been engaging with that perspective at all, bill, of noticing that there might be some times where also the outside system isn't learning to accommodate how you like to communicate as well?

Dr. Bill Wong:

I find that it's all about earlier questioning about as about ableism. I find that sometimes as I think sometimes especially I guess is like I quote professionalism sometimes is like in a sense, sometimes it is definitely a little bit. A OS too. And of course I also find that as I guess it's like the, in terms of social communications, in terms of like online or offline, sometimes it's yeah, as I mentioned before, sometimes it's like being a leader in the profession. Sometimes it's like fair or not. It's like you got held at a very, at a much higher standard socially speaking. And sometimes that is getting in the way in terms of how I really want to express myself. Yeah. And sometimes it's you know what, sometimes it's these instances like, okay, I try to mask a little bit and then all of a sudden I was like, oh, you shouldn't have said you shouldn't, you sh you shouldn't have said what you just said. That kind of thing. Or like sometimes I was like, what did I do wrong? Now,

Josie Jarvis:

I think, I imagine that a lot of us might feel that way too. That's been what's been coming up about some of these conferences too, right? Where I think all OT leaders are probably aware that they could say a misstep. I've been worried about this with this podcast cuz I think some of the conversations I want to bring to light. I'm very aware that I might start getting bullied online for maybe being an a b, A apologist because I've been in certain situations where there just isn't a support infrastructure in my community and I'm very much, I'm a traditionalist in the disability rights movement where. I worry about the harms of folks being institutionalized long term and I worry about folks turning up in more imp prison systems or in an institutional environment. And I wanna enable community-based options as much as possible. And I know that lately on the social media discourse, there's been much more of a call between the associations and different parts of the autism self-advocacy movement to ask other clinicians to distance themselves from a b a providers. And I know that there's a lot of OTs that will decide to retreat from. Offering services in context that are more driven by an a, b, A or behavioral model. And while everyone, everybody's free to make any choice that they want to for sure in how they decide to conduct boundaries around their practice. But speaking from my own perspective and the clients that I've worked with that have also received a v a services, I just found that if I was able to communicate with them and coordinate and offer more holistic supports where like it was on me to advocate for the sensory needs and to assess the more subjective components and the holistic components of emotional regulation. And I didn't expect that always from a b a, but that was something I could offer to provide more holistic supports. And I would fear for my clients only receiving like one therapeutic intervention. And so that, I guess it wasn't, it hasn't been my personal choice. To walk away fully from my clients that received a b a services. And I've learned a lot about the regulatory structures around a b a that makes me very nervous about disbanding them because I've seen a lot of the, kind of the horror shows that when those laws aren't followed, that I don't want those laws to ever disappear cuz I've seen how necessary they are, basically. Anyway, I'm just telling you, I'm worried about being like canceled or like the backlash that I get. And at the same time, I feel rooted in my purpose of wanting to be an allyship in solidarity with these communities. And I want to find whoever we're gonna collaborate with to build infrastructure for young adults, middle aged adults and older adults with neurodivergence and autism. I think they're gonna need a specialized type of service and care delivery in the community. And I don't think we can do it alone. I think we have to build community partnerships, and I'm almost willing to collaborate with anybody that wants to be involved in figuring out how we're gonna support neurodivergent adults to age in place with some quality of life.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with that statement. I think that when I do some of my work, when I mentor autistic OT students about their professional development, I think that quality of life is definitely an issue that has come up often, so not only like with their experiences in the school or field work, sometimes it's the sense of belonging piece that we talked about earlier in the profession. I think it's important that we really address that sometimes because like I think sometimes I think some, I know that there are some people who talk to me about their experiences, so okay, since you're autistic, so you are probably one of the few people in O OT that I really feel safe to talk about certain things because you probably understand what I'm going through better than my neurotypical

Josie Jarvis:

counterparts. Yeah. Do you feel like sometimes folks that don't have neurodivergence can sometimes shut down the insights and perspectives from neurodivergent OTs? Like I know that sometimes that's a term called like microaggressions or like passive aggression where and I think that can be so heartbreaking if you hear somebody saying, yes, I'm open to these perspectives in one sentence, but then in the next way they're sending cues that they're actually not open to talking about those things or can be punishing or it's like called backlash. What are some things that make you feel safe, sharing your perspective, that us that are wanting to be an allyship with neurodivergent OTs that we can start to work on that will help people feel a sense of belonging in collaborating and communicating with us.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Honestly, I think that's the interesting part that we find in the research that I'm like, I know it's not published yet, but like we find is come to our professional associations to develop specific programs to like the, I know the mentorship programs, some of the states that have more generalized programs to help practitioners and students to get to the next level. But then it's for the neurodivergent population, it seems like there could be some other things that could be addressed. Like for example, like what we so called the hidden curriculum, it's yeah. So sometimes it's oh, what's the hidden curriculum in leadership? There are things that, you know what it's like, you definitely don't want to Experiencing the hard way because hey, you know what, you could deal with a lot of headaches later on as a repercussion.

Josie Jarvis:

I When you say hidden curriculum, is that kind of Oh, the unspoken rules? Yeah. Correct. I, that's, so I was, I went through a testing journey over the last couple years to figure out if I had autism or not, because a lot of people have asked if I have autism over the years. I think because of how I present verbally and I don't always pick up on social cues, and I, that's how I discovered that I have a likely have a neurotype of the nonverbal learning disability, which I actually had some struggles with. Some members of the community of like autism self-advocates, because I had struggled to advocate for my more marginal neurodivergence because like kind of the function of non-verbal learning disability is that your brain can't process facial expressions and non-verbal data. It's a visual spatial processing deficit. Whereas often with autism it tends to be that many autistics have visual spatial strengths and that actually can enable a mechanism of masking. And with me having nonverbal learning disability, if I can't read if I can't read nonverbal facial expressions and things like that, it makes me neurologically incapable of masking. And that's why a lot of people will. Sight that I have always very exaggerated facial expressions, and I use my hands a lot because I never really learned how to police them because I can't. So I have, I may be more likely to make those social blunders in some ways than even some of my autistic counterparts because I don't know how to hold back and repress these things, which means I upset a lot of people and I don't know why, but something that nonverbal learning disability has is taking language very literally. And I connect with a lot of autistic folks on that. And I still run into that issue in the OT community because like you're saying, bill, there's so many unspoken words and if you don't speak them and they're not transparent, how, I think it's an occupational justice issue that you can't hold people accountable to rules. Without expressing and being clear what they are or supporting people to learn how to do them. I think that's why I'm really like, I have some anger with A O T A, having our practice framework behind a paywall because how can we expect OTPs in the field to uphold these rules if they don't have access to them and they don't know what they are, and we haven't created content and openings to have them even discover what it is and what it means, which is why I'm doing this podcast because at least some of these conversations might be accessible outside of the academy.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Yeah, I agree with that. I think that for sure, it's like the way how we express ourselves sometimes, it's okay, you know what it's like maybe for people who are not involved in our professional associations, so ho-hum. Because people see that all the time on social media, but then it's if you are in a position of leadership, there's different ballgames oh, is that, those things? You get euthanized and that's definitely

Josie Jarvis:

not fun sometimes. No. What I've noticed, I wonder if you've noticed this bill, and I'm sorry if I'm cutting off your trajectory. I've noticed that now that I'm getting back involved with associations because I took a break, I think you're maybe just now starting to take a break from association involvement. Even me taking a break isn't much of a break, but I'm getting back involved with my state association again, and to a certain extent, A O T A I took a long break from A O T A because I felt I couldn't quite figure out the culture of A O T A was a very different leadership culture than my experiences in undergrad. So I went to a very non-traditional, a hippie school for my undergrad. And so everything was very collaborative and non-hierarchical and coalition based. And we were very nervous about doing anything hierarchical. So when I got involved at A O T A, I was in a culture shock about just how different the dialogue was. And it felt like walking on eggshells initially. When I did the emerging leader development program, like it, it felt like there was an unspoken hierarchy and I didn't know how I was supposed to learn what it was really And I can see where that environment, not only is it not the most compatible for my neurodivergence, but it would be for most people with disability experiences that usually get left out of conventional education, right? If you're in special education or inclusive education, you don't often get taught about government politics, leadership stuff at the same level. I don't think that curriculum gets very much included in most special education spaces. And if not, that might be a good thing for us to look at. Maybe contributing as o OTPs in the field is helping to teach partner with special educators to develop more curriculum about disability history and policy and how important it is for people with disabilities to be involved in shaping our policies and leadership environments.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think I agree with the extra comments, definitely what my share of extra shells lately. For sure. It's stuff only, I think in retrospect, I think it's if I knew that, knew some of the things, I was like, that's really very high cost that I'd pay. I realized that. It's almost like I've had a recent compensation with myself. It's Hey, you know what it's like, is it really worth paying The price to continue to pay that price is like I'm starting to have some doubts about it, because that's a lot of troubles I have to go through just to try to achieve what I wanna achieve.

Josie Jarvis:

That may be a really good grounds on why I think allyship is so important in supportive communities because like I think it would be heartbreaking to see, if you got to a point of it's good to take breaks, right? It's good to have occupational balance breaks, but I'm still hopeful to continue partnering with you as your career progresses to help see your legacy come to fruition and to be that leader. And so if you're going through phases of feeling more discouraged or like maybe you took a hit in saying something that was unwelcome at, a prominent conference, hopefully you have a community you can come back to, to get restored and feel supported and know that we're still gonna be supporting your success even if you upset, a couple people in a different part. I think this is part of how we change systems, is we have to be aware. In advance that we're gonna get pushback, that we're gonna get, responses of controversy. Like we've been seeing that with the transgender bills, right? We had a huge wave of cultural literacy around gender expansiveness over the past decade, and that's been really. Triggering and destabilizing for folks too that aren't used to seeing gender in a different way. And so that's prompted a backlash of all this legislation across all the states. But at the same time, this is what's driving social change and dialogue and discourse, and it's gonna be closer to actually coming to some long-term solutions. If you think about the first waves of the disability rights movement, they weren't comfortable. It was like blazing those trails. People with disabilities literally put their lives on the line so that we could have policies for like special education and coverage for health needs, right? Those first waves are always gonna be controversial. They're always gonna get pushback. So we have to think about how we support each other to continue in this work so that the disability rights movement continues to advance now that it's our generation's turn to be in the driving seat.

Dr. Bill Wong:

That's true. That's true. And hopefully that it can get, we can get more people involved in a variety of fronts, I think.

Josie Jarvis:

So you don't feel so alone. I think that's a, an occupational being thing. I don't think it, it always feels com uncomfortable if you're doing things in isolation or we all fear being ostracized. And so I think the answer to that can be building community and finding allyship and partnerships, which I've honestly had to do outside of the OT community at times. I think you've done something similar too, we were talking about yesterday, about how if you build a network with interdisciplinary partnerships and other industry sectors, if you put yourself out there in spaces where OT isn't yet, you might find unlikely friends. Like I get along with some SLPs and PTs better than some of the OTs in my community, cuz we just see eye to eye on what the impact of the services we have that we wanna have. You might find the people that you really connect with might be outside of your immediate community.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Have you found that? Yeah, actually I agree with that sentiment. Sometimes I think that, I think it's funny that I talk about my TEDx work ironically. It's almost I think it's once I got involved, I would say more seriously since Covid, I think I began to realize that Hey, you know what? I think someone in my ideas are a little bit ahead of our time in terms of the OT profession, but definitely not. So they're actually in trend with that crowd. And I realized that I find myself more, I identify with innovate people who are innovative and really are pushing pursuit for change, even though they're from different sectors of life. I think that's, Me being able to connect with the TEDx organizing community that is is a blessing is almost like I had this Hey, you know what? There's a second community out there. I don't have to really rely on my OT community that much. In terms of my professional success, because I realized that it's like, Hey, you know what? I have already been successful in another front. It's almost it's almost like now it's almost a point that's Hey, you know what? Maybe that it's is the next chapter of my journey. It is like, Hey, you know what? I know some people in OT might be very upset. It's Hey, you know what? It's like, why are you not as out there anymore in the OT space? I said part of it is that, hey, you know what? I think I find a better crowd that suits me better. It is like not, I don't, is that, it's not that I stop contributing from a scholar level, but in terms of the prominence level, I think that is, it is hey, it is almost like a critical juncture of my journey. It's Hey, you know what? Maybe I need to turn a page. Maybe just like you said, but you did in the school system, right? Maybe after you left and it's like there other people pick up, pick off, pick up

Josie Jarvis:

where you left off. Yeah. There's a trail. There's a trail now, and sometimes the thing that you bring up, it's controversial the first time you hear it, but when you keep hearing it, month by month and year by year, your nervous system starts to acclimate to, oh, maybe it is. Maybe, like maybe people with disabilities do have rights. Maybe they do deserve to have access to this thing. It's hard when you first hear it. But if you keep hearing it, you start to get adapted to it. And like that's one of the things like it might be controversial for people to learn about how holistic OT actually is. Like it might be disruptive to think, oh, did you know, we don't only focus on ADLs and we don't only focus on my motor skills. Like I got a little bit of backlash recently in skilled nursing and I can tell that the physical therapist that I was working with what do I wanna say? So going back for my post-professional doctorate, which I think you also did, right? Correct. You also went back. Okay, cool. I feel definitely a kinship to the post-professional doctorate community that those of us are like Yeah. Wanting to learn a little bit more. I the virtue of when you do a post-professional doctorate is while you're at work. At least I got to do it online. So while I was at work, the research I was doing to help me in school was naturally related to what I was doing in the field. So at that time I was doing a lot about OTs role in like grief and end of life and the grief of just losing valued occupations, which is huge with the elder population. Cuz as you have health effects you just can't participate in occupations in the same way. And there's a grief process with that. Like having to adapt the occupations that you did before brings up a lot of emotions and a grief process. And the physical therapist overheard me talking about grief and I think was very disrupted by that because in her mind that didn't fit the box that OT was put in. And at the same time I had to realize while. With no disrespect to physical therapists, they're not in the most informed position to know what's covered in OT education. And I like, I get a little bit frustrated by PTs constantly telling me what my role is when they're not the one that went through and invested as much as I have in OT education to know what's in our scope of practice. And I had to set a boundary there. But that's one example where the first time that PT hears me talking about the grief of loss of occupations, they might be dysregulated and thinking I'm doing out outside of my scope, but the more that they then can see research about it, YouTube videos about it, other OTs doing it over time, they're not gonna have that same. Disrupted reaction because it will become part of what they know OTs to do and to offer. So like when we're still like getting out of our cocoon as OTPs and offering the services that were meant to offer, we're gonna upset some people just because it's not what they expected.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Oh yeah. I think agreed. In terms of the new divergent viewpoint as well, I think that maybe I'm very few people in OT who are leaders who are also neurodivergent, that are very out there, so it's almost like they don't really know how to handle me as thought leader in your passion, so to speak. So definitely there are things like, Hey, what do you, why do you do that? And then sometimes it's Hey, you know what? Sometimes I have it is like, Hey, I not be in cocoon. I was like, Hey, I try to be perfect social skills every time. There's just no way Sometimes. Sometimes it's Hey, I need to speak my mind. And sometimes if I speak my mind on social media, that's my genuine feelings. I think it definitely takes some time for people to get used to.

Josie Jarvis:

I feel that too. I even, I lost some friends last week cuz I was having an emotionally dysregulated time, but I also felt like I was communicating that I needed some space to express. And I guess at that time I like wasn't open to requests of how I could change my words because I really needed a way to express myself, which was like, Look, this is the one part where I'm not expressing anyone except myself. Like I get it when I'm representing other organizations and other things. And that's why this podcast has a disclaimer that the guests on it are just respect, just representing themselves and their own perspectives. We're not representing any associations or organizations. All of our viewpoints are just our own, and they're subject to evolve and change over time. And this might be a good like point too, bill, if you're willing to speak to you about part of when you're part of a marginalized group like the autistic community or like me with a neuro diver, like the nonverbal neuro nonverbal learning disability, and even just the disability rights movement in general. Sometimes there's this temptation to lump everyone together and pretend that these communities all have the same wishes, perspectives, desires, and wants. I think the autistic community is often in that box where the autistic community gets represented as if it's a model monolith and everybody wants the exact same thing. And once you're in it, you know that there's actually a lot of different perspectives within the autistic community and a lot of different perspec perspectives. There's a lot of intergenerational differences, and I can imagine that is a very challenging position to be in, to represent a community that's so diverse. But even sometimes there's forces within the community that want to speak on behalf of all autistic voices. And I'm curious if you, how, what's your relationship to that? Especially as a researcher, what do you think, what types of diligence do we need to take in representing a community like the autistic community while acknowledging that it is gonna have diverse perspectives within it.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Good question. I think within the autistic community, sometimes I find myself being the poster child of this population because of what I'm able to accomplish, cause sometimes it's like unintentionally I set a super high bar for these people. Hey, bill can do this. Why can't you do it too? That kind of thing. So it's I think the, yeah, so I think for me, I guess it's like I know that sort of every time I got to meet somebody new in OT who's an autistic person, I think it is I sort have to remind myself to stay grounded in terms of Hey, you know what? I have to meet them where they're at and I have to, in my back of my mind, I also have to remind myself like, Hey, you know what? Their goals might not be the same as my goals. I have to remind myself that too. So I think that when I meet these people, I think my objective when I first tell them, when I first meet them, as I'm not trying to affect you unless the environment that you really want to put yourself in might be quite some quote unquote adaptation to the environment. Because maybe it is hey, through conversation we realize that hey, there's a big gap between where they're at now versus where they want to be. Then it's okay, we need to come up with a solution to bridge the gap, so to speak.

Josie Jarvis:

Yeah. Now I think I like that too in the focus on the environment and I wanna help be a ba an ambassador of kind of integrating parts of the neurodiversity movement and neurodivergence and having that hopefully find somewhat of a home in the broader disability justice movement. Because I think when different dis disabled identities are competing with each other over resources, it can make the movement not as strong as it could be if we connect and build partnerships where we're advocating together for each other. Like for example, I think sometimes you can have the mental health and s satanism community can be at odds with the physical disability community because sometimes people with physical disabilities have a easier and smoother time accessing resources. And so it can be perceived that somehow physical disabilities are more important and it's important not to project that onto these disability communities when it's a systemic problem. Because the truth is we have a system that prioritizes physical illness over mental illness, and if we actually join together and acknowledge that people with physical disabilities also have mental health needs that are currently being unmet by the same system, now our movement is bigger and stronger together, versus dividing these communities and making them fight over scraps because that's how the insurance companies win and that's how the systems win, is they keep us divided instead of united. In understanding and leading to things that could be more of like a universal design approach or a social model of disability. And in my mind, we always have to integrate a social model of disability with a healthcare model of disability because we have people with acute unstable health needs that need to be supported in a social context. That's one of the things I love about occupational science is we're allowed to have these lenses inform our decision making and our research so that we can find solutions that don't create, inadvertently create occupational justice issues for other communities, which sometimes I fear about if we only made, like for example I would be curious what your perspective on this Dr. Wong I worked for at a school that was bi autistics for autistics with an all autistic kind of charter school. And unfortunately I observed some things that were somewhat worrisome to me about the long-term wellbeing of particularly the girls that were appearing to be biologically female in that space that were experiencing a lot of harassment. And I think by virtue of their educators not always picking up on that level of social skill or where there could be harm taking place, it wasn't as responded to. And I was also worried about, being socially isolated after leaving that community. And maybe I am regressive, but I would still feel like I'm a big champ. I would love inclusive educational experiences where we get more gen ed and special ed integrated interacting. And I think it's good for autistics to also be around other disability experiences as well. What I'm curious your perspective on that, you can speak as your own individual or if you wanna cite any other research you're involved in that front. And I'm acknowledging that you just have to represent your own perspective here, so hopefully you don't feel too pressured.

Dr. Bill Wong:

Yeah, I think it's it's good that we definitely should be, I think it was like exposed to different disabilities for sure. I think I remember my time during OT school definitely, I definitely had encountered a few classmates, like I think one of them had a d one of them had another learning disability. I think. Yeah, just at least couple of things like that, and then of course over the course of my career got to meet other OTs who are racial impaired with CP and other kind of conditions. I think that has really helped me to broaden my horizons as an ot.

Josie Jarvis:

Yeah, I love that. I think it's helpful for us to have that lens in research and interventions like. Sometimes in OT, we think about, oh, I work with people with autism, or I work with people with cp. And what I love about occupational science is it puts me more in a position of saying I work with occupational beings. And like when I was working with total hip and knee and shoulder replacements, I ended up working with people with cerebral palsy, autism, bipolar prosthetics that got just typical hip replacements, right? And so as an ot, even if I'm not working in pediatrics or working with autism, it's helpful to learn about these communities and to have that as part of your toolkit as an O T P, because you're likely gonna end up working with transgender clients, autistic clients, people with physical disabilities in any of the settings you're working in. Just by virtue of that, you're serving humans. You're sur serving occupational wellbeings, and we really have to know. Tools to understand these perspectives that are very difficult, different than our own, and we need to learn to emotionally regulate when they trigger us so that we can still be putting our clients first and prioritizing their long-term wellbeing.

Dr. Bill Wong:

True. I think the similar thing probably is also our leadership part too, is you know what, it's hey, leadership in OT is not very cookie cutter. Sometimes you have a diverse mix of characters. I think that hopefully my presence in the OT leadership space will presented learning experience in terms of okay, what did the profession do well in terms of supporting my leadership journey and what. Do the profession need to do? What could we reflect and learn about? Yeah. To improve the experience. And especially in the climate of Jedi, right? So it's like how, if we talking about how we recruit not only people from, not only in terms of recruiting people from diverse backgrounds into our programs, but we also want to recruit people from different backgrounds to get involved as well. So if the environment itself is very suppressive, then it's hey, it's almost it's like you're really not matching what you're saying here

Hello everyone. And thank you so much for participating in this discussion so far. At this point in the interview, bill long, and I ran into some tech issues. And it is actually a natural pivot point. So I'm hoping that you will join us for part two of this discussion. As we continue to explore what it looks like to start supporting diverse voices and OT leadership on building a trailblazing capacity and really looking at what it means to be an allyship, to realize vision 20, 25 and to start bracing ourselves, to have some Challenging conversation about how our current leadership structures. Might not always be built to optimally support the access participation, inclusion and occupational well-being of. For folks from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and hopefully this shows the value that can be gained from really Encouraging OTPs from diverse backgrounds. To be open and sharing their perspectives and sharing their journey, how we need representation and role models and the willingness to be open to having challenging conversations, to continue advancing our field. Hopefully this podcast will be the site of one of those spaces that we can have dialogue just like this. And find and build new ways to support each other in our growth. So please look out for our next upcoming episode with bill Wong. As well as several others that are going to be lined up in a series. Of looking at what it can. Different perspectives of what it looks like to shift. From more of an individual wise lens and some of our traditional settings to having more of a long-term lens about the contextual needs of our clients over the lifespan and how our, our interventions at transactionally support or impede those occupational outcomes for our clients. Long-term and how listening to diverse voices can allow us to increase our reflection in our agency. To create new paths for the clients that we support. And for those with disability experience within our own ranks, such as Dr. Will Wong and more and more realizing how much of us may have hidden neuro divergences, such as I explored here about late diagnosed nonverbal learning disability. Really if you really think about it, you've probably had experiences of occupational disruption in your own life that are relevant to contributing to how we can advance. The quality of our services in our field. So I'll challenge you to maybe even include yourself in that. If you reflect a little bit about your experiences, you might be surprised. How these different intersections might be impacting your own. Quality of life as an occupational being as well. And think about. Not only how we'd like to be treated. But listening to others and how we can accommodate and building community together. Thank you so much for joining this conversation so far. And please give us Follow on the next release and let bill Wong what you think of. This. Sharing in the podcast in this way. Maybe show some support and encouragement for being open, to have some challenging conversations in these spaces where it's not always easy. Thank you so much. And I hope everybody is having as amazing of a day as possible. And maybe think right now, what you can do to support your occupational well-being in this moment and give that gift to yourself. Thanks.