Happy Black History Month! In honor of this celebration, In the Now is drawing attention to the National Black Occupational Therapy Caucus (NBOTC). The NBOTC advocates for Black occupational therapy practitioners and students and seeks to promote their contributions to the public. 

The founding of this organization started in 1974 at the AOTA Annual Conference and was created due to issues in employment, isolation, and discrimination among Black occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs). During the AOTA conference, several Black OTPs discussed starting an organization of their own to tackle these issues among the community. Several practitioners and students passed out notes to Black attendees inviting them to meet in the conference hotel lobby. The turnout was so big that the small lobby was not able to hold them all and the meeting had to be moved somewhere else. From that first meeting, the students and practitioners agreed to meet during the next AOTA conference to offer support and network with each other. 

Among the ten founders of the NBOTC are Jerry Bentley, Yvonne Flowers, Dr. Cynthia Hughes Harris, Wimberly Edwards, Agatha Jackson, Dr. Lela Llorens, Javan Walker, Willian Lofton, Joyce Lane, Bobbie Smith. Several of these founders have ties to Illinois! 

- Woman with short gray hair wearing a dark green jacket smiling.

Recently, I had the chance to share an interview with Susan Cahill, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, Director of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) with AOTA. I hope you enjoy this interview where I ask her questions about work, organization involvement, and FAOTA!

Hello everyone! My name is Samantha Tupas. I am a first-year occupational therapy doctorate student at Midwestern University at Downers Grove. I am the new blog coordinator for In the Now and I am beyond excited to start this new position! If someone told me a couple of years ago that I would be volunteering with ILOTA and writing for their blog, I wouldn’t have believed it! But here I am now, ready to create a space for sharing the stories of not just OT practitioners but also OT and OTA students. My peers at Midwestern University have continued to inspire me to write about a variety of topics. I plan on sharing stories about neurodiversity, spirituality in OT, and work-life balance. It will be tough filling in for the previous blog coordinators, but it is my hope that this blog can be a place that inspires others to discover new things about occupational therapy.

I myself, became interested in occupational therapy when I took a chemistry class in high school and realized that pharmacy was not for me. But from that experience, I explored other fields of healthcare from surgery to biomedical engineering. Ultimately, what brought me to this profession is the mix of art and science that represents many of the interests that I have in life. I love learning about theories and conditions, but in my free time, I pick up a piece of paper and a pen and draw to my heart’s content.

That being said, I would like to publish my very first blog post with a quote that motivates me to this day. It got me through undergraduate finals, through OT school applications, and I hope that it inspires others to keep going even when there is a voice inside of you that says “no you can’t.”

If you would like to view to view earlier In The Now Blog posts, from February 2020 through November 2021, please click on the image below to be linked to the previous Blog platform on WordPress. Thank you!