Hi All! I am interested in hearing what ways people have found helpful to build connections, organize, and advocate among OT practitioners, not necessarily just for OT as a profession, but even for issues within our profession or in your local areas? What have been helpful tools to connect with each other and share ideas or build each other up?
I think about this ALL the time since I think of our membership as a community, but also because as I talk to people from all kinds of practice areas, I hear the same desire:
To be connected with clinicians doing similar work.
I also live in a small town, where there is a super strong sense of community. 
One simple thing that drives community, is simply routine connection. Whether you connect daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly, I feel like if connecting feels routine then it really gives me a sense that those people are part of my community.
I know for myself personally I have been able to connect with folks through social media platforms such as instagram and even AOTA communities of practice. For example, I am very interested in the autistic population particularly as it relates to transitioning to adulthood. I came across a woman’s page on instagram that caters to that particularly patient population. Now, I am a volunteer in the club she is co-director of and it has been a lovely experience thus far.
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I mentioned this in another post, but the AOTA Entrepreneurship webinars last fall/winter were so valuable to me for many reasons. But relevant to this was the chance to connect with other OTs pursuing entrepreneurship.
This is such a great question @ryan_lavalley because I think my experience work-wise has typically been to work in my own “silo” and be so maxed out with my own job that I don’t have time to “look outside”. That’s actually one thing I’m really excited about in pursuing entrepreneurship/community-based work: the time and intention to help make connections in my community, bringing together people from different fields or work settings around a common purpose.
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@sarah73 Did you get to interact with the other participants in the webinars? I need to ask Alyson about the format! I love that it was so helpful for you! I know they had great presenters!
Yes! Thanks to the lovely zoom chat feature, people would both ask questions to the presenters and share their advice with other participants.