Student News Fall 2021
@WORK at Work
by Karen Joudrey
Distributed widely by EHS & Organizational Health at Dalhousie | Resource leads: Thomas Sangster, Kirsten Nicol & Evynn Topolinsky
Distributed widely by EHS and Organizational Health at Dalhousie | Resource leads: MacKenzie Deighan & Alyssa Shenassa
Distributed primarily to Dalhousie Security Officers | Resource lead: Evynn Topolinski
In 2014, When Dalhousie Custodial Service Manager Michael Campbell was looking for ways to reduce and manage injuries among his custodial staff, he thought, “Why hire outside when we have a School filled with eager occupational therapy students right on campus?”. This question marked the first step toward the development of the @WORK project. With the support of the School of Occupational Therapy Director, discussions between Mr. Campbell and School faculty member, Karen Joudrey determined that the School would work collaboratively with Dalhousie’s Custodial Service to find the solutions for their occupational therapy needs.
The established goal of the @WORK project was to support the Dalhousie community to stay safe and succeed at work, by working collaboratively to learn and educate. In short, occupational therapy students involved with the @WORK project would work, under the supervision of licensed Occupational Therapists, to apply their developing skills to promote organizational health within the Dalhousie University Community.
The initiative has become so successful over the years, it has gone beyond assisting Dalhousie’s custodial staff and has branched out to include Dalhousie’s:
| Grounds keeping service personnel | Trucking staff |
| Mail room employees | Security personnel |
| Office of Advancement |
MedIT professionals |
| Dental hygiene students | Library services |
| Housing & Ancillary Services | Pathology labs/pathologists |
| Offices of Environmental Health & Safety | and more... |
Since the inception of the program, more than 135 students have contributed to the @WORK program during their 8-week, full-time fieldwork placements.
With the onset of the pandemic, delivery of @WORK services pivOTed (pun intended) to accommodate the new emerging health guidelines by providing virtual services that focused in part on ergonomic evaluations that enabled Dalhousie community members to stay safe and successful while working from home. Proactively, @WORK project participants also developed resources to mitigate the heightened feeling of anxiety that comes with day-to-day coping with pandemic uncertainties.
We invite you to take a minute to review some of the recent @WORK resources listed above.
For more information contact occupational therapist/faculty member of the School of Occupational Therapy, Karen Joudrey.