Thank you to the COTF awards committee for selecting me for a 2018 Doctoral Scholarship! COTF’s support makes a huge difference. PhD students must navigate a landscape of limited and competitive funding sources, so to have a funding source reserved specifically for research related to occupational therapy is incredibly helpful in the immediate sense, and also serves to make my applications to other sources stronger in the future. Receiving COTF support feels like more than the support of an organization; it feels like the support of a community, and that means a lot to me.
I am excited to have the opportunity to engage in research work that responds directly to issues identified through my clinical work in Nunavut. In my doctoral studies thus far, I have been learning about the Inuit worldview and reflecting extensively on how the Western worldview underpins so much of occupational therapy practices. I have also been learning about therapist/client power dynamics in the context of colonization and how much this impacts choice, consent, and Indigenous self-determination. Through my research into understanding how rehabilitation services for children are perceived and understood through the Inuit worldview, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, I am hoping to be able to provide concrete direction for improving the relevance and cultural safety of occupational therapy services, such that it supports Inuit self-determination. Thank you to COTF and their donors for making this scholarship possible and for supporting me in pursuing research I am passionate about and which I believe can make a difference.
Janna MacLachlan, OT Reg. (Ont.)