The VdTMoCA was introduced at the Welland Centre, an acute psychiatric hospital as it enables OT activities to be delivered in a way that meets the needs of a wide variety of patients at different levels of creative ability. They developed a structured timetable of activities and a treatment pathway through the levels. They later adjusted the programme to incorporate ward-based groups in the mornings and ability levelled off-ward groups in the afternoon. This enabled them to address the challenges of engaging service users at the lower levels of creative ability and those who were reluctant to engage, maintain structured groups and continue to meet the therapeutic needs of service users at higher levels of creative ability. There are lots of benefits to running ward based groups, the main challenge relates to the therapists’ abilities to remain true to the VdTMoCA principles.
Allen, R (2014) Addressing challenges to engagement through ward-based groups.
Poster presentation at the College of Occupational Therapy Conference, Birmingham.