Occupational Therapy Week 2026
The theme for this year's Occupational Therapy Week, which runs from 2-8 November, is 'Participation Changes Everything'. We are celebrating how occupational therapists (OTs) across our organisation help people do the things they need, want and love to do.
Here are just some of the ways they provide support to enable people to participate.
More than a meal: the everyday power of occupational therapy
A cooking session is never just about dinner. Occupational therapists connect everyday activities with choice, confidence and the lives people want to lead.
Making a meal, reconnecting with a friend or returning to a valued routine - ordinary moments can mean everything when taking part becomes difficult.
In OT, an “occupation” means an everyday activity that matters — not just paid work. A cooking session can reveal planning, concentration, confidence and the support someone needs at home. Skilled assessment, adapted tasks and manageable steps connect that activity to the person’s own goals.
OTs support routines and valued roles through cooking, self-care, visual prompts and approaches that fit sensory and planning needs. The focus is not simply completing a task: it is helping people take part in daily life in ways that matter to them.
When the space changes, possibilities grow
From therapy spaces to an outdoor sensory-space pilot, occupational therapy work puts the environment at the heart of participation.
Sometimes the barrier to taking part is not the activity itself, but where and how it happens. OTs consider accessibility and sensory needs alongside the activities people want to do.
Across Exeter and Tiverton, therapy-space work is progressing through accessibility, equipment, procurement, infection prevention and safe readiness. Sensory developments include awareness training, EcoSensory practitioners and an outdoor therapeutic sensory-space pilot. These developing initiatives recognise that the environment is part of therapy and not simply its backdrop.
One such project is Babes in the Woods, the Occupational Therapy-led mum and baby forest school at Hakeford in North Devon.
One OT community: difference that matters
Our OT community is strengthening care around the outcome that matters - participation in everyday life.
Occupational therapy connects shared care with what people need, want and love to do. This Occupational Therapy Week celebrates our whole OT community: occupational therapists, support staff, technical instructors, assistant practitioners, students and apprentices.
Our community is strengthening practice through specialist interest groups, training in occupational assessment and formulation.
These developments focus on making OT assessment, goals and clinical reasoning clearer within shared care. The measure that matters is the difference people experience in daily life and not the number of sessions delivered.
Above: Learning Disability team building day.
Explore the RCOT Participation Changes Everything campaign.