What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational Therapy (OT) is concerned with the connection between the activities people pursue such as self-care, productivity, leisure, and their overall health and well-being. Health is viewed in Occupational Therapy as more than the absence of disease and is strongly influenced by what people do in everyday life.

Occupational therapists work with people who have various differences and abilities in physical, cognitive, and emotional functioning. OTs also share the belief that engagement in activities, that provide a mix of challenging and achievable tasks promotes health and well-being among individuals and communities.

In other words, OT has everything to do with exploring how external situations, personal capabilities, and limitations impact one’s ability to live their life with purpose.

What is Circus?

Circus exists throughout various cultures and values people for their uniqueness. This makes it a suitable model for community health.

Circus requires the presence of mind, focus, fine and gross motor skills, body awareness, self-confidence, and teamwork, and often results in joy, laughter, and a sense of accomplishment.

Overall, the circus, as a discipline, provides a variety of experiences and activities that facilitate positive emotional, physical, and mental health outcomes.

Combining OT + CIRCUS

The benefit of combining circus and occupational therapy lies in the ability to enable increased function in the following areas with activities focusing on coordination, body awareness, teamwork, problem-solving, perseverance, fitness, strength, and life skills acquisition:

Emotional Health:

• Circus activities promote turn-taking, leadership, communication, empathy, expression, trust, and dependability. Grading tasks individually to have challenging and achievable components promotes motivation and satisfaction, increased self-confidence and self-efficacy, and provides respite from stress or mental instability.

  Physical Health:

  Circus skills can be graded to fit the capacities of people with a wide variety of physical and mental capabilities. Many activities used in circus increase body awareness, circulation, strength, tone, and flexibility.

  Cognitive Function:

  Circus works the brain to increase gross and fine motor control, coordination, visual perceptual abilities, sequencing, sense of rhythm and timing, reactions, bimanual hand use, and concentration.

  Social Health:

  Circus skills are essential for healthy peer interaction and teamwork. This unique program focuses on highlighting an individual's strengths and providing life skills to improve their ability to function socially and become a positive active member of their society.

HOW OUR PROGRAM PROMOTES CHANGE

• By training occupational therapists, social workers, mental health workers, teachers, global health workers, educational professionals, and circus artists in Holistic Circus Therapy.

• By creating a multidisciplinary team approach to healthcare and education through fieldwork placements and learning environments.

• By providing free services to refugees to increase resilience, mental health, and life skills, enabling them to make positive contributions.

• By introducing new ways of implementing occupational therapy within socio-political contexts that focus on community health and the sustainability of the practice.

• By introducing new ways occupational therapists can work in partnership with circus arts, marginalized and displaced persons.

• By introducing evidence-based practices of integrated social circus and occupational therapy philosophies to promote global health in areas where social, environmental, and political unrest are present.