Capacity Building & Improving Independent Living Skills

Q: What does capacity building actually mean?

A: Capacity building is a fancy way of saying, improving the skills and resources of someone and their supports

Q: What Skills can Occupational Therapists (OTs) help with?

A: Whilst there is no definitive list, things we are often asked to assist with include: Cooking, Cleaning, Dressing, Self-Care (Brushing teeth, showering, toileting), Planning, problem-solving, Budgeting, Play, Work and more!

Q: How do OT’s build capacity?

A: There is many tools that we use, however some of the main strategies that we like to use include:

• Activity Grading - Adjusting task difficulty to provide just enough challenge to facilitate learning and keep people engaged.

• Task-Specific Therapy - practising a real-life task in a safe controlled environment to improve performance.

• Adaptation - modifying tasks to enable success and independence.

• Skills Generalisation - Building skills that can transfer across tasks and settings.

And many many more!