Ann Wilcock Collection: Celebrating her legacy

Ann Allart Wilcock (nee Ellison) PhD, BAppScOT, GradDipPH, FRCOT (1940–2019)

Ann Wilcock (photo credit: World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT))

Although Ann Wilcock had a long association with Australia as a practitioner, scholar, educator and theorist, her roots and early life were in the United Kingdom (UK). Wilcock was brought up in the Lake District in North West England, and her education as an occupational therapist was at the Derby School of Occupational Therapy, now the University of Derby. She practised in the UK for a few years before moving to Australia. However, those early years in the UK included working at the prestigious Farnham Park Rehabilitation Centre with two eminent occupational therapists, Peggy Jay and Mary S Jones. This work led to her contribution to her first book, a self-help guide for people with stroke and their families (Jay et al., 1966).

In Australia, Wilcock continued in practice before becoming an academic and then Head of the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of South Australia in 1987; later she was appointed to develop the occupational therapy and occupational science programme at Deakin University. Following the completion of her PhD and subsequent work on the links between occupational and health, she began to travel and present her work. In the 1990s she became a regular visitor to the UK and, in addition to giving keynote presentations, became a visiting professor at Brunel University London and was commissioned by the RCOT to write the history of the profession (Wilcock 2001b, 2002).

About the BJOT Ann Wilcock Collection

The collection takes a broadly chronological approach and begins with three lectures by Wilcock. The first, given at the College of Occupational Therapists Conference at the University of Ulster, is entitled ‘Occupation for Health’ (Wilcock, 1998), which was also the theme of the conference. Wilcock defined the concepts of occupation and health and explored their links, discussed occupational alienation and proposed a potential role for occupational therapy in public health. She recommended that occupational therapists talk about occupation and its role in health and extend their influence beyond individuals to communities.

Three years later, she again presented a keynote address at the College of Occupational Therapists Conference, this time at the University of Wales, Swansea. The topic was ‘Occupational science: The key to broadening horizons’ (Wilcock, 2001a), again reflecting the conference theme. Her lecture presents a concise introduction to occupational science. In both these lectures she combines theory, a fascinating historical perspective and examples, using everyday relevance to present her message.

The third lecture by Wilcock included in this collection was given at Glasgow Caledonian University to recognise the contribution of Doris Sym, the founder and first Principal of the Glasgow School of Occupational Therapy. In ‘Developing a philosophy of occupation for health’ (Wilcock, 1999), Wilcock discusses a 1980 article by Sym and then outlines her own early work and the contribution of Robert Owen (1771–1858) at New Lanark mills, where he changed the regime to reflect his views on improving the life of the workers. She traces his influence on Octavia Hill and, through her, to Elizabeth Casson – connections she explores in much more detail in Volume 1 of her history (Wilcock, 2001b).

These lectures by Wilcock are followed by a selection of relevant articles published in BJOT. Kosma et al. (2013) explored the impact of Wilcock’s work on research published between 1993 and 2007. They sought to establish the core concepts of Wilcock’s published work, how they have been interpreted in occupational therapy research and the implications for the profession. They concluded that although many authors cited Wilcock, they tended to focus on one or two aspects of her work, rather than on the complex interaction of her ideas, and not many researchers had developed her work further.

Two authors who have developed work from Wilcock and published in BJOT are Wendy Bryant and Gail Whiteford. Bryant, one of the authors of Kosma et al. (2013), made the concept of occupational alienation the focus of her Casson Memorial Lecture (Bryant, 2016). Whiteford’s seminal article on occupational deprivation (Whiteford, 2000) expanded on Wilcock’s original definition and proposed it as a global challenge for the 21st century. Twenty years later, Whiteford and colleagues describe the impact of a practice-based enquiry (Whiteford et al., 2020) to ameliorate occupational deprivation in a forensic mental health setting in Australia.

Other researchers published in BJOT whose work features elements of Wilcock’s work include Black et al. (2019). Their scoping review on the meaning and use of ‘occupational engagement’ attributes the term to Wilcock, who conceptualised it as more than physical performance to include a mental and spiritual dimension. Their review included 26 articles that contained a definition of occupational engagement and where it was the primary focus or outcome. They found that there was no common definition of occupational engagement or a consistent method of measuring it. While both definitions and methods are important, an agreed definition is the first step, and the authors considered that the themes from their review could assist with this. In their UK study, Newport and Clarke (2020) elicited the views of people with severe mental health conditions participating in an Occupation Matters Programme. In synthesising their findings, they considered that the four elements of Wilcock’s Doing, Being, Belonging and Becoming were important in understanding what seemed to promote health and wellbeing in the participants.

To discover if occupational therapists were now adopting occupation-based practice, Di Tommaso et al. (2019) interviewed 18 recently graduated occupational therapists in Australia. Their findings suggest that occupational therapists experience difficulty in incorporating occupation in their practice and prioritise techniques to address impairments. But the researchers anticipate that the therapists will become more occupation focused with increased experience. Also published in 2019, Canadian researchers Lauckner et al. (2019) used individual interviews and a focus group with 12 occupational therapists who identified that their primary area of practice was ‘health promotion and wellness’ in the community. They wanted to discover if the occupational therapists had heeded calls, including the early ones from Wilcock, to move beyond working with individuals to adopt community-based approaches. Their findings suggest that they had done so, but there was a lack of guidance on how to work with communities. The authors proposed that their findings could contribute to helping occupational therapists see how their work with individuals can incorporate a community focus.

BJOT has recently published a special issue on ‘Optimizing children’s participation for health and wellbeing’. In the editorial that introduces the first part, ‘Meaning and context’, guest editors Ziviani and McBryde (2020) outline ways in which occupational therapists working with children and adolescents identify the importance of personally meaningful participation and make use of community-based activities. In particular, one article from the issue, by Lynch et al. (2020), seems to me to exemplify what Wilcock envisioned. In this study, a mainly occupational therapy research team, which was externally funded, obtained the views of users of five community parks and playgrounds in an Irish city. They aimed to discover if the facilities provided inclusive environments for children with or without disabilities and their families. They identified unmet need among users and play providers and called for more involvement from occupational therapists to address community participation needs.

I hope you have found something in this collection to make you reconsider occupational therapy and find new insights into its potential. For those new to the work of Ann Wilcock, the articles serve as an introduction, providing an enticing glimpse into its breadth and depth and an invitation to explore more. For those already familiar with her work, they are a reminder of the profession’s debt to her intellect and imagination. For those, like myself, who were privileged to have known her, the articles in this collection are a poignant reminder of a remarkable woman whose humanity and insightfulness changed our thinking about the origins and potential scope of the profession.