Creating opportunities for occupational development using the concerns report method

Abstract

Background: Little research has focused on working with communities to promote and support children’s occupational development.

Aim/Objective: We used the Concerns Report Method (CRM) to identify community supports for parents with young children that could enhance children’s occupational development.

Material and method: We conducted interviews/focus groups with parents (n = 29) and service providers (n = 11). We used content analysis to identify four themes: availability, barriers and facilitators, parent/child transitions, and making connections. The themes were used to create a concerns report survey for parents and service providers. A random sample of parents (n = 319) and convenience sample of service providers (n = 47) in one community area of a Canadian urban center completed the on-line survey. We held a community forum to review the results and identify solutions for action.

Results: Parents’ highest priorities included childcare, supports in community schools, preschool programs, and supports in one location. Service providers highest priorities included: identification of developmental concerns; parenting education; programs for fathers, programs that offer child care, a doctor, and child care.

Conclusions: Service providers need to engage parents and consider parents’ perspectives when planning services to ensure community supports will meet parent identified needs.

Significance: Using community-based participatory research approaches, occupational therapists can contribute to children’s occupational development.

Keywords:

• Child occupational development
• community-based participatory research
• community-centred practice
• parent engagement
• community supports
• health promotion

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Parent Child Coalition for engaging in this process and the parents and service providers who so generously gave their time, shared their experiences and made this research possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.