Occupational Therapist Katrina Tilley was named the 2020 recipient of CAOT-BC’s Outstanding Occupational Therapist of the Year.

The CAOT-BC interviewed Katrina about her career in occupational therapy. Read the article: cOnnecT with Katrina Tilley.

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Tianna, a single mother living in Kelowna, is continuing her education as she looks towards a future career.

However, she faces multiple barriers in both her program and on her path to employment.

“I have neck, back, and spine injuries,” she shares. “I deal with chronic pain and limitations doing certain tasks.”

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Adam is a web developer based in Victoria. His work — which involves long hours on the computer — is taxing on his body due to a spinal cord condition.

 “I have a spinal cord condition that causes chronic back and lower body pain. It makes it difficult to sit or stand for prolonged periods,” he says. “It also makes it difficult to concentrate and problem solve.”

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Jeffrey is an apartment manager in Vancouver, responsible for everything from checking new tenants into the building to responding to on-call issues like noise complaints.

It’s a job that requires good communication with tenants and the contractors he calls to take care of maintenance issues.

However, he’s been struggling with his hearing — dealing with tinnitus, sound sensitivity, and hearing loss.

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Working for a home care provider in Kelowna, Karen helps clients live in their own homes by coming over and helping them with tasks ranging from meal prep to dressing and bathing.

Karen was finding, however, that she needed help herself.

“I am a middle aged woman in fair health with a hearing impairment,” she explains. “I cannot always hear what clients are saying.”

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Oliver is the director of a design academy in Victoria. As director, he’s a man of many hats, having a hand in everything from human resources to IT support to public outreach.

“My challenge is adapting to a rapid loss of hearing,” he shares. “This impacts my ability to communicate.”

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David is a lead hand supervisor at a post-secondary institution in Kelowna. He is in charge of a wide variety of tasks on campus from event set-up to installing whiteboards to snow removal.

David has suffered from hearing loss since he was born. This can make many parts of his job, which requires a lot of communication with college staff, a lot tougher.

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Dana works as a real-time transcriber for post-secondary students, largely at the University of Victoria, captioning lectures for students who are hard of hearing or deaf.

However, Dana was finding she was struggling with her own hearing.

“I often work in a team with another transcriber, so I would notice they were getting things — mostly student comments that were across the room — that I wasn’t fully hearing. As you can imagine, where my job is to actually hear for someone, this became quite alarming,” she explains.

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Lisa works as a seniors program coordinator at a recreation centre in Coquitlam.

“My daily work environment varies from morning to afternoon, and from day to day. Sometimes I’m one-on-one with the seniors, other times I’m running a large group event. Some days I conduct small workshops. Some days there are staff meetings or board meetings,” she explains.

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Russell has worked as an inside sales representative for a building materials company in Chilliwack for nearly a decade.

Having “grown into” the role after having had to transition to less physical work following a hernia operation, Russell found his groove, doing everything from over the counter and phone sales to providing quotes for construction companies.

However, he was facing a significant barrier in this line of work.

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