Black History Month

Reclaiming narratives

The theme of this year’s UK Black History Month is ‘Reclaiming Narratives’.

This theme marks a significant shift towards recognising and correcting the narratives of Black history and culture. It underscores a commitment to correcting historical inaccuracies.

Join in on social media with #ReclaimingNarratives. Use your reach to celebrate and educate on the history and historical inaccuracies of Black history.

Black History Month is a brilliant time to talk about Black culture and heritage with your group, but make sure everyone knows that Black history is a part of history that can (and should) be learned about all year round.

What are we doing this year?

Our hero ‘O’

As we do every year to mark this month, we'll be changing the ‘O’ in our RCOT logo for this month to show solidarity with our Black members, colleagues and people everywhere.

Using a design celebrating the colours red, green, gold and black – colours with significant meaning, used widely to denote BHM.

The ‘O’ in our logo represents our identity as an organisation as well as ‘occupation’. We wouldn’t be here without the Black people who have significantly contributed to our profession.

OTnews

This year, we’re featuring a significant number of articles in October’s OTnews – written by members and non-members from across the world of OT.

You’ll also be able to read several blogs about people’s experiences working as Black occupational therapists, and personal stories on our website across the month.

Thank you to our members for their contributions, we’re excited to share them with the wider RCOT membership.

To read last year's October edition, you can visit OTnews (members only).

Internally

Our internal Ethnos colleague network continues to grow, and support colleagues from historically marginalised and racialised groups, we’re grateful for its presence and proud of the work it’s doing. 

They’ve been working hard with colleagues from across our organisation to provide opportunities to engage with Black history. This includes a journal club, an interactive virtual event with Dr Blaine Robin and a reflection session. 

They’ve also been encouraging colleagues to share their reflections alongside stories of influential Black people.

Black History Month is every month; this one is just marked in the calendar.

Ketan Davé, Equity, Diversity and Belonging Lead