Occupational therapy is the profession of participation

RCOT’s new Informed view on participation

Celebrating OT Week 2026, RCOT has published a new informed view setting out why occupational therapists are experts in enabling participation and what this means for policy, practice and service design.

Download the Informed view on participation

Removing barriers

Participation changes everything. It enables people to learn, work, play, care for themselves, connect with others and contribute to their communities.

But participation is sometimes reduced to whether someone attends school, has a job or accesses a service. This overlooks the everyday activities and relationships that support our health, wellbeing, identity and sense of belonging.

Our new informed view, Occupational therapy is the profession of participation, explains why occupational therapists are uniquely placed to identify and remove the barriers that prevent people from taking part in the occupations that matter to them.

Occupational therapists routinely look beyond a diagnosis to understand the whole person and their everyday life. The core occupational therapy paradigm is that health, identity, and human dignity are realised through active engagement in meaningful everyday occupations.

Occupational therapy is the profession of participation

A clearer priority 

The informed view also calls for participation to become a much clearer priority across health, social care, education and employment. This includes:

• measuring whether services help people participate in everyday life, rather than focusing only on symptoms, access or attendance
• involving occupational therapists in the design of services and systems
• making participation a strategic research priority
• investing in early intervention and adaptations that prevent people from losing independence and connection.