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Occupational Therapists As Street-Level Bureaucrats: Leveraging The Political Nature Of Everyday Practice., Rebecca M Aldrich, Debbie Rudman
Occupational Therapists As Street-Level Bureaucrats: Leveraging The Political Nature Of Everyday Practice., Rebecca M Aldrich, Debbie Rudman
Occupational Therapy Publications
BACKGROUND.: As front-line service providers who often work in systems regulated by governmental bodies, occupational therapists can be conceptualized as "street-level bureaucrats" ( Lipsky, 1980/2010 ) who effect and are affected by policy.
PURPOSE.: Drawing on understandings from a study of long-term unemployment, this article proposes that occupational therapists, as street-level bureaucrats, respond to inter-related policies and systems in ways that can perpetuate, resist, or transform opportunities for doing and being.
KEY ISSUES.: By highlighting practitioners' everyday negotiation of governmental, organizational, and professional power relations, the notion of street-level bureaucracy illuminates the political nature of practice as well as the …