Effective solutions to meet the needs through Level II fieldwork

Occupational therapy programs across the country have seen a shortage in traditional fieldwork placements due to a variety of contextual factors in higher education and health care. These factors include a rise in new educational programs and vast changes in health care and reimbursement (Deluliis et al., 2021). When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, fieldwork challenges were further exacerbated (Harvison, 2022). Many institutions turned to their community partners to explore alternatives to fieldwork, including what is termed role-emerging fieldwork placements: a site in which occupational therapy services do not exist. As one example, the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH’s) Academic Fieldwork Coordinator (AFWC) and the Assistant Director of the on-campus Child Study and Development Center (CSDC) created a unique learning experience for Level II fieldwork students on campus. In this fieldwork placement, OT students not only provided effective solutions to meet the needs of the children (ages 6 weeks to 5 years), teachers, staff, and families of the CSDC, but also enhanced the critical skills—such as flexibility, leadership, and creativity—needed for OT graduates. This type of fieldwork experience supports the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA’s) initiatives around capacity building in innovative practice settings (AOTA, 2023) and can serve as a model for other early childhood centers, schools, or community-based organizations whose members want to collaborate to create fieldwork placements The work these OT students completed during their fieldwork experiences provided a deeper understanding of the depth and breadth of the scope of occupational therapy services and left a positive impact on everyone involved in the CSDC community.