Establishing Partnerships and Seed Money Lead to Extramural Funding
In 2018, The American Occupational Therapy Foundation (AOTF) convened a group of scientists from seven different disciplines in a Planning Grant Collective (PGC) to stimulate research to identify scalable ways to preserve and optimize participation among cancer survivors and then identify interventions that improve participation in roles and life. In 2019, one of the PGC committee members, current AOTF Board Member and Academy of Research Member, Kathleen Lyons, OT, ScD, OTR, Professor, MGH Institute of Health Professions, was awarded an R01 and its outcomes were recently published in the JAMA Network Open article, Telephone-Based Rehabilitation Intervention to Optimize Activity Participation After Breast Cancer (Lyons KD, Wechsler SB, Ejem DB, et al). The intervention is an example of one of the three priorities identified during that 2018 AOTF workshop with fellow participant and author, Robin Newman, OTD, OTR, CLT, FAOTA, Program Director of the Department of Occupational Therapy, Boston University.
“The discussions with the PGC participants (including the program officers) were instrumental in my ability to hone the argument and get the grant funded. So, thank you AOTF!” says Lyons.
The PGC discussion and recommendations regarding all three recommendations that could catalyze research on participation of cancer survivors were published in AOTF’s OTJR: Occupational Therapy Journal of Research, Catalyzing Research to Optimize Cancer Survivors’ Participation in Work and Life Roles (Newman RM, Alfano CM, Radomski MV, et al).
Together, with Foundation volunteers like Kathy, we support key strategic pillars, including establishing partnerships between researchers, practitioners and community partners, that fulfill our mission of building evidence to improve OT practice and health.
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