Welcome to OccupationalFormulation.com

G'day! I'm Lorrae, and as an occupational therapist I know that with the many demands of practice it can be hard linking theory to practice, linking assessment and treatment and keeping an occupational focus. 

OccupationalFormulation.com offers training and resources in occupational formulation to support therapists, teams and students in making these links. Membership includes access to online courses and resources, with opportunities to interact with instructors and peers through live Q&A sessions and the online discussion community. Live workshops can also be booked.

Therapist Foundations to Practice Membership Package

Team Foundation to Practice Membership Package

University Program Package

Student Package (Individual)

Occupational Formulation Foundations Workshop

This live workshop provides a solid basis for understanding and applying occupational formulation in practice.

Suitable for occupational therapists and students, it can be facilitated for an organisation or network. Content is delivered face-to-face or online over one day (or two half-days if needed given timezone differences).

Membership package features

Value for money

Membership packages represent excellent value, with unlimited access to online course content and guided learning activities, multiple downloadable resources, and access to discussion forums and live Q&A sessions to support understanding and sharing of ideas with colleagues.

Online

The online course delivery allows learning from your home or work environment, with no need to travel to participate. 

Self-paced

With no fixed start dates, you can start when you want and continue at a pace that works for you. 

Unlimited access

The one-time payment allows ongoing access to all the site resources, so there’s no sense of pressure and you can return to review material at a later date, and can participate in Q&A sessions or the discussion community at any point. Please note that student access within the University program package is time-limited.

Implementation focus

A range of resources and suggestions are provided to support you in implementing occupational formulation in practice. 

Interaction opportunities

There are opportunities to interact with instructors and peers through the discussion forums and live Q&A sessions. 

What is occupational formulation?

Occupational formulation is a step in the occupational therapy practice process which links assessment and therapy, resulting in the creation of a written document which guides goal setting and treatment planning. The approach supports collaboration between therapists and clients and allows therapists to clearly communicate their therapeutic reasoning, offering a uniquely occupational perspective to the client and team. 

Read more about occupational formulation

Occupational formulation is a theory-based approach for synthesising assessment information about a client to describe their occupational situation and guide therapy. Brooks and Parkinson (2018)described a three-part structure that can be used with any occupational therapy framework: occupational influences, occupational presentation and occupational focus. Drawing upon concepts from the Model of Human Occupation (Taylor, 2017)  they operationalised the approach (Brooks & Parkinson, 2018, Parkinson & Brooks, 2021) : describing how, after conducting a comprehensive occupation focussed assessment, therapists construct a narrative incorporating an occupational identity (reflecting the person’s subjective viewpoint), occupational competence (an objective presentation of facts), and key issues/needs for occupational adaptation. A collaborative process between therapist and consumer, the occupational formulation is written in plain language and leads to the negotiation of measurable occupational goals that guide therapy. 

For reference details and more visit the Research & Resources page.

Listen to an introduction to occupational formulation

Lorrae spoke with Rhiannon Crispe from the OT Lifestyle Movement all about occupational formulation and how occupational therapists can use it to support collaborative, occupation-focused practice.

FREE occupational formulation template and writing guide

These FREE downloads can help you get started with writing occupational formulations: the template includes the recommended headings and the writing guide includes prompts about what to include in each section.

What occupational therapists are saying

OT, NZ

I found the training very informative and a useful skill to have in our service. It is a great way to understand our clients better.

Suzie Keller, QLD

The Foundations course is the most occupation focused course I have completed in years - so refreshing and validating! Lorrae is a fantastic teacher!

OT, NZ

Great overview of a framework to capture a holistic occupational picture. I appreciated all the examples, it felt very practical and useable.

OT, NZ

I cannot rate this training highly enough. I am really excited to implement this within our service. Lorrae is clearly knowledgeable and passionate about Occupational Formulation. She presented the content in a logical and relatable manner. 

Katrina Pyman, Victoria

Doing the Foundations course will help OTs to understand what occupational formulation is and to easily incorporate it in their everyday work , enhancing client centred practice, client motivation to engage in OT and client outcomes. I highly recommend this course to every OT no matter what area of OT you work in.

OT Educator, Melbourne

Participants finish the Occupational Formulation and Goal setting training with a renewed passion and confidence to practice from an occupational framework, to work collaboratively and communicate their occupational reasoning to service users, families, colleagues and service providers.

Meet our founder

The 2023 Occupational Therapist of the year (Australian Allied Health Awards), Lorrae is a doctoral research candidate who is passionate about keeping occupation at the heart of occupational therapy. After receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from hundreds of occupational therapists who attended her live occupational formulation training, she founded OccupationalFormulation.com to enable occupational therapists to easily access training, resources and support for implementing occupational formulation in their practice. Read more about Lorrae’s occupational therapy background and work in the About page. 

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