Rose Cottage
Hixet Wood
Charlbury
OXON
OX7 3SB / Tel: 01608 810359
Mobile: 07515 425375
E-mai:l

Anne Lawson-Porter

Current Work / January 2010 to date.
Freelance Occupational Therapist and Educational Consultant, undertaking various projects, for example,
  • advanced practitioner implementation scheme, COT
  • Department of Health Workforce Team -Bands 1-4 steering group
  • NHS Orkney occupational therapy service review
  • Academic institutional reviews, Aberdeen University and Keel University
  • Curriculum consultancy, University of Bradford.
I holdtwo external examinerships: (Greenwich University – Credit for Learning and Plymouth University – MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy) and Master’s programme validations.
I also carry out workshops on a variety of subjects about, and related to, occupational therapy practice e.g. Critical Thinking in Practice, Supervision in the Workplace, Leadership Development.
I have held two Associate lectureships:
  • Department of Occupational Therapy at University of Northampton, teaching predominantly at Masters level on Advanced Skills, Current Issues and Dissertation supervision and marking. This was with a group of international students. I also contributed to the undergraduate programme in the final year.
  • Department of Occupational Therapy at Oxford Brookes University teaching at undergraduate level. I also acted as a project advisor for a project aimed at developing role emerging placements. I am still retained as a Specialist Lecturer at this University.

Summary of qualifications
Honorary
Awards /
  • Diploma of the College of Occupational Therapists (Derby) 1974
  • Certificate in Management Studies, Lancashire Polytechnic 1983
  • MEd Curriculum Studies, VictoriaUniversity, Manchester 1994
I have undertaken short courses in a number of areas, notably project management, contract management, appraisal.
I have attended and presented at National, European and International conferences, usually related to occupational therapy. I have had the privilege of attending two conferences in Europe hosted by the European commission:
Future Trends in Health care 2009-13
TUNING competences.
  • Honorary Doctorate (Univ), Oxford Brookes University 2010
  • Fellow of the College of Occupational Therapists 2011

Other Professional work experience
Key Achievements / 2002 – 2009. Head of Education and Learning for the College of Occupational Therapists, the UK professional body and association for 28,000 members. The role was wide, varied and strategic, operating within a charity with a turn over of £7M+.
In this role I was responsible for the College’s lifelong learning strategy for support workers, students and professionally qualified therapists. This required close collaboration with colleagues from other teams within the organisation, but more significantly with Board and Council members and members at large, in the spirit of co-production and mutual benefit. It also required that I carried out horizon scanning for future trends and emerging policy. This ensured that members’ learning needs were identified and quality assured, so that timely learning opportunities were developed for undergraduates, support workers and professionally qualified practitioners. This supported their work in rapidly changing health and social care environments and, ultimately, benefited service users.
A significant part of my role concerned the development of professional body policy and guidance for HEI colleagues, e.g. Standards for Education, Curriculum Framework and Guidance.
I worked regularly with Government Departments and arms length bodies, particularly DH, DWP, Skills for Health and the Health Professions Council, on issues such as the AHP Career Framework, Vocational Rehabilitation, workforce, regulation, education standards.
As an outward focused, member facing, individual I had a high profile and significant credibility with peers, members and external stake holders. As a result I received regular invitations from members to present at study days and conferences and spent a great deal of time, both in and out of office hours, travelling across the UK to deliver their needs.
As Head of Education, I also sat on the Senior Management Team, with shared responsibility for the development and implementation of the College’s Strategic Plan, including creating my team’s annual operational plan. My colleagues recognised me as a strategic thinker.
I was directly accountable to the Chief Executive of the College.
Head hunted to fill this post by the Chief Executive.
Designed and implemented the College’s 5yr Strategic Vision and Action Plan for Lifelong Learning, including delivery of the following products:
  • The COT Curriculum Framework, The National Support Worker Lifelong Learning Framework, The Post Qualifying Framework, interactive Learning opportunities database (iLOD, 20,000 hits per month), National Student database, Guidance on CPD and requirements for re-registration with the Health Professions Council (HPC), Policy statements e.g. foundation degrees, interprofessional education (IPE), students with disabilities, Accreditation of Practice Placement Educators scheme (APPLE).
  • A key foundation of the strategy was to create transformational learning in support of transformational change and practice. This journey is still ongoing and was been driven by my vision for the future of the profession.
Designed and implemented the Pre-registration Accreditation Scheme (safeguarding the professional aspects of the education of 1,700 new students per year), required negotiation with, and the voluntary engagement of 31 universities across the UK. This protected the body knowledge of the organisation, provided a value added service to universities and academic colleagues and created an income (£100k per annum) for the College. Universities recognised that we offered a service that they needed to maintain the quality and development of occupational therapy professional programmes.
Conceived, designed and managed projects to deliver key educational objectives e.g. the Curriculum Framework, The Post Qualifying Framework, Implementation of the NICE Guidance for Older People (Oct 08) to time (usually over a year – 18 months) and budget (between £10 - £35k).
Delivered over 70 presentations at conferences, study days and workshops for members and other health professional colleagues. Viewed as an inspirational and frequently requested speaker, culminating in the nomination and selection to give the prestigious Dr Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture, to 500 people, at the College’s Annual Conference in June 2009.
Carried out a number of specific workshops at the request of service managers and also university Deans, on role and service redesign, workforce skill mix and curriculum redesign, in support of Government agendas and to ensure occupational therapists were well placed to take advantage of opportunities on offer.
These requests were exclusively on recommendation as I am viewed as an expert facilitator with the vision and ability to stimulate change.
A key member of the management team selected to help the CEO to lead and develop the Strategic Plan 08-13.
1983-2002 Lecturer then Senior Lecturer at Salford University with a range of teaching responsibilities to the pre registration programme in occupational therapy for topics such as anatomy, physical medicine, occupational therapy models, approaches and techniques, research supervision and management.
I held a number of roles on the pre-registration programme, such as admissions, examinations officer, personal tutor, year tutor and module tutor.
Teacher of anatomy to students on the BSc Hons Prosthetics and Orthotics programme and contributed to the interprofessional teaching agenda for the faculty.
Programme leader for the Faculty MSc in Health Practice on which I also taught a module and supervised masters’ projects.
Towards the end of my tenure at Salford I was appointed as the Faculty Widening Participation Officer, a post I held for two years. This involved a lot of community work and negotiation with feeder FE colleges and schools. It also required building partnerships within the Faculty to encourage sign up at Faculty level.
1974-1983 Clinical therapist in the NHS, Rehabilitation Officer in a social services department and Head/District Occupational Therapy manager in a district general hospital. During this time my main interests were in physical rehabilitation, including hand injuries, care of the elderly, neurology and rheumatology in both hospital and social services/community settings.
Additional professional activities
Publications / I have been a member of ENOTHE since 2003, a member of the Board since 2007 and President of the Board since 2010. This opportunity has enabled me to develop strong relationships with colleagues in Europe and to work closely with the COTEC executive aimed at creating a strong occupational therapy voice in Europe. Work with ENOTHE and COTEC has also strengthened realtionships with WFOT through joint approaches.
From 1988-2003held eight external examiner appointments for both under graduate and post graduate, pre-registration programmes. I was a member of validation panels for the University engineering degrees and also for the College of Occupational Therapists/CPSM Joint Validation Committee for approval of occupational therapy programmes.
In 2001-02 I was a Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) subject reviewer involved in the quality monitoring and enhancement of academic programmes across the UK.
Between 1999 and 2002 - held five external consultancies :
  • Bolton Diabetic Centre – a distance learning pack for people with type II Diabetes
  • Trafford and Salford Integrated Care Schemes for older people
  • Greater Manchester West Education Consortium – multi-professional fieldwork education pilot project
  • East Cheshire NHS Trust – Integrated Care Services for cancer patients
  • East Cheshire NHS Trust – (i) leadership development for leaders of supported housing networks in learning disability and (ii) leadership development for AHPs
In 2006 and 2007 invited to be a professional representative for two SHA Educational Contract Reviews.
From 2005-2009, joint COT representative for AHP Workforce Review and Development for the 4 UK countries.
In 2009invited to be on a validation panel in Europe to approve the TUNING competencies for occupational therapy across the EU.
Peer reviewer for the British Journal of Occupational Therapists (1992 to date) and the Journal of Human Rights (2009).
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Invited author in 5th ed of Creek’s, Occupational Therapy in Mental Health, to be published in summer 2014.
Lawson-Porter A (2011)– Future Trends in Health and Social Care. Commissioned Article for the Dutch Occupational Therapy Journal.
Pollard N., Sakellariou D., Lawson-Porter A (2010)Will Occupational Science facilitate or divide the practice of Occupational Therapy?
International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation. 17(1)40-47
Lawson-Porter A., (2009) The Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture: Rethink, reimagine and refocus. British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 72(7) 286-293.
Lawson-Porter A. (2009) Work based learning for health professionals, ( commissioned paper), NHS Education Scotland (NES)

Lawson-Porter A.(2008),TUNING Educational Structures in Europe, 6

OTN
Lawson-Porter A., (2008) Activity Matters: Occupational Therapy and physical activity interventions to promote the mental well-being of older people in primary and residential care – NICE Guidance 11, OTN
Creek J., Lawson-Porter A. (2007) (Eds) Contemporary Issues in Occupational Therapy: reasoning and reflection. Wiley, Chichester
Lawson-Porter A, Frost P (2007) The work agenda – are you in or out? 10:28-29, OTN
Lawson-Porter A, Reel K (2007) What prospects? 2:22-23, OTN
Lawson-Porter A., (2006) The Influence of the Student. Mental Health Occupational Therapy
Lawson-Porter A, Pollard N (2006) Think, consider and convey, part l 1:20, OTN
Lawson-Porter A, Pollard N (2006) Think, consider and convey, part II 2:28, OTN
Dean J, Buckley M, Pennington J, Lawson-Porter A, Hollinshead M. (2004) A randomised comparative trial of group education and distance learning in the self-management of non-insulin dependent diabetes (Poster)
Hook A, Lawson-Porter A. (2003) The development and evaluation of a fieldwork educator’s training programme for allied health professionals. Medical Teacher. 25(5) pp.527-536.
Professional affiliations / Registered Occupational Therapist, Health Professions Council
College of Occupational Therapists, professional member.
Board Member of the European Network of Occupational Therapists in Higher Education (ENOTHE) 2007 to date and President of ENOTHE 2010 to date
Member of the joint COTEC – ENOTHE Organisational Development Working Group 2010 to date
Community activities
Other
Interests / 2011 Company Secretary to the Good Food Shop, Charlbury
2010 to date Deliver Meals on Wheels to local elderly people
2008 - 2010 Member of the Member’s Assembly NCVO
2007- 2008 Trustee Board of NCVO
1994-2002 School governor and then Vice Chair of Governor’s at RivingtonHigh School, Horwich, Bolton, Lancs.
1988-1992 Chair of the CommunitySchool Council, BalderstoneCommunitySchool, Rochdale, Lancs.
International travel, reading novels when I can, walking , gardening (usually with wine in my hand), art and writing.
Anne Lawson-Porter
August 2013