"Use it or lose it - What happens when you don’t have anything to do?" - Docent lecture by Anne-Le Morville

On Tuesday 22 June at 09.30-11.00 Anne-Le Morville, assistant professor in Occupational Therapy at the School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, will give her docent lecture "Use it or lose it - What happens when you don’t have anything to do?".

"My lecture will be about vulnerable groups in society, primarily asylum seekers, and the need for identity through work and daily activities. I will discuss this from both an individual and societal level, as well as the structures that surround the vulnerable groups", say Anne-Le Morville.

"It is important that we not only look at the health-related measures in the vulnerable groups, but what provokes the development of ill health. Being without work or other daily activities that provides meaning in daily life, the risk of ill health is overwhelming", she continues.

Anne-Le Morville has as one of the few occupational therapists worked with torture survivors and the impact of torture on the ability to function in daily life.

"What struck me was the decline in the ability to perform daily occupations after just 8-10 months, but a lot of it had to do not only with torture, but with not having anything meaningful to do on a daily basis", she says.

But it is a complex situation as work, not just for asylum seekers but vulnerable groups in general is a problem, both due to the legislation but also to interventions that needs to be built on the needs from both the employers and the vulnerable group’s needs. This does not only relate to work but to vulnerable groups in general.

"In order to facilitate change and provide adequate interventions, we need to develop new ways of thinking about research and practice projects and take a much more participatory approach including all stakeholders from the beginning. Such an approach will empower the group in question and provide both participants, professionals and researchers a direction for moving forward to enact change", says Anne-Le Morville.

Please sign up to Johanna Grek (johanna.grek@ju.se) to get zoomlink and passcode to the lecture.

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