OT Praxis Toolkit

An interactive process for recognizing and responding to inequity

The Praxis Toolkit supports clinicians addressing social inequities and health injustices to engage in ethical reasoning processes around tricky and complex situations they encounter in practice. Currently comprised of a guidebook & word/shape magnets for use on a surface like a whiteboard or refrigerator, the toolkit helps clinicians: 

  • Reconceptualize practice conditions 

  • Recognize the variety of forces impacting them and the individuals and communities they work with 

  • Surface underling causes of inequities 

  • Generate strategies for intervening in inequity Mobilize values towards health justice through drawing on different knowledges and practices

A book titled 'OT PRAKSIS TOOLKIT' with a subtitle indicating it is an interactive process for recognizing and responding to inequity, placed on a dark textured surface.

What do we mean by ‘Praxis’?

Praxis is the relationship between theory (how we conceptualize things) and practice (what we do). This relationship between theory and practice is continuous and iterative. Said another way, how we think about things informs and gets modified by our actions, practices, and vice versa.

Some assumptions that anchor the Praxis Toolkit

  • Our individual and collective values, assumptions, principles, and knowledge are always in process

  • We are consciously and unconsciously informed by these values, assumptions, principles, and knowledge

  • We use these values, assumptions, principles, and knowledge differently in different contexts, depending on the situations we encounter

  • Dominant social, economic, and political systems (such as capitalism, racism, colonialism, cis- heteropatriarchy, etc.) are harmful and produce and shape social and health inequities

Whiteboard with handwritten notes, diagrams, and color-coded labels about client priorities and experiences related to substance use, including categories like safety, responsibilities, and values, with a person's hand pointing at the board.
Five diverse people sitting at a table in a conference room, engaging in a discussion around a whiteboard with colorful sticky notes and diagrams.

Who made this toolkit?

This toolkit was collaboratively developed by a group of eight occupational therapists, three occupational therapy researchers, and two interdisciplinary researchers in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) in Treaty 6 territory.

Many thanks to Action Lab for their design support and helping us bring our scrappy little prototype into the world!

A group of people gathered around a large conference table in a meeting room, engaged in a workshop or collaborative activity, with various supplies, papers, and snacks on the table.

Want to learn more? Get involved? Partner with us?

The OT Praxis Toolkit is not publicly available at this time. If you wish to inquire about receiving a copy of the toolkit in the future, are interested in partnering with us in our ongoing research about socio-political praxis and this toolkit, or just want to connect, please email Tim at t.barlott@ualberta.ca.