Livewell Southwest’s Senior Occupational therapist and Substance Use Specialist, Rachel Rule, has been selected as this years’ winner of The Wilcock Award for Emerging Authors: An award introduced by the Journal of Occupational Science in 2021 that acknowledges excellence and innovation of the article topic, conceptualization, or methodology that contributes to the advancement of occupational science internationally and demonstrates well-crafted writing.
Rachel’s paper ‘developing an occupational perspective of women involved in sex work: a discussion paper’ will be now officially been published on the Journal of Occupational Science website and will be available to read here from 1 August.
Rachel had this to say:
“I am over the moon to have won this award; it was very unexpected! I wrote this article for the Journal of Occupational Science in 2019 with Rebecca Twinley, the creator of the “Dark Side of Occupation”. I am curious by nature and my aim is to explore the unexplored.
“As an Occupational Therapist, a profession that focuses on what people ‘do’, I feel that there is not enough understanding of people who do things that are moralistically considered to be deviant, or taboo.
“The article explores women’s experiences of sex work – why they engage in this, what keeps them engaged in this and how as practitioners we can reduce the risk of harm and understand without judgement.
“Due to winning the award there is now free, open access to the article via the Journal of Occupational Science website for the next 6 months and I am very pleased to be able to provide a free resource to people who are interested in this area of practice or work directly with women who are sex workers.”
Livewell are proud to have colleagues, like Rachel, who go above and beyond basic duties, seeking to improve the lives of our colleagues, patients and their families through hard work and research.
A huge congratulations to Rachel for her incredible award win.
