Karen Frank Barney, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, an occupational therapist with over 50 years of experience in practice and higher education, is the guest on this episode entitled "Full Circle" because Dr. Barney was one of the OT educators who taught Stephanie Lancaster, the host of this podcast, when Stephanie was in OT school. Dr. Barney received her Bachelor's of Science in OT and an MS in Adult Education degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her PhD from the Saint Louis University School of Public Health in Health Services Research. 

​Dr. Barney has worked in a variety of medical and community settings in Wisconsin, Kentucky, Missouri, and Guatemala, providing direct aging system services and consultation. She has taught in university settings for 38 years, served as primary faculty for the aging-related courses in three university programs, and served as the occupational therapy discipline expert for the Geriatric Education Center (GEC) at Saint Louis University for 22 years. She is the Founder of the Transformative Justice Initiative at Saint Louis University, currently working with justice systems to improve processes, programs, policies and outcomes.

On this episode, Dr. Barney looks back at the start of her career into the field of OT and recounts about her experiences across different settings including academia. She shares about her work with the Transformative Justice Initiative as well as her passion for social justice and servant leadership.

Alondra Ammon, MS, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist who is also a first-generation Salvadorean/Haitian American and a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Her exposure to the medical field while serving during 9/11 created a passion for serving others and eventually led to a B.S. in Kinesiology from San Francisco State University.
 
From there, Alondra went on to earn a Master's degree in OT at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, CA. During her time as a student at Samuel Merritt, Alondra served as a mentor to middle school aged youth in underserved communities as well as Co-President of the Student Occupational Therapy Association. Alondra completed AOTA's Emerging Leaders Development Program and has since co-hosted a Twitter #OTalk2Us and presented at the 2018 AOTA Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

On this episode, Alondra talks about her work on projects that raise awareness on the importance of creating a culturally diverse and inclusive workforce to better serve clients, along with addressing topics that relate to underrepresented practitioners within the profession. She shares about her entry into the field of OT and her experience as a participant in the AOTA Emerging Leaders Development Program.

Resources & Recommendations from this Episode:

• The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women [book]
• Episode 7 of On The Air: Impostor Phenomenon [podcast]
• Military Veterans Seek to Heal Battle Wounds through Occupational Therapy [article] 
• AOTA Emerging Leaders Development Program [article]
• Senior Rehab Project podcast, Episode 262, in which Ashton Applewhite, the author of the book "This Chair Rocks," talks about how the biases each of us holds influence our interactions with others, including our clients as healthcare providers
• This Chair Rocks [book]
• Article from the Harvard Business Review recently shared as a resource on the AOTA website: How to Recover from a Cultural Faux Pas​

Connect with Alondra:

• Email 
• Twitter - @AlondraLaOT
• Facebook Page