I work as an Occupational Therapist in an International inclusive school dealing with children who have special needs. The biggest impact of the pandemic on my work was that I was unable to physically meet the children for 1.5 years and provide therapy (online classes were happening though). However, during the online classes, I had the opportunity to meet the parents of the children in a virtual mode, which helped me better understand the children in their family environment that contributes towards a child's development. It was also interesting to note that children showed improvements when parents gave quality time to them and when children were allowed to play in sync with nature in their native places. However, I am glad that I am back to school now providing physical therapy.
The pandemic has taught me to slow down, be reflective and introspective. It has also taught me to rise to the occasion by embracing new methods of providing therapy including virtual mode of online classes and working with new platforms such as Zoom, Google Classrooms and so on.
On the personal front, the work from home option helped me and my family members to spend more time with each other. It gave me an opportunity to increase my participation in household work along with my mother in-law. In addition, it helped me in pursuing lost hobbies and developing new hobbies. Most importantly, when all of us at home were quarantined due to COVID, it was interesting to observe the altruistic nature of local vendors and Corporation staff. It was equally amusing to observe, on the contrary, the ostracising approach of a few people even months after our complete recovery.
On the social front, I observe that some people have turned reluctant to socialise in person after being in the comfort zone of Zoom calls.
Some of the measures that I adopted for self care were as below:
- Connecting with elderly relatives over the phone to check on their physical and mental well-being.
- We had to accommodate an elderly relative at our home for about 3 months as she was stuck in Chennai due to the pandemic. During this time, we watched many good old movies/songs, I learnt new cuisines from her, and enjoyed the evening terrace walks and conversations. All these were mutually therapeutic.
- Connecting with school and college friends through Zoom calls.
- Enrolling and attending multiple online courses to keep me abreast with the current developments in the field of OT and Psychology.
- Writing poems, thereby pursuing my old hobby.
- Engaging in the free tele-counselling project of CCF, which gave me a lot of satisfaction and helped me better understand the psyche of the public during a pandemic.
- It was gratifying to see my son and husband spend some time in the evening playing badminton and other games, which could not have happened without a work from home situation.
Harini Sriram
April 2022
