Karen Rebeiro Gruhl

I have been practicing as an occupational therapist for 39 years. I graduated from the University of Western Ontario (UWO) with a BSc. (Occupational Therapy) in 1985 and a Masters in Occupational Therapy from UWO in 1997. I completed my PhD in rural and northern health in 2011.

Throughout my career, I have primarily worked in adult mental health. I began my career at Kingston Psychiatric Hospital before moving to Sudbury, Ontario and worked at Sudbury General, Sudbury Algoma, and Laurentian hospitals on both inpatient and community-based teams. In 1995, I went back to school to learn how to conduct research to support my practice. Again in 2006, I went to learn how to have a larger system impact on northeastern Ontario. Having research evidence in my back pocket has helped me immensely throughout my career to promote occupational participation in health, supporting the occupational therapy profession.

In 1997, in collaboration with people with lived experience of mental health, I started an occupation-based mental health program known as NISA: Northern Initiative for Social Action. NISA was created in response to community-based action research which identified few occupational opportunities for people with mental illness in Sudbury. This program is now 25 years old and continues to thrive. I received the CAOT Award for Innovative Practice in 2017 for this work. I continue to volunteer at NISA in collaborative research activities that include the development of a recovery evaluation tool called the 3B Scale; exploratory research on the role and participation of peer support workers in mainstream mental health systems in Canada; and promoting occupational participation through collaborative partnerships with community-based groups.

Over the years, I have engaged in a variety of teaching, clinical, and research-related occupations. I have taught online on both coasts, as well as at Laurentian University. My academic occupations include writing book chapters and publications in various journals, and my clinical work has evolved from the public sector to private practice over time. 

I have always considered service to be an important piece of being an occupational therapist (OT) and feel this is especially important to our small profession with vastly different practices. We all need to do our bit to advance our profession. To this end, I have volunteered on community boards, as an OSOT Board Director from 2009 to 2013, as lead with the OSOT research fund committee for several years, and I am currently serving my second 3-year term as the Ontario Director on the national CAOT Board. I have served on the CJOT Advisory Board and have been a column editor for OT NOW - exploring what it means to be a client-centered OT.

Currently, I am on a slow slide towards retirement, and my task now is to identify those occupations which will sustain me into my elder years. Occupational therapy is an amazing profession and I have been honored to be an occupational therapist!