Lynn Safenowitz’s professional experiences show how broad and varied the occupational therapy profession can be.
Consider three recent programs that Safenowitz (’84) has overseen as assistant director of rehabilitation services at Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA in Los Angeles: teaching children about bullying prevention as part of their social skills development; building a sensory garden to reduce adult psychiatric patients’ anxiety; and showing adolescents how to harvest and cook their own food. Each illustrates the intrinsic rewards of occupational therapy, she says: finding imaginative and meaningful ways to help people live better lives by strengthening their functional skills.
“Being creative with the functional application of therapies—whether that means social skills training, mindfulness meditation, or nutrition and cooking education—is what makes OT both relevant and unique,” Safenowitz says.
Meaningful Work
Safenowitz discovered OT during a health professions survey course she took as a college junior. She was looking for a way to help people, especially kids, after watching her younger brother struggle in separate classes for children with learning disabilities. She saw an opportunity to engage in hands-on, meaningful work and decided to pursue the subject with a master’s degree at Sargent.
Safenowitz says the two-year Sargent master’s program, which included internships at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York (working with patients with physical disabilities), Resnick (where she later landed her current job), and the Churchill School in New York, provided the foundation for her professional career.
After leaving BU, Safenowitz performed OT evaluations for student services in the New York Unified School District. There, she assessed children’s gross and fine motor skills, visual perceptual abilities, and their social skills and play levels, and recommended OT services. Then she relocated to California for a full-time position at Resnick, working for several years before scaling back her schedule—and eventually leaving the hospital—to raise her family. During this stage of her career, she also delivered early intervention services in “Mommy and Me” OT therapy groups at her synagogue helping preschool-aged children with their language development and motor and social skills.
A Proactive Approach
Since rejoining Resnick part time in 2012, Safenowitz has overseen several research-driven projects that illustrate the diverse applications of OT.
Take bullying prevention. With the rise of social media, Safenowitz says the recreational therapists in her department often encounter children and adolescents who’ve experienced—or contributed to—the problem. After some research and professional seminars, therapists conducted role-playing exercises designed to elevate the young people’s empathy. The program’s highlight was an anti-bullying summit hosted at UCLA.
“Being creative with the functional application of therapies is what makes OT both relevant and unique.”
—Lynn Safenowitz
“[The kids] practiced role-playing of bullying and being bullied, and what to do and what not to do,” Safenowitz says. “It’s [about] creating an understanding of how people feel.”
A similar pattern of research combined with experimentation led to the sensory garden. The garden tested the idea that group participation in tending the plants could help inpatients who are experiencing depression and other conditions learn new skills and improve their moods. In a second gardening project, outpatients of all ages plant seeds, tend plants, and harvest hydroponic produce in a courtyard at one of the hospital’s buildings. They also learn to cook with some of their harvest and package produce to take home or deliver outside the hospital. Safenowitz says the relaxing environment is a perfect location for mindfulness exercises and group discussions.
The courtyard garden is also a way for younger patients to connect their hospital-based experiences to a practical application of their efforts. This was done first in cooking sessions and then in preparing produce for delivery to Students 4 Students, a group run by UCLA students for peers who lack housing.
This is the kind of experience that makes OT intrinsically rewarding, a message that Safenowitz communicates to her team of about 21 therapists, plus interns (including some from Sargent), and which informs her work on the Sargent College clinical advisory board that she joined in 2020. And it’s a theme that applies to her career, from her early-career work helping young children with their motor and social skills to the Resnick patient population.
“Providing therapy and seeing the growth and development is what is rewarding,” she says. “I remember when a toddler who didn’t speak in my early intervention program started to speak. It’s just amazing when you see the success that your patients achieve.”