Our international research team conducted a global survey exploring how occupational therapists support adults in their parenting roles. We got 1,357 valid responses from OTs in 42 countries.

This paper highlights that parenting is often under-addressed in OT practice — less than half regularly ask clients about their parenting roles, and only a third frequently intervene around parenting concerns. The research also found that assessment practices tend to rely on informal conversations or general OT measures rather than parenting-specific tools, and that interventions are most often limited to education and training rather than tailored, occupation-centred parenting support.  Those occupational therapists who had prior training in parenting and OT were  more likely to integrate parenting into their regular  assessment and intervention practices. 

McGrath, M., Honey, A.*, Almomani, F., Chen, Y., Codd, Y., Junghun A., Kunishige, M., Morrison, R., O’Mara, V., Peterson, J.,  Pituch, E.,   Romli, M., Rozen, D., Sabbah, R., Sarsak, H., Saunders, E., Sim, S., Tan, H.L., Wong, W.T.,  Wan Yunus, F., & Rider, J. (2025). Parenting and Occupational Therapy: An exploration of global practice. Occupational Therapy Journal of Research 46(3).https://doi.org/10.1177/15394492251382465