Poetry, art and sensitivity: contributions of an extension project for training occupational therapy students

Abstract

Objective

This study aims to present the contributions of a project entitled University Extension Project in Occupational Poetry for the education of students of an Occupational Therapy course. The project was dedicated to training for humanized and sensitive attention, using art and poetry.

Method

This was a qualitative research, in which documentary analysis of the materials produced during the project was carried out and a semi-structured questionnaire was applied to fifteen students and former students of the course that composed their execution teams. The reports from these answers went through a content analysis and were systematized into five categories: motivations for joining the project; structuring principles and methodologies of operation; contributions of the activities offered; contributions to training and professional performance; and project evaluation.

Results

The documentary analysis enabled to systematize and describe the activities developed by the project, mainly referring to poetic clotheslines and conversation wheels. The analysis of the answers to the questionnaire identified that the project welcomed and empowers students to carry out their training and promoted new ways of learning and teaching and of producing care in Occupational Therapy, from the use of poetry and art, the horizontality of relationships, the use of soft technologies and the problematization of everyday academic and social issues.

Conclusion

The project contributed to the students putting themselves in a powerful, creative way, and able to recognize themselves as agents of social transformation, to improve their sensitivity and to qualify their practices in spaces of professional formation and performance.

Keywords:
Professional Training; Community-Institutional Relations; Humanization of Assistance; Soft Technologies; Occupational Therapy; Poetry