Welcome to the O.T. Leaders & Legacies Society!

Follow this link to view the Spring ALC 2025 presentation by Rita Fleming-Castaldy, OTL&LS History Preservation Project Chairperson, titled Integrating Historical Literacy into Curriculum to Shape Professional Identities Inclusive of Association Engagement.

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Our Mission

The OT Leaders & Legacies Society (OTL&LS) will identify, honor, and fully engage a cadre of occupational therapy professionals who have demonstrated their leadership abilities and skills through service in a variety of civic and professional organizations. This broad community of established leaders will support occupational therapy and other healthcare professionals by designing, leading, and participating in a variety of educational and professional development projects that sustain and enrich the knowledge of occupational therapy practitioners and researchers as well as students, professors, and faculty in higher education institutions throughout the country. In addition, the OTL&LS seeks to capture and honor the history of the profession and the profession’s contributions to society that have helped to improve the overall quality of life of individuals with disabilities, their families, and their communities.

Who Are We?

We are a community of energetic, accomplished, senior and mid-career occupational therapy practitioners who are committed to the growth of the profession. We are not defined by what we have done in the past--we continue to be active in our communities and our profession.

We are leaders in

traditional and innovative or entrepreneurial practice
service to academic, professional, and civic organizations
research.

Our members live in 3 countries and 38 different states; our careers span 20 to more than 70 years of activity. By joining together as a Society, we help build and maintain our professional community, advance the profession, and support civic communities.

View our list of members and explore a database of our members' interests in volunteer and mentoring initiatives to learn more about who we are.

What Do We Do?

We advance O.T. and contribute to our professional and personal communities jointly as well as individually. Our members' individual activities are described in their bios. A few of our current Society run projects are:

gathering and documenting the stories of OT living leaders
documenting and archiving physical representations of OT history
mentoring mid- to senior-career occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants, and individuals from allied fields by providing coaching related to career focus, leadership, advocacy, education, practice, and/or scholarly activities
collaborating with organizations that represent diverse marginalized populations to support advocacy efforts to improve accessibility and build inclusive opportunities for all people
advocating for occupational therapy assistants
developing formal ways to honor exceptional occupational therapy assistant students
collaborating with and providing service to state and national organizations in support of communities served by occupational therapy professionals

Some of our projects are accomplished solely by Society members. Other efforts are accomplished in collaboration with existing organizations. We continually explore ways to establish collaborative relationships with existing organizations in order to engage our members in meaningful educational, service, and social justice projects. Currently, our partners include several state occupational therapy associations, the Multicultural Diversity & Inclusion (MDI) Network Leadership Coalition and each of their individual groups, and AOTA. We support each organization in a different manner. For example, we support several MDI groups in efforts to record the histories of their group and significant leaders, established an MDI Scholarship Fund, support AOTA by recommending individuals to serve as members of special task forces and editorial boards, and support MDI groups and state associations by providing expert presenters for continuing education programs. Read more about our recent activities under Society Updates and Accomplishments.

Put simply, regardless of the project, our overarching goals are to help our members find ways to continue to experience the joy of community and the satisfaction of contributing their leadership skills and knowledge to advancing O.T.

Want more information? Click the menu button in the upper left corner to view the rest of the website.

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

The Occupational Therapy Leaders and Legacies Society (OTLLS), with membership comprising over 100 respected leaders from the occupational therapy profession, has a mission to support, promote, sustain, and enrich the profession of occupational therapy through a variety of projects led and implemented by members. Since its official incorporation in 2017, OTLLS has mounted productive and important initiatives to preserve occupational therapy history, establish a national honor society for Occupational Therapy Assistants, and establish a foundation to fund scholarships and other initiatives to advance the profession.

OTTLS encourages its members to engage as individuals in non-OTLLS endeavors that they believe sustain and advance occupational therapy. It recognizes that some of these endeavors involve advocacy for various causes. As an independent membership organization, OTLLS does not take official positions on matters concerning the governance and leadership of other occupational therapy organizations. Although it respects the rights of its individual members to express their particular points of view, it insists that they do as individuals, taking care to clarify that they do not represent the official views of the OTLLS organization or speak on behalf of other members. References to OTLLS in public communications expressing collective points of view, the use of its logo, or its membership lists is unauthorized unless expressly approved by the board (and membership, as applicable) of OTLLS.

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