By Dave DeFusco
At the 2025 AOTA Annual Conference in April, Amanda Brenner, a graduate of the Katz School’s Occupational Therapy Doctorate, presented an innovative educational training course that prepares occupational therapy fieldwork students to work effectively with incarcerated individuals returning to society.
Under the mentorship of Dr. Alexandra Laghezza, a former clinical assistant professor of occupational therapy at the Katz School and now special assistant professor at Hofstra University, and in partnership with Grace Denfeld of the Afya Foundation, Brenner developed a project that embodied what the Katz School calls scholarship of service—a commitment to academic excellence through real-world impact.
“Amanda’s work is a powerful example of how clinical training, community partnership and academic research can come together to enact change,” said Dr. Laghezza. “She created something scalable, something that could and should be adopted across OT programs nationwide.”
The American criminal justice system, said Brenner, often perpetuates occupational injustices—structural barriers that prevent individuals from engaging in meaningful, productive activities. These injustices contribute to alarmingly high recidivism rates: 83% of returning citizens are re-arrested within nine years of release.
Drawing from her prior fieldwork and expanding on Afya’s existing programming at the Westchester Department of Corrections, Brenner framed this crisis through an occupational therapy lens.
“Occupational justice,” she said, “is the belief that everyone has the right to participate in meaningful occupations, whether it’s work, education or caregiving. Yet for people who are incarcerated, those rights are often denied.”
The Afya Foundation’s long-running program at the Westchester Department of Corrections offers a unique response. There, inmates sort and package surplus medical supplies for shipment to countries in need. The work is meaningful, skill-based and rooted in service. It’s also an ideal setting for occupational therapy intervention. To prepare future occupational therapists for this emerging field, Brenner and her team designed a course structured in three interlocking phases:
Phase 1: Direct Engagement with Inmates: Fieldwork students observed and assisted two populations at the Westchester Department of Corrections: a young male offenders’ unit, where the focus was on life skills and functional tasks, and a women’s substance abuse unit, where sessions focused on social interaction and coping strategies. Students participated in Afya’s signature supply-sorting program while working alongside inmates in these populations, gaining critical insight into the environmental and emotional dynamics of incarceration.
Phase 2: Creation of Learning Modules: With this field experience in mind, Brenner developed a series of educational modules grounded in occupational therapy theory and justice system practices. The course emphasized self-awareness, empathy and evidence-based practice—skills essential for working with justice-involved populations. These included:
- PowerPoint-based lectures introducing occupational therapy’s role in the justice system
- Google Form quizzes to reinforce learning
- Interactive activities to uncover and address students’ implicit biases
- Case scenarios on recidivism reduction strategies
Phase 3: Module Implementation and Assessment: To measure the efficacy of the program, Brenner administered the course to 13 former Afya fieldwork students. The results were illuminating:
- Seven out of 14 students reported feeling unprepared to work with incarcerated individuals prior to the training.
- Twelve out of 14 believed it was “extremely” or “very” important to receive such training beforehand.
- Following the course, 12 out of 14 students rated their preparedness as “good” or “very good.”
- There was a 34% increase in students’ self-reported preparedness after completing the modules.
“The implications are wide-reaching,” said Dr. Laghezza. “Amanda’s findings suggest that occupational therapy education must evolve to meet the demands of a shifting social landscape, where systemic inequities and mass incarceration require not just awareness, but action.”
