In memory of Joy Varney Blackburn (Nee Marie Dorothy duToit), Board member of the Crouch Trust.

Joy Varney Blackburn, well known and revered occupational therapist, passed away on Wednesday 13th April 2011 after a long illness, bravely borne.

Joy was born in on 30th November 1939 in Barberton. She trained as an occupational therapist at the Vona du Toit College, part of Pretoria University, and in 1960 was the Rag Queen of the University. This was a first for the occupational therapy department!

In 1961 Joy worked at Tara Hospital (now the H. Morross Centre, psychiatric hospital). She drove a red MG! At the end of the 60s she lectured at Pretoria University occupational therapy department and past students remember going home to her house where she gave them tutorials. From 1960 to 1970 she lectured and taught pottery at the Occupational Therapy Vona du Toit College.

She worked at Millsite Hospital, part of the Lifecare group, from 1980, for 25 years, where she dedicated herself to doing research on mentally handicapped children with self-injurious behavior. She published a number of articles and also authored a chapter in the 2nd edition of the book “Occupational Therapy in Psychiatry and Mental Health,” ed. Crouch. She was very involved with the training of Occupational Therapy Assistants during this time.

During this time she had two sons and a daughter and sadly lost her husband Keith in 1982.

Joy was part of the inaugural committee of the POTs Group (Psychiatric OTs) in 1985. She and her second husband Malcolm (married in 1986) attended the first OTARG (Occupational Therapy Africa Regional Group) Congress in Mauritius in 1991.

At the beginning of the 1980s Joy was an inaugural member of the establishment of SAISI (South African Institute of Sensory Integration). She served on the Board for more than 20 years. During this time she was the 3rd Chairman and served for 4 years from 1988 to 1993. One of the contributions she made was investigating the value of sensory integration in the treatment of mentally handicapped children with severe disabilities and self injurious behavior. Many meetings were held at her house when planning the International Congress of SI and NDT in 1996. She chaired the congress committee. It was an extremely successful congress.

Joy was elected President of OTASA (Occupational Therapy Association of South Africa) in 2001. Her involvement in OTASA was extensive and she made a big impact, particularly in occupational therapy in the psychiatric field.

When Joy left Millsite Hospital she used her great pottery skills, empowering indigent persons to develop and industry in pottery called Creature Pots. She and her husband Malcolm worked together on the actual sale of these wonderful creative pots.

In the past couple of years a group of colleagues in the Pretoria and Krugersdorp area who are retired got together to form the OWLs group (Old Wise Ladies) and Joy organized one of these get-togethers last year at the Irene Dairy Farm next to her home in Irene.

Joy was a beautiful person in all respects. She was an intensely creative person, a master potter and wild-life lover and expert. She set an example as an occupational therapist in the real sense of the word. She was a wonderful colleague, a wonderful friend, a wonderful mother and wife and companion, and a wonderful occupational therapist!

Joy was a founder Board member of the Crouch Trust and was active on the Trust until she became ill in 2011. She will be sadly missed by the Board and very much remembered for her contribution.

Rosemary Crouch recounts the beginnings of The Crouch Trust

"In 1987, when I was a senior lecturer in occupational therapy at the university of Witwatersrand, I was priviledged to be with three of the "giants" in South African occupational therapy history, in Cape Town for a meeting. We were driving along De Waal drive very fast, as Judith Farrell was driving! She was at the time Head of Occupational Therapy training at the University of Pretoria and President of SAAOT (now OTASA) at the time. With us were Marge Concha, Head of Occupational Therapy training at the University of Witwatersrand, and Ruth Watson who was Head of Occupational Therapy training at the University of Cape Town. We were discussing the lack of occupational therapy publications at the time

I said to Judith that it would be very nice if OTASA could get together experts in the field of psychiatric occupational therapy to edit a South African text book. "Do you think that OTASA would consider it?" Judith, who was driving even faster, said " No I don't think so, why don't you do it yourself."

So that is what I did, and the first publication of "Occupational Therapy in Psychiatry and Mental Health" was published in 1989 and Marge Concha wrote the foreward. Many famous South African occupational therapists wrote chapters for the book.

The book became so popular that a reprint was required. Because of the lack of references for our students in psychiatric occupational therapy in South Africa, the 8 training centres prevailed upon me to produce a second edition which was published in 1992 by the Lifecare Group for whom I was working at the time. This edition sold thousands of copies even though we had no international market due to the political situation in the country. The proceeds from the sale of these two editions was kept in a savings account and is the basis of the Crouch Trust.

In 1995 South Africa was out of the woods politically and I felt that it was time to go international with the book. I brought on Board as co-editor a very dear young colleague and expert in the field, Vivyan Alers. The book had a major revamp and Vivyan found an international publisher in Maskew Miller and Longman. The third edition was published in 1997.

At the end of 2003 Jennifer Creek, author of the other reference widely used for psychiatric occupational therapy "Occupational Therapy and Mental Health." (3rd Edition 2002), was staying with me in Johannesburg. She said that it was about time we completely revamped our book and made it more international, and that she would find us a British Publisher. This is exactly what she did and it was extremely generous of her. She always says that the two books compliment each other! The fourth edition was published in 2005.

The Crouch Trust has received royalties from both publishers over the years."

The Crouch Trust  (Registration No: 047-796-NPO)
was officially registered as a Non- profit Organisation (NPO)
with the Department of Social Development on 19th April 2006.

There is an Executive Board which runs The Trust.

Members of this Board are:

• Dr Rosemary Crouch (Chairperson) - Mellon Research Mentor, University of Witwatersrand.
• Mrs Vivyan Alers - Director, Acting Thru Ukubuyiselwa (017/119 NPO)
• Professor T Alfred Ramukumba - Head of the Department of Occupational Therapy at Limpopo University (MEDUNSA Campus)
• Mrs Annah Lesunyane - Senior lecturer in Occupational Therapy at Limpopo University (MEDUNSA Campus)
• Mrs Joy Anderson Blackburn - Past President of OTASA.
• Ms Fasloen Adams - lecturer in Occupational Therapy at the University of Witwatersrand.