CPL Primary Lead Dr. Ryan Lavalley delivered the keynote address for the West Virginia Occupational Therapy Association’s 29th Annual Conference in Charleston, WV last week. In his keynote, “Fire in the Mountain: What Occupational Therapy Can Learn from Appalachian Resilience,” Ryan spoke about how lessons learned from Appalachian history and resilience can inform an expansion of occupational therapy into community practice areas.
“I was so grateful for the opportunity to return home and deliver the keynote lecture for the WV OTA conference,” said Ryan, who grew up in West Virginia. “It was such a joy to reconnect with practitioners and faculty from across the state and hear their stories of practice, resilience, and leadership.”
In the keynote, Ryan highlighted the intersection of history and everyday life through his own experiences growing up in Appalachia and his evolving relationship to the region.
“When I first left West Virginia, I felt a lot of stigma and hesitancy about being from the mountains, distancing myself from my history and culture,” said Ryan. “But if you were forged in the fire of these mountains, or have made the effort to get familiar with them, you know we come from a long history of survival, resilience, and transformation.”
The keynote delved into this history, highlighting case studies in which West Virginians’ everyday lives offer invaluable lessons to occupational therapy practice today. For example, residents creatively seceded from Virginia in 1863 by denouncing the state government, convening an alternate state government, and granting themselves permission to secede, which enabled them to create a West Virginia state government attuned to the needs of mountain life. Years later, unsafe and exploitative conditions in coal mines prompted one of the largest union movements in U.S. history, marked by racial and cultural solidarity that prioritized community over company.
Occupational therapists can draw on these strategies for prioritizing health and community in challenging oppressive health systems today. To demonstrate how to translate lessons learned to practice, Ryan shared examples from the CPL’s work with community partners such as the Orange County Department on Aging, the Orange County Home Preservation Coalition, and Habitat for Humanity of Orange County.
And the conference featured a familiar face—Ryan’s mother, Barbara Lavalley Benton, who leads art workshops for people with disabilities through the West Edge Factory in Huntington, WV. Bringing family, place, and everyday life together in this keynote highlighted the intersection of academic and personal experiences, celebrating an Appalachian legacy of building community across different experiences.
“This conversation felt more than academic—it was personal,” said Ryan. “This keynote was a love letter to the Appalachians for the many things I hadn’t realized they taught me.”