Baylor OTD Alumna Bridges Faith and Practice for Individuals with Disabilities
As a child and throughout high school, Ashley Westover witnessed the life-changing impact that occupational and speech therapy had on her older brother, who was born 16 weeks premature. As she weighed a future career in healthcare, Westover was inspired by her brother’s experiences to pursue occupational therapy as a profession.
“I thought occupational therapy would be a great way to help people add more life to their days,” she shared. “The medical field can add more days to life, but I feel like OT really lets people pursue what they’re passionate about and overcome things and reach goals that people believed they couldn’t do.”
After completing her bachelor’s degree at Baylor University, Westover chose to stay at Baylor to pursue her Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) degree as well. She had already experienced Baylor’s stellar academic quality as an undergraduate and had also built a friend and church community in Waco, Texas that she wasn’t ready to leave.
During the doctoral capstone portion of her OTD education, Westover had the opportunity to work with the Baylor Center for Disability and Flourishing (BCDF), led by Executive Director Erik Carter, PhD, Professor and Luther Sweet Endowed Chair in Disabilities. At the BCDF, she worked under Jason Le Shana, PhD, Program Director for the Baylor Collaborative on Faith & Disability, primarily focused on the experience of people with disabilities and the church. Westover’s role included evaluating the accessibility of churches and church websites, assessing barriers for people with disabilities to participate in church activities, and developing educational materials for churches navigating these spaces. Her contributions even made their way into an article recently published by the Journal of Disability and Religion.
Meanwhile, at the same time that Westover was completing her doctoral capstone, her church, Grace Church Hewitt, began hiring for a new administrative and children’s ministry position. This new job and the work Westover had been engaged in were remarkably aligned.
“It was pretty much like every bullet point in the job description was something I had done in my capstone,” she recalled. “I really just felt like the Lord was calling me to it.”
After graduating from the Baylor occupational therapy program in 2024, Westover continued to serve at Grace Church Hewitt in addition to working as a full-time pediatric occupational therapist. She sees her two areas of work as wonderfully intertwined and as more similar than they are different.
“In both of them, as a Christian, I view everyone as image bearers of God and as beautiful creations valued by Him,” Westover said. “And in both things, I’m teaching people—whether it’s teaching them the gospel or teaching them daily life skills, I’m just meeting them where they are and helping them learn and grow.”
Her experience with her BCDF doctoral capstone continues to influence Westover’s work at Grace Church Hewitt. She shared how occupational therapists can bring a unique and much-needed lens to conversations around disabilities and accessibilities. Where many might limit the scope of accessibility to wheelchair ramps or other physical infrastructure challenges, OTs bring a broader, more holistic framework to the discussion, exploring topics like overstimulation due to lights or music levels or the impact of service structure on individuals who struggle with mental flexibility.
Westover also emphasized that—while larger churches may be able to develop robust disability ministries—even smaller churches, like her own 100-person church, can implement low-cost, intentional changes to make the worship experience more accessible. At Grace Church Hewitt, this has included an evaluation of contrast levels for colors on print and digital graphics to aid those with visual impairments as well as trainings for nursery volunteers to become more skilled at redirecting children with sensory difficulties.
In the future, Westover hopes to continue to advocate for the integration of religious considerations into occupational therapy practice.
“In our [occupational therapy] practice framework, faith practices and activities are listed throughout, but if you ask the majority of occupational therapists if they have ever asked about or addressed that in their practice, my bet would be that most would say, ‘no, that’s too personal,’ or ‘no, I don’t know enough about that,’” she explained. “Occupational therapy is very holistic and wants to address everything, but I think sometimes people forget that faith is part of everything.”
Through her experiences with the BCDF, her work as an OT, and her church job, Westover understands the deep value that an occupational therapy perspective can bring to creating more accessible church and worship participation. Thus, through her work and words, Westover is creating a more welcoming faith community in her own church and for others now and in the future.
For more information about supporting disabilities in church from an occupational therapy student's perspective, check out Ashley Westover's doctoral capstone project.
ABOUT ROBBINS COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
Established in 2014, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences seeks to enhance health, quality of life, and human flourishing for all individuals and communities through education, research, and innovation. It includes six academic departments—Communication Sciences and Disorders; Health, Human Performance, and Recreation; Human Sciences and Design; Occupational Therapy; Physical Therapy; and Public Health—along with the Division of Health Professions, which houses the Master of Physician Assistant Studies program. Robbins College offers 13 bachelor’s degrees, eight master’s degrees, and six doctoral degrees, as well as nine graduate programs in partnership with the U.S. Army. Graduate programs in Robbins College are offered in a variety of modalities, including on campus, online, and hybrid.