My friend Heather Hunter, who has died aged 64 of oesophageal cancer, was an occupational therapist specialising in the mental health of children and families.
Although OTs have long been associated with helping adults in the workplace, Heather was one of those who worked alongside other professionals to support traumatised children’s emotional, sensory and environmental needs through the use of play-based therapy.
Heather worked for the best part of two decades at leading hospitals in the central belt of Scotland. Later she moved into the academic field, lecturing at her alma mater, Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, for 25 years and becoming a champion of applying psychoanalytic thinking to occupational therapy.
In 2005 she was appointed a member of the Mental health tribunal for Scotland, which hears applications for, and appeals against, compulsory treatment orders. She fulfilled that role until her death.
Heather was born in Edinburgh to Iain Crawford, a quantity surveyor, and his wife, Isabella (nee Murray), a legal secretary. Heather went to James Gillespie’s high school and then Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, where she completed a diploma in occupational therapy in 1980.
Her first job was as an occupational therapist in the social work department at Lothian regional council (1980-83), after which she spent the next 16 years as a senior OT in hospital settings, at Royal Edinburgh hospital (1983-90), the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow (1990-92), St John’s hospital in Livingston (1992-95) and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh (1995-99). Mainly she worked in mental health units providing acute services for children and young people.
While in the last of those posts she also began lecturing at Queen Margaret, and in 1999 she joined it full-time as programme leader for its occupational therapy degree programme, later also becoming a senior lecturer. Along the way she gained a master’s degree and a PhD from part-time study.
A clear thinker with big ideas, Heather taught her students with imagination and rigour. Always stylishly dressed in a punky aesthetic, with red lipstick and black Dr Marten boots, she cut a bodacious figure wherever she went, whether striding through the corridors of NHS hospitals or academic institutions. A mischievous smile frequently crinkled up her eyes and she had an infectious laugh.
She is survived by her husband, Craig Hunter, whom she married in 1991, their children, Murray and Marsali, her mother and her sister Gillian.
