Document 1: The Practitioner Biography

When daily life feels harder than it should, Elizabeth Scanlon helps you rebuild the routines, confidence, and independence that make life feel possible again.

If you are searching for occupational therapy in Waterloo, you may already know what feels difficult: starting tasks, staying organized, managing pain or energy, feeling safe at home, supporting your child’s development, or getting back into the activities that matter most. What you need next is someone who can translate those challenges into practical, achievable steps.

Elizabeth (Liz) Scanlon, BPH (Hons), M.Sc. (OT), OT Reg. (Ont.), is an Occupational Therapist at CARESPACE Uptown Waterloo who brings a grounded, person-focused approach to helping you participate more fully in everyday life. Her background in community mental health, pediatric occupational therapy, school-based rehabilitation, and functional support gives her a wide clinical lens: she looks not only at what is difficult, but at why it is difficult, what is getting in the way, and what can change so your day works better.

Elizabeth combines occupational therapy, public health, and real-world problem-solving so your care plan fits your actual life.

Elizabeth (Liz) Scanlon, BPH (Hons), M.Sc. (OT), OT Reg. (Ont.), provides comprehensive occupational therapy care for a wide range of physical, cognitive, emotional, developmental, and functional concerns. She supports meaningful participation across the lifespan, whether you are navigating changes in health, recovering from injury, adjusting to life transitions, building independence, or helping your child develop the skills needed for home, school, and community life.

What makes Elizabeth especially effective is the way she connects clinical reasoning with practical application. Her Honours Bachelor of Public Health from the University of Waterloo gives her a strong understanding of health within the broader context of environment, behaviour, access, and daily routines. Her Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from McMaster University gives her the clinical foundation to assess function, identify barriers, and create strategies that are realistic enough to use outside the clinic.

In addition to broad occupational therapy care, Elizabeth brings particular depth in Behavioural Activation, Cognitive Support, and Home Safety — three areas that often overlap when daily life begins to feel overwhelming, disorganized, unsafe, or harder to manage alone.

Your care with Elizabeth starts by understanding what matters to you, then turns that understanding into a plan you can actually use.

Elizabeth’s approach is collaborative, practical, and focused on the activities that give your life structure and meaning. Rather than starting with a generic checklist, she takes time to understand what you want to do, need to do, and are expected to do — then explores the physical, cognitive, emotional, sensory, environmental, and motivational factors that may be affecting your ability to do them.

Through occupational therapy, Elizabeth may support you with routine-building, energy management, pain management strategies, executive functioning supports, environmental modifications, equipment recommendations, activity pacing, behavioural activation, self-regulation strategies, or developmental skill-building. The goal is not simply to talk about what is hard; it is to create a clear path forward that feels manageable in real life.

At CARESPACE Uptown Waterloo, Elizabeth works within CARESPACE’s coordinated, multidisciplinary model, collaborating with other regulated health professionals when your goals would benefit from a broader team approach. That means your occupational therapy care can be aligned with support for movement, mental health, nutrition, pain, recovery, and overall wellness, helping you receive care that is connected instead of fragmented.

Her education and clinical experience give you both compassionate understanding and the practical tools to move forward.

Elizabeth holds an Honours Bachelor of Public Health from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from McMaster University. She is registered as an Occupational Therapist in Ontario, anchoring her work in professional standards, evidence-informed practice, and a clear commitment to safe, ethical care.

Her clinical experience spans community mental health, pediatric occupational therapy, school-based rehabilitation support, youth early intervention, general internal medicine exposure, family health care settings, and professional development education. At the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington, she worked as both an Occupational Therapist and Clinical Lead in Occupational Therapy, supporting functional recovery, daily routines, motivation, participation, and mental health-informed care. At KidsAbility Centre for Child Development, she supported pediatric occupational therapy through school-based rehabilitation, helping children develop skills related to sensory processing, self-regulation, fine motor development, and participation at home, school, and in the community.

Elizabeth has also completed additional training in Motivational Interviewing, Traumatic Event Systems, and mental health and wellness-related areas. That training matters because many functional challenges are not solved by willpower alone. When motivation, trauma history, cognitive demands, stress, or emotional load are part of the picture, Elizabeth is equipped to meet you with compassion and strategy.

If motivation, memory, organization, or home safety are holding you back, Elizabeth helps make daily life more manageable one practical step at a time.

While Elizabeth provides full-scope occupational therapy care, her added depth in Behavioural Activation, Cognitive Support, and Home Safety makes her especially well suited to helping when everyday life feels stalled, scattered, unsafe, or difficult to initiate.

Behavioural Activation can be especially valuable when low mood, anxiety, pain, fatigue, stress, or life disruption has made it harder to begin activities, maintain routines, or reconnect with the things that matter. Elizabeth helps you identify realistic starting points, break overwhelming tasks into achievable steps, and rebuild momentum through meaningful activity. Instead of simply telling you to “do more,” she helps you understand what is blocking action and how to make the next step small enough, specific enough, and meaningful enough to begin.

Cognitive Support is another area where Elizabeth brings practical, functional skill. If attention, memory, planning, organization, task initiation, time management, or follow-through are affecting your daily life, she can help create strategies that reduce cognitive load and support independence. This may include routines, reminders, environmental cues, task breakdowns, planning systems, pacing strategies, or adaptations that make daily responsibilities easier to manage. Her goal is to help you feel less stuck in the gap between knowing what needs to happen and being able to make it happen.

Home Safety is where Elizabeth’s occupational therapy lens becomes especially concrete. If you are aging in place, recovering from injury, managing disability, navigating pain or fatigue, or supporting a loved one’s independence, Elizabeth can assess how your environment is helping or hindering function. She may recommend practical modifications, equipment, layout changes, fall-risk reduction strategies, or daily routine adjustments that help your home support your goals instead of creating unnecessary barriers.

Across all three specialty areas, Elizabeth’s focus remains the same: helping you participate more fully, safely, and confidently in the life you want to live.

Your next step can be simple: book with Elizabeth and start turning daily challenges into workable strategies.

Book an appointment with Elizabeth Scanlon today and take the next step toward safer routines, clearer strategies, and more confidence in everyday life.