Senior Children's Community Occupational Therapist
National Health Service
Total years of experience :15 years, 10 Months
My current role involves working with children aged 0-18 years of age with a range of diagnoses including cerebral palsy, ADHD, Autism, DCD, learning difficulties, arthritis and developmental delay.
I manage my own geographical caseload and commute around the area to deliver individual programmes and treatment sessions in children’s homes, schools, clinics and other community settings.
Alongside my geographical caseload I am currently developing and implementing an OT service in short breaks and respite care particularly focusing on highlighting sensory processing difficulties and its impact on function and occupation. Through developing this service I have completed training session for staff members in the short breaks service and developed the use of drop in clinics where I take a consultancy role to offer advice and strategies for the children or young people discussed.
I am familiar with a wide range of standardised assessments including the SPM, Sensory Profile, Movement ABC-2, DTVP-2 and Peabody assessment and use this alongside my clinical observations to develop and implement treatment programmes for both home and school. I have led on developing and running groups including a handwriting group a body awareness group and a fusssy eaters group.
I have excellent communication skills and am currently involved in the assessment and diagnostic process for pre-5 children with Autism or Asperger’s syndrome. This involves working as an integral member of the multidisciplinary team and ensuring clinical findings both standardised and non standardised assessments are feedback to the MDT and parents.
I have attended and completed two sensory integration courses which has enabled me to develop the service offered to children with sensory processing difficulties and implement sensory integration sessions for children where their personal safety could be impinged without the treatment.
This module looked at the different theories and approaches of child development. With a more indepth knowedge on the nativist, behaviourist, constructivist and social constructivist theories it has now enabled me to ensure the right approach and interventions are delivered to the child dependant on the condition and evidence base surrounding this.
The evidence base practice module developed my skills to critically appraise current research, literature and own practice. Evidence based practice is an essential skills to ensure patients recieve thebest quality care. The evidence based practice module enabled me to enhance my knowledgre on clinical effectiveness and the importance of continually reflcting and improving on practice. Following the completion of this module it has resulted in me developing service users and parents feedback forms to ensure Occupational Therapy practice is reviewed and improved upon.
This module looked at exploring different ways in which therapy can be integrated into the education system. I gained a more in depth knowledge on how the education system works and the different aspects of the curriculum.During the progression of the module I developed my skills in writing individual education plans for children and ensuring they are linked into the curriculum. This course has provided me with a wide range of knowledge which has now been implemented into my current working practice.