Occupational Therapist in Yorkshire

The role of the Occupational Therapist is to provide a service to the individuals who live within the Company and to ensure that admission, time living within the service and the transition process is supported by considering each person's occupational needs as required through that period within a Positive Behaviour Support framework. The role purpose is to support people to develop occupational skills to enable them to become more independent and able to live a lifestyle of their choosing that supports health and wellbeing.

The Occupational Therapist will understand the fundamental occupational needs of a client group with learning disability, autism and complex needs and will build upon this understanding of needs throughout all individual interactions to bring about best practice in all aspects of engagement. The Occupational Therapist will follow the clinical pathway to assess and provide intervention for the people within the service either individually or in groups. To work collaboratively with all other employees, families, carers and stakeholders to promote the wellbeing and best interests of the service users.

THE ROLE:

• To carry out assessment of individuals within the service in relation to occupational need using assessment tools as required by the individual, making use of senior support as required.
• To formulate interventions plans from thorough assessment with individuals and their family and carers as required to bring about positive change to their access to, opportunity to engage in or choice of occupational experiences. To develop this into support/intervention plans and bring to fruition. To make positive use of clinical supervision to develop and quality check decisions made.
• To engage effectively and alongside care and activity and engagement staff to jointly bring about changes to support people in opportunity for occupation.
• Access and utilise the most contemporary relevant research and evidence base to support decision making in the clinical setting. To ensure that senior support is sought as required to ensure that theory and practice are interlinked.
• To follow the Occupational Therapy process as per the Company's Occupational Therapy department documentation.
• To provide information to people we support, families, authorities and all other stakeholders with relevant, timely and accurate information in a format suited to the receiving person's needs.
• Facilitate effective and appropriate communication of required information to the relevant people in a timely manner.
• Demonstrate developing reasoning and increasing ability to problem-solve through complex and challenging situations to bring about positive outcomes in the best interests of the individuals involved.
• Reflect on and in clinical practice both individually and with peers identifying strengths as well as professional development needs and providing evidence of sound clinical judgements based on research and evidence based practice.
• To maintain up-to-date and accurate case/progress notes and write reports reflecting clinical knowledge, ensuring that they meet the departmental standards, the Company policy standards and professional standards.
• To maintain registration as a practicing professional with the Health Care Professions Council as an Occupational Therapist.
• To maintain registration with the Royal College of Occupational Therapists.

Qualifications

• Current Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) Registration.
• Professional Qualification in Occupational Therapy - BSc degree or Equivalent.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.

Knowledge

• To have knowledge of National, Regional and Local health and social care drivers.
• To operate as a practitioner with knowledge of learning disability, autism and associated mental health difficulties to ensure that individual occupational needs are identified.
• To have a broad understanding of Occupational Therapy models and approaches across the spectrum of health conditions, to include physical and mental health.
• To have a baseline knowledge of the Occupational therapy clinical evidence base, assessment and intervention approaches specific to the people we support.
• Evidence of ability to problem solve and make effective use of clinical supervision and informal support from more senior practitioners to bring about learning and effective outcomes for clinical intervention.
• Develop the skills and knowledge of approaches to support people through situations where there may be high levels of distress, where they may require complex reasoning to solve crisis situations or fluctuations in health needs.

Skills and Abilities

• Ability to communicate information to a broad range of individuals and/or groups/family members/teams in a sensitive, appropriate manner.
• Ability to make decisions in the face of competing alternatives, with and without support from senior personnel as appropriate.
• Ability to self-evaluate and reflect in and on practice and to support less experienced or unqualified staff to see the value of such approaches to learning in practice.
• To begin to demonstrate ability to be analytical within professional reasoning.
• Demonstrate the values and beliefs through daily practice that reflect the core Occupational Therapy philosophy.
• To demonstrate flexibility in thinking and develop skills to start to take the initiative to make sound and reasoned judgements.

Experience

• Experience of working as an Occupational Therapist within a clinical setting with people with autism, learning disabilities, complex needs and behaviours that challenge.
• Experience of working within mixed professional teams.
• Experience of working with people from a broad variety of backgrounds, life experiences and cultures.
• Previous experience of working/volunteering/placement within a healthcare or social care setting or environment.
• Experience of receiving and making productive use of clinical supervision.
• Some experience of managing, organising and prioritising workload and caseload need.
• To demonstrate experience in working with and engaging effectively with client group.