Therapy Assistant in Chelmsford

Main area: Children's Therapy, Grade Band 3, Contract Permanent, Hours Part time - 22.5 hours per week.

Job Overview: We are looking for a Therapy Assistant to work as part of the Provide multi-disciplinary team to provide a comprehensive pediatric Occupational Therapy Service for children, from birth to nineteen years of age, who present with developmental concerns. The candidate will work with children and their families in their homes, nurseries, schools and any other appropriate setting as well as within the children’s centre. They will also contribute to and assist Occupational therapists in the organisation. Successful candidates will own a car, hold a full clean driving licence and appropriate insurance.

Main duties of the job:

• To competently implement specific Occupational Therapy treatment plans using knowledge and experience with or without qualified therapist present.
• This will include the treatment of children in a manner that respects privacy, dignity and individuality.
• This may include manually handling a child who may have complex tonal issues, painful joints or unpredictable behaviour.
• To communicate with children who have limited or no functional speech and may use assistive technology devices or signing to augment their communication.
• Reports back progress of treatment to therapists, identifying change or difficulties and need for reassessment.
• Recognises limitations of their practice and is able to seek assistance from the supervising therapist appropriately.
• Within the scope of their skills and knowledge to contribute to the planning of individual and group activities, reporting to the chartered therapists for re-direction and advice as necessary.
• To regularly lead therapy groups and blocks of treatment, which have been planned by a therapist.
• To prepare rooms and equipment for individual and group therapy or multi-disciplinary therapy sessions.
• To have a working knowledge of the specialist equipment and to be able to demonstrate correct usage to parents and school staff as necessary.
• To assist the therapists in the ordering and correct fit and adjustment of equipment, to monitor this and report back to the therapist any need for further adjustment or change of equipment.

Working for our organisation: Provide is a Community Interest Company (social enterprise). We deliver a broad range of health and social care services in the community, and are committed to making sure that they are safe, responsive and of high quality. Provide is owned by its employees and has primarily social objectives. Any profits we make are reinvested into the local community or back into delivering services. We work from a variety of community settings, such as community hospitals, community clinics, schools, nursing homes and primary care settings, as well as within people’s homes to provide more than 40 services to children, families and adults across Essex, Dorset, East Anglia and the North of England.

Person specification:

• Qualifications: GCSE level qualification or equivalent NVQ level 3 or demonstrable experience.
• Desirable criteria: Care Certificate.
• Previous Experience: Experience working with children, understanding of physiotherapy and occupational therapy roles, understanding of the NHS/health care settings.
• Desirable criteria: Awareness of disabilities, awareness of electronic record keeping.

Further Information:

• How will we contact you? All correspondence for this post will be by email or text messaging. Please register for text messages on your TRAC account.
• Applicants are advised to check their email accounts regularly to ensure that email filters are set to allow our mails.
• As we often have many applicants for jobs at Provide, we regret that we will only be able to contact those external applicants who are shortlisted for interview.
• Therefore if you have not heard from us within 2 weeks of the closing date, then please assume you have not been shortlisted for interview on this particular occasion.
• Internal candidates who are unsuccessful can seek feedback from the recruiting manager.
• If you wish to contact the Recruitment Team, please do this via provide.recruitment1@nhs.net.
• If you wish to contact the Recruiting Manager about the vacancy/role or for feedback after interview, their details are provided within the advert.

Closing Date: Provide reserves the right to close this vacancy at any time or bring forward the closing date should it have an overwhelming response. We therefore encourage an early application to ensure consideration for this post.

Professional UK clinical registration required for the role? If we require you to hold UK professional clinical registration to undertake a role we appoint you to, Provide will pay for your registration during the first year of your employment.

COVID-19 Vaccination: Provide CIC continues to encourage all colleagues to ensure they have been double vaccinated and received a booster vaccination.

Disability: If you have a disability and need assistance or more time to complete your application or attending interview, please contact a member of the HR Services Team on 0300 3030 2661 or provide.recruitment1@nhs.net.

Work Trials: Please check with your local Job Centre Plus to see if you are eligible for a Work Trial.

We are committed to equal opportunities, flexible working practices and the National Living Wage.

Successful Applicant: You will be required to bring all your documentation to your interview to show the recruiting manager and again at your pre-employment appointment with the Recruitment Co-Ordinating team. The information that you provide will be treated confidentially.