Occupational Therapist

Job overview

To work as an independent OT practitioner with men in prison presenting with complex and challenging needs who attend the Mental Health Day Unit.

To work within a multi-disciplinary team to provide a comprehensive service to men presenting with challenging behaviour and traits and/or diagnosis of Personality Disorder.

To lead on the planning, delivery and implementation of Occupational Therapy provision  for the Mental Health Day Unit.

To lead on establishing sensory provision for prisoners. Providing evidenced based sensory assessments and regulation interventions for service users. Liaising with ND managers and practitioners, providing recommendations to for adaptations with the prison.

To apply a high level of understanding of the impact of mental and physical health conditions; providing training and advice on lifestyle changes & adaptation

To work with the Professional Lead to continue to develop and deliver and design a comprehensive OT Service including assessment, intervention and evaluation which is underpinned by an evidence base and personal recovery principles.

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

Main duties of the job

To provide specialist, culturally appropriate, evidence based occupational therapy assessments for individuals within the prison setting in order to establish and meet their occupational needs.

To apply evidenced based sensory assessments to determine sensory needs of service users.

To facilitate sensory regulation interventions for service users and provide recommendations for prison staff to support.

To provide sensory awareness training to clinical and operational staff to develop knowledge and understanding of sensory needs within HMP Woodhill.

To embed an Occupational Therapy service within HMP Woodhill, increasing understanding of the purpose of OT  provision for service users in prison.

To select and use validated standardised assessment tools routinely and in    practice, exhibiting clinical reasoning skills; to include the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) assessments.

To apply clinical knowledge and skills to carry out evidence based occupational therapy interventions, both individual and in groups, which are underpinned by relevant theoretical approaches.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To plan, implement and review individually tailored programmes of intervention using individual and group work approaches with prisoners within  Mental Health Day Unit.

To support service users and colleagues to ensure that care plans are developed in partnership with the individual and that they reflect ‘recovery goals’. These should be strengths-based and oriented towards reinforcing a positive identity and developing valued social roles.

To monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions against clear aims, objectives and outcome measures in line with evidence based practice and in conjunction with service users, carers and other professionals.

To work collaboratively with all professionals within the  Mental Health Day unit in developing care plans and risk assessments for prisoners.

To support individuals to develop skills and knowledge; and engage with community partner agencies, to facilitate successful transitions from the prison environment to the community.

To proactively undertake and ensure rigorous risk assessment & risk management strategies are applied. To ensure maximum ‘risk tolerance’ facilitates the individual’s recovery, in line with risk policies and local guidelines.