Perinatal Occupational Therapist

Job overview

The services offered will be provided in line with the principles and ethos of recovery and social inclusion. The Band 6 Occupational Therapist will contribute their highly specialist knowledge and expertise in supporting this approach and will ensure that all interventions amplify an individual’s self-management skills.

Main duties of the job

To manage a caseload of women in the perinatal period with complex, severe and enduring mental health needs, providing interventions which support and promote improved mental and physical health for mothers, babies and their families.

To be responsible for conjunction with the OTs in the service to support the development and evaluation of evidence-based OT practice within the perinatal service

To work in conjunction with senior staff in the MDT to support the development of the perinatal service

Actively liaise with the MDT and external services such as primary care, maternity services, health visiting teams, adult and children social care, perinatal community teams and other mental health services.

To co-ordinate occupational therapy clinical expertise while engaging and contributing to professional meetings such as multi-agency case reviews, birth planning, child protection meetings and any other meetings related to the care and treatment of the women and their babies.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To co-ordinate provide highly specialist OT clinical knowledge in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of women in the perinatal period. Applying an understanding of the effects of multiple, enduring and complex mental health needs on occupational performance within a parenting role; while also dealing with service users or carers with potentially severe challenging behaviour.

To carry out mental health risk assessments for a caseload of service users and offer regular monitoring of mental state, in the individual’s own home, (an environment that may expose individuals to contact with body fluids, odours, dust, dirt, or verbal aggression), and other community venues, potentially assisting service users with physical disabilities.

To work autonomously providing clinical professional judgement in clinical cases and referring to team members when necessary.

To provide professional leadership on the development of specialist individual and group care programmes, supporting service users in achieving valued goals and satisfactory occupational performance outcome. Providing advice and support on lifestyle changes and adaptations to the service user’s social and physical environment.

To follow local protocol and obtain recommended equipment and/or liaise with local providers of equipment to ensure provision as appropriate.

To select and use validated standardised evidence based assessment tools, (Occupational Therapy assessment, mental health, perinatal, parent-infant and infant assessment tools), routinely, and exhibit advanced clinical reasoning skills.

To ensure the monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions, and the agreed mental health and parent-infant interventions, against clear aims.

To promote social inclusion and physical and mental well-being, underpinned by the principles of hope and recovery, health promotion and relapse prevention.

To facilitate smooth transitions for service users between primary and secondary care services where required. Establishing links and working in collaboration with partner agencies in order to contribute and manage aspects of an individual’s care plan.

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