Senior Occupational Therapist

Job overview

We are looking for a Band 6 Occupational Therapist to join the team at South Kent Coast Mental Health Together Plus

Community mental health services are going through a national restructuring, putting a new emphasis on delivering interventions, of which Occupational Therapy is identified as a key part. We have an established team of OTs and are looking to maintain and develop our current interventions in the new Mental Health Together and Together + services.

The role would include completing OT assessments and interventions. The intervention may be completed by the successful candidate, or by OT apprentices, support workers or junior team members under supervision.

We are also increasing our offer of group work looking at supporting complex service users to develop skills for daily living, and others to develop and strategies to manage their mental health recovery.

As well as OT activity the candidate will be involved in delivering core team functions such as trusted assessments, urgent assessment and risk management  and management of clinical pathways delivered by the service, working with a large and varied MDT.

Training and support would be offered to support the candidate with areas of working that are unfamiliar.

This post would suit an experienced band 6 looking to develop new skills.

Main duties of the job

Main duties of the job:

• To support the delivering of high quality mental health services to service users experiencing a variety of mental health difficulties.
• To provide high quality and evidence based occupational therapy assessments and interventions, both group and individual, to people who access services and their carers/supporters/family members, in line with the occupational therapy pathways.
• To communicate effectively with people who access services, carers the multi-disciplinary team and when appropriate outside agencies.
• To contribute to the generic functioning of the team
• To provide supervision and mentoring to more junior occupational therapists, occupational therapy apprenticeships, and support workers.
• To provide occupational therapy student placements
• To contribute to service development and audits
• The post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010).

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Our clinical pathways focus on interventions for people with complex mental health difficulties including personality disorders and interventions for people with enduring conditions. This is supported by our Allied Health Professions Strategy focused on enabling independence, transforming transitions, and influencing health and well-being in order to help individuals rebuild their lives.

The care pathways will be delivered by various professionals, and it has been recognised that occupational therapists play a key part in this process. Interventions delivered include a range of occupational therapy groups and individual occupational therapy assessment and treatment.

We have developed groups to support those develop skills and techniques in managing their emotions, others facilitating the development of life skills and to improve ADLs as well as supporting people to look past their diagnosis and reflect on their recovery journey and set goals to work towards their future aspirations. In addition to this, there has been a focus on occupational therapists joint working with support workers to facilitate transitions into other local services.

As well as delivering one-to-one OT interventions there are opportunities to develop a range of skills and deliver focussed interventions to individuals

The post holder will also be involved in the delivery of Trusted assessments and supporting the wider team with management and delivery of care through different pathways, including complex case management, Complex Emotional Difficulties, Urgent and Recovery Pathways.

Please see the job description for further details.