Specialist Paediatric Occupational Therapist

Job overview

The Therapies In Schools (TIS) service is an innovative PT and OT model of service which is commissioned by West Sussex County Council and delivered by Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust. It’s aim is to provide additional therapeutic input into schools to support the teachers and carers to integrate therapeutic goals into heart of curricular activities and at home.

TIS is an additional service to the current NHS provision and aims to work flexibly to meet ever changing demands as they arise. A key part of TIS is to provide accredited training to all education staff and offers opportunities for families and carers to access the training too.

We wish to recruit a part time Band 7 Occupational Therapist with the necessary skills and experience to join our friendly and innovative TIS team, working in a Special School and College in Burgess Hill.

We offer regular in-service training, peer supervision and clinical support. There are dedicated paediatric special interest groups and the Paediatric Occupational Therapy service is supported by a Countywide Professional Lead.

The hours available are three days a week term time only. Term time only roles are paid spread across a full year to ensure your pay does not change from month to month.

Main duties of the job

This is a wonderful opportunity to gain experience of working with a diverse range of children and young people within specialist school settings.

Please look at the Woodlands Meed school website to understand the needs of the young people you will be supporting.

Your role will be to provide a universal approach through delivering accredited training to school staff, some targeted work through group work and ad hoc needs, and a small caseload of intensive work to support families in crisis or needing enhanced support due to a change in circumstance.

Your role is in addition to the existing NHS provision provided by the Child Development Centre (CDC) therapists, and so working collaboratively with the CDC therapists is vital. You'll work in your main allocated school and college, do occasional home visits where needed, and may at times support your team members in other schools.

You will need to be flexible in your availability to attend occasional parents evening events, parent carer forum liaisons and host parent coffee mornings/network groups.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To increase parental confidence in the quality of provision provided within the schools.

• To build relationships with parents prior to school entry by attending parental tours for specific pupils and completing home visits
• Maintain therapeutic relationship with identified children (regular phone calls as required)
• Attending annual reviews for identified children
• Attending coffee mornings and parents evenings across allocated schools
• To support parents through all transitional stages both immediately prior to and throughout school (class to class, Yr 6 – Yr 7, attending parental tour for specified pupils) and post school placement.

To increase confidence and skills of school based education staff to deliver OT programmes

• To undertake specified large group training across allocated schools
• To undertake bespoke small group training to meet the individual needs of specified pupils
• To support a team of identified ‘Therapy Champions’ (teachers and teaching staff who have completed level 3 TIS training) to be first point of contact for other staff

To undertake work alongside school staff for agreed caseload.

• Working in class to support staff in delivering OT programmes
• Write, monitor and evaluate OT programmes in partnership with school staff.
• Contribute reports to and/or provide sections for health care plans, annual reviews
• To write tribunal assessments/ reports and attend tribunals where appropriate.
• Write and share with staff recommendations that can support areas of school curriculum areas.
• Provide recommendations to ensure the environment facilitates participation and inclusion for students with sensory and motor difficulties.
• To allocate OT time in schools depending on the need of the caseload.
• To provide group work sessions as agreed with the individual school

To work as part of the multi-disciplinary teams to improve further the integrated holistic and child centered approach of the allocated special schools

• Attend regular MDT meetings
• Attend MDT team around the family meetings for specified pupils
• OT will understand the holistic curriculums of each school and will contribute to the student-centered planning.

For further details please see attached Job Description.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.