Specialist Paediatric Occupational Therapist

Job overview

The Harrow Paediatric Occupational Therapy team is looking for a motivated, flexible and innovative therapist to work with children and young people in Harrow. This is a rotational role which rotates through a variety of community paediatric areas.  It will allow you to develop you skills, in pre-school, mainstream schools and special schools.

We are a friendly, dynamic and innovative team who are passionate about supporting children, young people and families in Harrow.  We have an established internal training programme along side regular opportunities for external training.

We are based at Alexandra Avenue where there is a high level of integration and collaboration between different health, education and social care services.

Main duties of the job

We are seeking an enthusiastic Occupational to join our Paediatric rotational scheme. This scheme offers the opportunity to gain a broad experience in Paediatrics through yearly rotations in the following areas of services: 1) Pre-school, 2) Mainstream school, 3) Secondary/ Special schools

This post will involve working  in a mixture of clinics, mainstream schools and special schools. Our service is keen to focus on evidence based family-centred care principles, and applying best practice guidelines to enable occupational participation. We are open to new ideas and constantly reviewing and modifying the way we work.

The post holder will contribute to departmental meetings, clinical audit/research and projects. They will provide advice and deliver training to other professionals and parents/carers on all aspects of paediatric occupational therapy. He/she will provide clinical education and training to physiotherapy students and will supervise the work of the PTA’s and LSA’s.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To communicate complex patient related information effectively ensuring collaborative working with multidisciplinary team members across health, education, social services and the voluntary sector. To work in particular with teaching staff, or medical/ nursing staff to ensure the delivery of a well coordinated care/individual education plans/programmes, facilitating the development of physical skills
• To share information with others, observing confidentiality and data protection guidelines and having due regard for local guidance on sharing information with colleagues in health, education, social services and the voluntary sector.
• To communicate complex condition related information (both verbally and in the written form) from assessment, to CYP, Parents/carers, and members of the multi-disciplinary team/other professions. This includes child specific information as well as training packages to parents, teachers and other professionals regarding physical disability/difficulties, sensory/perceptual and functional difficulties. To have due regard for the cultural and linguistic differences of children/families concerned.
• To work closely with CYP, carers and families, involving them in decision making, regarding intervention approaches, demonstrating empathy and ensuring that effective communication is achieved, particularly where barriers to understanding exist (i.e. communication difficulties, EAL and learning difficulties). This may involve the use of interpreters.
• To employ excellent communication skills such as persuasion, motivation and explanations to encourage/reassure CYP and carers to undertake treatment programmes.
• To demonstrate negotiation skills in the management of conflict across a range of situations.
• To form productive relationships with others in particular parents/carers who may be under stress and/or have challenging communication difficulties.
• To provide specialist clinical reports for CYP
• To provide written advice for education and health care plans, describing the impact of the child’s difficulties will have on their learning environment.