Band 5 Occupational Therapist - Weston-super-Mare

Job overview

The Occupational Therapy team at Long Fox Unit is looking to recruit an enthusiastic Occupational Therapist who has an interest in working in mental health.

This post is rotational, where you will get the opportunity to work across both Adults of Working Age and Older Adults in Mental Health utilising a broad range of OT skills. Within in this job you will provide 1:1 OT interventions, group activities and work closely with the MDT.

Regular supervision and appraisal are an integrated part of our practice, and you will also have the opportunity to supervise junior OT staff members.

For further information please contact Zoe Tippetts, Lead Occupational Therapist, on 01934 836505.

• Professionally accountable for own caseload, working autonomously to deliver OT in a variety of inpatient and/or community settings including the service user’s own home.
• To develop and implement OT treatment plans and provide advice to service users to enable them to maintain, restore or create a balance between their abilities and the demands of their occupation and environment in the areas of self-care, productivity and leisure. Service users have a range of mental health conditions or learning disabilities.
• To work compassionately with service users and carers to achieve identified OT goals and to promote social inclusion, independence and well-being through a client- centred approach.
• To provide the best possible experience for service users, carers and families.
• To develop professional knowledge and skills through participation in preceptorship and competency framework to enable the post holder to take responsibility for service users with increasingly more diverse presentations and more complex problems.
• To facilitate others in the team to develop competence by providing clinical advice and training to OT associate practitioners, assistants and students as appropriate.
• To be committed to and involved in activities integral to Quality Improvement.
• To promote at all times a positive image of people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities.
• To promote at all times a positive image of the OT Service and the wider Trust.

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.

We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Accountable for designated caseload, working within an evidenced based occupational therapy treatment plan and care programme approach under the guidance of the supervising occupational therapist. Service users may demonstrate behaviours that challenge and have difficult family situations of relevance.
• Undertakes occupational therapy assessments, addressing occupational performance and skill deficits.
• Assesses and manages risk effectively in clinical and community settings including the service user’s own home
• Works with service users and carers to identify Occupational Therapy goals as part of the overall Multidisciplinary Team plan.
• Develops and implements individual and/or group interventions, in collaboration with the service user(s) and MDT to achieve therapeutic goals.
• Uses technical and creative skills to engage service users in therapeutic activities and encourages them in a compassionate manner, to support them in achieving their identified goals.
• Monitors and evaluates occupational therapy treatment in order to measure progress and modifies treatment plans to ensure effectiveness of clinical interventions.
• Provides reports on service user progress at clinical meetings and participates in the clinical decision-making process regarding service user care programmes as part of the multidisciplinary team.
• Provides advice, education and training to service users, carers and other healthcare staff involved in service users’ care.
• Undertakes health promotion activities.
• Assesses service users for and fits adapted equipment in the home, as appropriate.
• Acts as lead professional for service users if no other professional is involved in the service user’s care and may undertake care co-ordination for service users on Care Programme Approach where there is an occupational therapy component identified.
• Responsible for recognising the potential for or signs of service user harm, abuse or neglect, including poor clinical practice, reporting all such concerns and taking all reasonable steps to protect the service user. Responsible for identifying and reporting concerns regarding the safeguarding of children who may be at risk.
• Demonstrates safe moving and handling of service users, using equipment as required.
• Demonstrates safe physical interventions in the management of violence and aggression as required.

FOR MORE DETAILS PLEASE SEE JD ATTACHED

Person specification

Job related

• BSc Degree in Occupational Therapy or Equivalent
• Knowledge of Mental Health
• HCPC Registration

• Experience of working in Mental Health
• Knowledge of model partic MoCA
• Experience of using Sensory Strategies with People with Mental Health Problems

This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

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Please apply to join us, we would love to hear from you. Any personal details you supply to us are kept safe in line with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Adverts normally close for application a few minutes before midnight on the closing date and we will let you know if we are offering you an interview by email via our recruitment system ‘TRAC’. We contact all applicants within 4 weeks after the closing date, so please check your emails regularly once you have submitted your application; you are welcome to contact us, via the TRAC system, if you have any queries about your application.

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