Cara St John reflects on what she ’ s learned about transferrable skills over the past year .
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Transitioning practice areas
Cara St John reflects on what she ’ s learned about transferrable skills over the past year .
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I
n 2024 , I decided to apply for a Band 7 Clinical Occupational Therapist post in a community adult learning disabilities team . Prior to this , I had been working in inpatient mental health for more than eight years . Aside from working with clients in mental health settings who were also autistic or had mild learning disabilities , my experience in the field of learning disabilities was limited . I wasn ’ t confident that I would be shortlisted for an interview , let alone be recruited for the post .
Part of me thought that the only thing that might give me a chance was my postgraduate diploma in sensory integration .
Fast forward nine months and I was successful in getting the job . I ’ ve now been in the role for almost six months and it has turned out to be the best career decision that I have ever made .
I ’ ve also realised that my sensory training is not the only transferable skill that I have to offer . The key point that I am trying to make in this article lies in that last sentence – transferable skills .
Sometimes it can be so easy to forget that , as occupational therapists , we are dual trained practitioners who have the knowledge and skills to work in any setting that we put our minds to .
For years , I saw myself as a ‘ mental health occupational therapist ’ and feared that as I had not used many of my physical occupational therapy skills for years , they were gone for good .
But they are never gone for good . They come back to you . In my role in adult learning disabilities , I feel that I am using my skillset more holistically than ever before . I would now struggle to separate the occupational therapy profession into the two boxes of ‘ physical health ’ and ‘ mental health ’. Occupational therapists are both of those things , and so much more .
Since I moved practice settings , a lot of people have reached out to me and told me that they would
38 OTnews January 2025