Occupational Therapy News OTnews May 2020 | Page 38

FEATURE COVID-19
Children’s occupational therapy during
the coronavirus lockdown: spotting the
opportunities as well as the threats
Children’s occupational therapist
Lorna Lewis reflects on how
assessment, goal setting and
intervention has rapidly been
adapted for one child accessing
occupational therapy services
during the COVID-19 pandemic
38 OTnews May 2020
I
n common with everyone else working in health and social care in the UK, my working
day has changed beyond recognition in the last few weeks.
Before the COVID-19 movement restrictions, my role as a children’s occupational
therapist involved numerous appointments in clinic and community locations, to deliver
assessment and intervention, meeting many people, and delivering most of my clinical
work face to face.
After all, how do you incorporate ‘therapeutic use of self’ into your practice unless you
are in the same room as your service users?
Change can be very challenging and there has been something about the speed,
scale and limited individual control of the changes related to coronavirus that has been
particularly difficult at times.
However, at the time of writing, I am now four weeks into new ways of delivering a
service using telephone and video consultations to families who are spending unusually
long periods of time together in their homes.
Over these weeks, I have begun to reflect on the changes in my practice and started to
feel able to consider the opportunities within these new ways of working, in addition to the
threats.
Occupational therapists, with their underpinning theory that considers the physical,
psychological and social contributions to occupational performance are uniquely well
placed to provide support and effective intervention for parents and children during
widespread social distancing, school closures and limited opportunity for occupations
outside of the family home.
This is been reflected in RCOT’s online guidance for supporting children’s wellbeing
while schools are closed (www.rcot.co.uk/staying-well-when-social-distancing), which
takes an occupational therapy perspective on the opportunities and difficulties within
widespread school closures (see box on page 39).
One family has given consent for me to share their story of occupational therapy during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alfie* is nine years old and was referred to occupational therapy because of concerns
about his handwriting and skills fastening buttons and zips.
He had received occupational therapy three years ago, which had supported his skills
development in some areas, but had been re-referred because he continued to experience
difficulties that were affecting his participation at school.
Assessment took place over a number of sessions
using individual telephone calls with parents and
school staff and video consultations with Alfie and his
mother.
As an occupational therapist, the video consultation,
although not as simple as a face-to-face assessment,
allowed me to develop my ideas regarding the likely
causes of his occupational performance difficulties.
One positive thing to note is that it is easier to
complete an assessment in a number of shorter
sessions if neither the therapist nor the family are
traveling to be in the same room together.
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