Occupational Therapy News OTnews May 2020 | Page 58

FEATURE MENTAL HEALTH ‘Part of our role is to allow them to make that transition into motherhood despite the situation they find themselves in.’ The roles undertaken by Clare and the team (see the boxout for more on what perinatal occupational therapists do) provides scaffolding for new mothers to build up their resilience and ensure they can care for their children independently. ‘That might start with just a few small things,’ says Clare, ‘maybe just the bottles, or picking out the baby’s clothes for the day or help with a bath. As they get better we will look at their care plan and gradually add in more tasks as childcare or for themselves so we are constantly building up that woman’s ability to care for their child independently.’ Janice* is mother to a three-month-old baby and has been an inpatient since shortly after birth. She has schizophrenia and relapsed in the post-partum period. therapist in that team, it can feel very isolating. So it’s been very important to me over the year to reach out to others in the same speciality so I had a support network so that I was able to access peers’ supervision if I needed it, or just to touch base with people, or to share best practice and articles. I wanted that in place for all the new occupational therapists.’ A new perinatal mental health clinical forum was also launched last September to help the rapidly-developing field to develop a professional network and provide ongoing training and support opportunities. The fast-developing field is also now attracting new recruits. Lucy Padgett, a third year pre-registration student at the University of Derby, asked her university about placement possibilities in perinatal occupational therapy after seeing job listings for the role. She went on to a placement with a community team, as well as gaining some inpatient experience, in Leicester. She struggled to transition to motherhood and its new everyday roles and routines and needed support to establish at home for the baby as a single mum. ‘We’re thinking about a framework that works for her at home as she will need to provide all the care,’ says Clare. ‘So we’re looking at things like her own personal care, as we often know that women will often channel all of their energy into their newborn baby and forget to leave something for themselves. Creating self-care and a sense of balance for the mother means she will have ongoing resources so she can care for her infant in the long term.’ Clare is also supporting her to prepare the home environment, which hadn’t been unpacked after a house move; and making sure she is plugged into support networks in her local community. ‘We’re looking at the community perinatal team and linking her into groups through them or through her local children’s centre, making sure she is familiar with her family support worker and any other charity support or organisation that might be available to supplement her social contact,’ she adds. ‘It is interesting as it’s still an emerging role for occupational therapy,’ she says. ‘With other professions there have always been mental health nurses who are quite well established in the team. it’s exciting to see the emerging role of occupational therapy. ‘What stood out for me most is the autonomy as a student that I gained from it. It really helped me to identify my professional identity as there was only one occupational therapist in the team. You have to really know the profession and that’s what I find interesting, as it’s quite challenging.’ Lucy says she enjoys the chance to get ‘back to the core values of occupational therapy’, working on role transition, anxiety management and providing graded exposure to support them into leaving the house. She is now planning on finding a first job in mental health as a route into a perinatal role later on – and she is keen to take on the new training to support her career development. And whether you are also new to the field or a longstanding member, Clare says the training will have a useful role to play. ‘I would recommend the package to anyone regardless of where they are in their perinatal journey. There’s an action plan at the end and I’ve personally found that useful. However experienced you are, there’s always room for learning and development.’ The new training Clare has 16 years of experience in the field and she wants the new training to offer a way for new staff not to feel the have to reinvent the wheel. ‘I guess I wanted for all the new occupational therapists coming into the area to be aware of the type of assessment tools they might be using, the types of interventions that are appropriate in perinatal occupational therapy, and some sense of parity so that everyone was using something similar,’ she says. ‘The other important thing to me is that when you work in a specialist service, often as a lone occupational 58 OTnews May 2020 Andrew Mickel, OTnews journalist, email: andrew. [email protected], or visit: www.rcot.co.uk/perinatal- mental-health-e-learning-occupational-therapists. *Names have been changed. Join the clinical forum at: www.rcot.co.uk/mh/cf. The course is free for anyone who is eligible for an OpenAthens account via: www. rcot.co.uk/perinatal