Occupational Therapy News OTnews October 2018 | Page 38

FEATURE CHILDREN’S SERVICES
participate in occupations, while building developmental
performance skills.
Developmental interventions: the occupational
therapists working with children aged under five have
also shifted from an automatic focus on component skill
in interventions to adopting occupational performance
coaching principles.
Occupational performance coaching has been
identified to support and empower parents and carers
to feel satisfied in their ability to support their child, as
well as facilitating their ability to generalise advice to a
number of different occupational performance difficulties
their child may be facing.
The working party continues to reflect and receive
feedback from the occupational therapy team around
the use of occupational performance coaching and the
new ASD pathway in place.
By reflecting on and reviewing the changes, both in
the service and within the preliminary work completed
in schools, under fives and early intervention areas of
service, the team can see how the use of occupational
performance coaching and providing evidence based,
occupation-centred therapy strives to achieve best
outcomes for children, young people and families.
References
College of Occupational therapists (2015) The role of sensory
Graham et al (2014) used a purpose-
designed survey to explore parents’
experiences of occupational
performance coaching (OPC) as part
of a larger mixed-methods study.
Twenty nine mothers participated in the
survey, which yielded quantitative and
qualitative data. Numerical data were
analysed descriptively, whilst written
comments were explored using content
analysis. The results are presented
in terms of: mothers’ evaluation and
description of OPC; mothers’ learning
experiences; and mothers’ experiences
of the impact of OPC. The authors
identified that descriptions of OPC
were largely positive, and that mothers
became aware of what they already
knew as well as gaining insights about
themselves and their children in addition
to learning new skills to support
occupational performance. The authors
suggest that coaching may facilitate
transformative learning processes,
enabling parents to generalise strategies
and gain more empathic views of
themselves and their children.
management teams and the occupational therapists
sitting in those schools.
It has been trialled for the school therapists to
introduce the principles of occupational performance
coaching to support teachers. The focus of this work is
to develop the teachers’ satisfaction and performance
to support students within the school.  
This has been a relatively new introduction and is
currently being reviewed as a practical and appropriate
method of occupational therapy delivery within schools.
Early intervention: the occupational therapists
working with high risk and premature infants as part
of early intervention within the community have also
adopted occupational performance coaching principles.
Adopting a coaching role with families and
parents around arousal states and regulation, as well
as focusing on shaping enhanced environments,
empowers parents to support their children to
Reference
Graham F, Rodger S, Ziviani J (2018)
Mothers’ experiences of engaging in
occupational performance coaching.
British Journal of Occupational
Therapy, 77(4), 189–197
performance coaching with parents of children with
performance issues: three case reports. Physical and
Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 30:1, 4-15, DOI:
10.3109/01942630903337536
HCPC (2013) Standards of proficiency – occupational
therapists. Available online at: https://bit.ly/2Rx5z98
[accessed 25 September 2018]
Upton D, Stephens D, Williams B and Scurlock-Evans L
(2014) Occupational therapists’ attitudes, knowledge, and
implementation of evidence-based practice: A systematic
integration in occupational therapy. Practice briefing. review of published research. British Journal of
Available online at: https://bit.ly/2PlOWvI [accessed 26 Occupational Therapy, 77(1): 24-38
September 2018]
Graham F and Rodger S (2017) Occupational performance
coaching: Enabling children’s and parents’ occupational
performance. In Rodger S (Ed) Occupation-centred
practice with children. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
Graham F, Rodger S and Ziviani J (2018). Occupational
38 OTnews October 2018
Ben Harris, senior occupational therapist, and Vicky
d’Abo, team l