participation in all contexts . We serve students in real-life contexts of all roles and responsibilities .
Comments from students on having an occupational therapist at university include : ‘[ The OT has ] encouraged me to shift my mindset ’; and ‘[ It has ] helped me to work out what my goals were and then helped me to work out how to achieve them ; I really appreciated that the approach was more person centred and I didn ’ t have to just fit my thoughts or feelings into a framework ’.
We can help support the development of healthy habits and routines to promote academic success and wellbeing . We have an awareness of how illness , injury or developmental disabilities affect participation and are experts at analysing and adapting tasks to suit an individual .
Future plans
We have identified a growing demand for the service to explore sensory profiles of students under our care , especially due to the high percentage of students declaring a disability . With this in mind , we hope to additionally develop our peer support neurodivergent network , which currently acts as a social space where neurodivergent students can engage , collaborate and network with each other in order to gain valuable skills to help them pursue their performing arts career .
BBC News ( 2021 ) Covid : Many students say their mental health is worse due to pandemic . Available at https :// bbc . in / 46z6YRY [ accessed 7 August 2021 ].
Bolton and Hubble ( 2021 ) Support for disabled students in higher education in England . UK Parliament . Available at https :// bit . ly / 3uAW40M [ accessed 7 August 2023 ]
Raver , CC , Garner PW and Smith-Donald R ( 2007 ) The roles of emotion regulation and emotion knowledge for children ’ s academic readiness : Are the links causal ? in B Planta , K Snow and M Cox ( eds ) School readiness and the transition to kindergarten in the era of accountability . Paul H Brookes Publishing , Baltimore , MD , US , pp . 121- 147 .
Words JOSIE HOLDING is now qualified and works as an Occupational Therapist at Leeds Conservatoire , email josie . holding @ lcm . ac . uk
Flying the flag for occupational therapy
Clare Copley explains how the implementation of a non-conventional student support offer at Leeds Conservatoire has helped bridge the gap between student mental health , counselling services and disability support , to provide a more inclusive and accessible service .
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n July this year , I attended the Association of Managers of Student Services in Higher Education ( AMOSSHE ) national conference in Belfast , alongside our Head of Student Support . We were invited to talk about our innovative implementation of occupational therapy as part of our student support offer at Leeds Conservatoire , a specialist music and performance higher education institution .
We were keen to share our implementation and experience of a non-conventional support offer , which has helped us to bridge the gap between student mental health , counselling services and disability support , to provide a more inclusive and accessible service .
This move away from a more traditional student support model has enabled us to promote functional independence and increased participation within our student population .
As well as benefits to our students , we feel that a more cohesive multidisciplinary team has energised staff across the service , captured the attention of organisation directors and is proving to be both a mechanism for recruitment and retention of our students .
How it all began
This idea developed at the beginning of 2022 , which was our first full year back in after the pandemic and it was clear that there had been a
30 OTnews December 2023