What emerged from the project was the importance of collaborative working as illustrated here .
Working collaboratively with the health board
To ensure that the potential scope for delivering occupational therapy services in school could be fully explored , opportunities for evaluation were planned and built in from the outset .
The children ’ s occupational therapy team worked in partnership with the health board ’ s research and development department , drawing on their expertise with respect to data gathering and ethics for this service development project .
Their guidance was followed and adhered to in respect of gaining informed consent from all participants , storing data , and gaining consent or abstain from parents of those pupils who attended the schools and might be involved in any occupational therapy input the students might provide .
The research and development team were not only very approachable , but supportive in the design of the project , offering assurance that they would be happy to work collaboratively on future projects .
Working collaboratively with the university
The placement offered four BSc ( Hons ) Occupational Therapy students the opportunity to complete their final practice placement in two schools , where currently occupational therapy services were provided for a low number of pupils at a specific level .
The students , while pivotal to the success of the pilot , were also undertaking the placement as a university assessment and they needed to be supported to meet a set of validated learning objectives , alongside exploring the occupational therapy role in this new setting .
The practice placement educators were new to long-arm supervision and in addition to receiving training on this method of supervision continued to meet regularly with a university tutor .
Students received regular informal and formal supervision , time for peer mentoring and opportunity to explore the local children centre ’ s resources . The students ’ involvement in such a project , which clearly had the potential to influence future practice , reinforced their perceptions of ‘ research ’ as a core skill for practice .
On evaluation , working collaboratively with the university not only allowed the service to pilot a change to their delivery , but it also upskilled the team ’ s practice educators , while affording excellent
Having those eyes of somebody looking at the whole situation in a different way made a huge difference .”
pedological opportunities for the students on this innovative placement .
Working collaboratively with education
From the outset , Torfaen Education Authority was involved in the co-design of the project and was keen to evaluate the scope of and added value of occupational therapy in schools .
Being able to place occupational therapy students into the school settings over a 12-week period allowed them to integrate into school routines and build trusting and mutually respectful relationship with school staff .
On evaluation , the combined professional skills of education and occupational therapy led to a greater understanding of the challenges pupils were facing , allowing timely responses to become possible .
The professional lens of the students was noted by a member of the teaching staff who commented : ‘ Staff [ education ] are very educationally minded [ the students ] influenced from an occupational therapy perspective ’.
Another member said : ‘ Having those eyes of somebody looking at the whole situation in a different way made a huge difference ’.
Shared professional reasoning increased knowledge and understanding of each other ’ s roles and in widening the pupils ’ network of support , input became increasingly more responsive and ‘ tailor made ’ to meet their needs .
Being afforded the opportunity to work with education , the occupational therapy students were able to demonstrate the potential for widening the reach of the service to impact on more children .
In considering a tiered model of service delivery , which identified the need for and the implementation of universal , targeted , and specific interventions , they were able to meet the needs of not only the children who would traditionally have been referred to occupational therapy , but also those beneath the threshold for referral or not identified as likely to benefit from occupational therapy .
46 OTnews July 2022