© FG Trade via Getty Images
• Helping individuals to identify and manage the balance between work, rest, self-care and leisure to support recovery and wellbeing.
• Working alongside service users to cocreate weekly planners, calendars and visual timetables that promote structure and consistency in daily life.
• Offering training and joint working opportunities with accommodation support staff to ensure that occupational perspectives are embedded into the support provided in residential settings.
• Working alongside drug and alcohol services, supporting service users to explore alternative roles and routines that move away from substance use and foster positive identity and engagement.
• Advocating for a rehab and recovery approach to working with services users and promoting‘ doing with’ and not‘ doing for’ to maximise independence.
• Helping service users to make sense of their sensory experiences and understand how this can impact mood and mental wellbeing.
Overall, the inclusion of occupational therapists in assertive outreach teams ensures that our service users receive holistic, meaningful and recovery-oriented care. We work to reduce occupational deprivation, enhance autonomy and support each individual to build a meaningful life.
Challenges we face as OTs in assertive outreach
Working in an assertive outreach team brings unique challenges, both in terms of the service user group and in maintaining our professional identity.
A key challenge faced by occupational therapists is balancing the specialist role of occupational therapy with care co-ordination.
As care co-ordinators we contribute to a wide range of team tasks, such as crisis management, physical health monitoring and medication support. While this holistic involvement is essential to the assertive outreach team model, it can sometimes limit the time and energy available to deliver specific assessments and interventions with an occupational focus.
The nature of the service user group also presents significant complexity. Many of the individuals we work with experience a combination of severe and enduring mental illness, substance misuse, cognitive impairments and social exclusion.
Many of our assertive outreach team service users also have difficulties in holding a tenancy, leading to housing issues and homelessness. These additional barriers can make goal setting and intervention planning more challenging and progress is often slow and non-linear.
Engagement is often dependent on consistency and relationship-building over time. We must remain adaptable, patient and creative in how
September 2025 OTnews 23