Occupational therapy

Service Overview

Occupational therapy enables people to participate in daily life to improve their health and wellbeing. Daily life is made up of many activities (or occupations). Occupations for children or young people may include self-care (getting ready to go out, eating a meal, using the toilet), being productive (going to nursery or school, or volunteering), and leisure (playing with friends or doing hobbies).

The service is delivered in a range of settings which includes local mainstream and special schools, early year’s settings including Children Centres the home environment and on a clinic or hospital site. Ideally the therapist will try to see the child or young person in the environment where occupations are taking place.

Occupational therapists will spend time finding out about the child’s and family’s typical daily life and what they want, need or are expected to do. They will then work together with the child, family and other key people to evaluate what helps or hinders their involvement in daily life roles. Together, possible solutions will be developed, such as exploring alternative ways of doing things or making changes to the environment to support participation.

The service has the following levels of support:

1. A whole population/universal approach delivering occupational therapy, where therapists share professional knowledge and skills with educational staff and parents to improve the engagement and participation of children in a range of school and home occupations.

2. Targeted services designed to support children and young people who are at risk of reduced participation in everyday occupations, delivered via a telephone advice line, school/nursery link visits, workshops, training and occupational therapy resource packs and advise sheets.

3. Specialist occupational therapy services provided for children and young people with identified physical and developmental learning needs which impact on their participation in life roles. Use of an individualised intervention approach to teach strategies, recommendation of specialist equipment, and advice on environmental modifications, parent coaching approaches, individualised home and nursery/school occupational therapy advice, and specialist evidence based therapy delivered individually or in a group setting.

Whole population/universal approach and targeted service can be accessed at a pre referral stage; specialist occupational therapy requires a child to be referred.

Further information is also available from: Royal College of Occupational Therapy leaflets and Social Care Occupational Therapy (Surrey).

Information for SENCOS

This Everyday Living Skills Checklist can support SENCOS in identifying children with potential Occupational Therapy needs across all the every day occupations we address. It is recommended that the checklist is used: 

• to gather information when calling the helpline
• when a child is moving to SEND arrangements to identify needs (and inform earlier contact with the service and referral)
• when a request for EHCP is being made (our caseworkers have suggested that the checklist is included in the request to assess paperwork).