Paediatric Occupational Therapy
About
Paediatric occupational therapists support children and young people to carry out activities they need, want, or are expected to do, but are prevented from doing due to impairments, injuries or developmental conditions.
About our service
Paediatric occupational therapists support children and young people (aged 0 - 18 years, or 19 years in full-time education in special schools) to carry out activities (or occupations) they need, want, or are expected to do, but are prevented from doing due to impairments, injuries or developmental conditions.
Paediatric occupational therapists can suggest alternative ways of carrying out activities. provide advice on learning new approaches and help children and young people develop their independence skills within activities of daily living.
Examples of Activities of Daily Living (ADLs):
- Self-Care: washing, dressing, feeding/eating, toileting, sleep
- Productivity: school based activities; writing, scissor use
- Leisure: participating in out of school groups, play based skills
Royal College of Occupational Therapy Children and Young People leaflet
The BCHC community paediatric occupational therapy service uses a tiered model approach to deliver services to children, young people and families within the Birmingham area.
- Universal: families and professionals are able to access our advice packs and information via our webpage and contact our Advice Line where they can speak directly with an Occupational Therapist
- Targeted: families will require a referral to our service to access our parent workshops; these include topics on feeding difficulties, sensory processing and motor difficulties.
- Specialist: families will require a referral to our service to access specialist support, this can be within the home, clinic or school setting.
Why would a referral be made?
Families and Education should have accessed and implemented universal strategies prior to a referral, these can be found in our ‘pre referral problem solving pack’ our ‘advice sheets on our webpage’ or through our ‘advice line’. Evidence of input of strategies used should be detailed clearly on the referral form.
Once the universal support or advice has been accessed and there are still ongoing difficulties for the child or young person, a referral can be completed. These difficulties will be impacting significantly on their performance skills in more than one area of daily activities.
If you are considering a re-referral into our service, please ensure you detail previous advice that has been implemented or if this is a new concern or difficulty for the child or young person.
Please visit our ‘referral button’ on our home page for further information around referring into the Community Paediatric Occupational Therapy Team, our referral form and pre referral problem solving pack.
Other ways to access paediatric occupational therapy in Birmingham
BCHC Plus Team
We are a team of occupational therapists providing additional services supplementing those currently available through locally commissioned NHS provision. BCHC+ enables schools and other settings to purchase occupational therapy to support their pupils need. We work mostly in mainstream and specialist schools within Birmingham, providing dedicated time and support.
How can we help?
- Provide universal support to school settings through the provision of workshops or training sessions to school staff
- Provide targeted support by screening and identifying children that would benefit from occupational therapy
- Recommend classroom strategies and equipment to support the pupil’s needs and engagement in learning.
- Design therapy programmes for an identified group of children and modelling to teaching staff/assistants
- Deliver parental workshops to provide strategies and support to the parents/carers of pupils.
- Provide specialist support to pupils in school by completing one to one assessments, such as sensory assessments
- Create individualised goals and treatment programmes/sensory diets for pupils within school and review therapy goals
- Complete detailed written reports following one to one assessments of pupils
- Attend individual EHCP annual review meetings and contribute towards advice and targets
Our occupational therapy training portfolio is continually expanding so please do not hesitate to contact us regarding your particular needs or requests.
To find out more about how BCHC+ can benefit your school, pupils, families and staff, please contact our BCHC+ team:
BCHC Plus Team
Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Children and Families Division
Moseley Hall Hospital
Alcester Road
Moseley
Birmingham B13 8JL
Telephone: 0121 466 6266
Email: bchc.bchcplus@nhs.net
Website: www.bchcplus.co.uk
SEND Therapy Team
About our team
We are a team of occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. We work closely with schools and nurseries in Birmingham to support children and young people with special educational needs by linking between health and education.
How can we help?
We support settings across the city using a universal and targeted approach including:
- family webinars covering a variety of topics such as ‘top toileting tips’; ‘how to make the home sensory friendly’; and ‘developing self-care skills’;
- SENCo webinars to equip teaching staff with the skills to support a child’s occupational therapy needs in school;
- 30-minute virtual advice meetings with school SENCo to discuss the needs of individual children;
- 30-minute virtual advice meetings with early years staff and parents/carers to discuss the needs of individual children;
- advice during multi-agency planning meetings at each school and nursery setting across the whole city.
Innovative Projects:
- Stay and Plays
As part of the developing local provision (DLP) programme across the city, SEND occupational therapists will be attending stay and plays to provide support and advice to parents/carers.
- OT Champions
This project runs in schools to train a staff member to be an occupational therapy champion. The 12-week training programme equips staff members with the skills and knowledge to set up intervention groups and address a wide range of occupational needs within the school
- Sensory Circuits
This half-day, in person training programme is offered to all schools across the city. The training equips a member of staff to set up a sensory circuit in their school, to support children to calm and regulate their senses in order to access the learning environment
How to contact us:
- Past webinars
- More about the SEND Therapy Team
- For any queries, email bchc.sendtherapy@nhs.net