Specialist Occupational Therapist School - 12 Month Fixed Term Contract

The Children’s Trust; Tadworth; Hybrid; GBP 34,000 - 52,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Staff shuttle bus

On-site facilities

Job summary

The Children’s Trust is seeking a Specialist Occupational Therapist to deliver high-quality, evidence-based OT services for children in school and residential settings in Tadworth. The role involves assessments, programme development, and collaboration with a multidisciplinary team to support daily living skills and participation.

You will contribute to Education, Health and Care Plans, support assistive technology needs, and help integrate therapy within home, school and community life.

Qualifications

• Provide high quality, evidence based occupational therapy assessment and intervention for children and young people with neurodisabilities.
• Develop therapy goals in collaboration with the child and family, as well as the multidisciplinary and education teams.
• Set outcomes as part of the child/young person’s annual review and Education, Health and Care Plans.

Responsibilities

• Provide occupational therapy assessments using standardised and non-standardised methods.
• Devise individualised OT programmes/strategies aligned to daily routines.
• Support assessment and management guidelines for assistive technology needs.
• Assist with therapy measurements using goals attainment scaling (GAS) and IMpacts.

Skills

Clinical reasoning

Team collaboration

Neurodevelopment understanding

Job description

Specialist Occupational Therapist School - 12 Month Fixed Term Contract

The role of a Specialist Occupational Therapist is to provide specialist occupational therapy to children and young people accessing The Children’s Trust School and residential services. You will provide high quality, evidence based occupational therapy assessment and intervention to children and young people with neurodisabilities and neurodevelopmental concerns, within a multidisciplinary and multi-agency setting.

Our service delivery aims to promote outcome focussed interventions, safe care, function and participation of children and young people accessing home, school, and community life. You will support children and young people with functional activity within a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency setting.

Staff benefits include shuttle bus, and more… Read more below.

Role Requirements

Clinical Responsibilities

• Provide high quality, evidence based occupational therapy provision for children and young people attending The Children’s Trust School, in partnership with other members of the multi-disciplinary team and education services.
• Undertake specialist occupational therapy assessments of children with complex needs e.g. multiple co-morbidities, neurodisabilities and chronic conditions, through standardised and non-standardised assessments and clinical observations.
• Devise suitable, individualised, 24hr occupational therapy programmes/strategies that fit within the child’s daily routine, whether to be carried out by parents or members of the Multidisciplinary Team; these should be monitored, evaluated, and adjusted appropriately according to the needs of the child.
• Develop therapy goals, in collaboration with the child and family/carers, as well as the multidisciplinary and education teams, other health professionals and agencies, to facilitate the participation of the child in their life skills.
• Support assessment and management guidelines for young people with assistive technology needs.
• Support assessment and intervention in the clinical area of assistive technology for school, teaching and integrating skills with members of the multidisciplinary and educational teams.
• Set outcomes as part of the child or young person’s annual review and Education, Health and Care Plans.
• Support the Multidisciplinary and education teams with measuring short term targets, through using the IMpacts curriculum, therapy outcome measurement tools e.g. Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS).
• Teach, integrate, and monitor occupational therapy interventions in the child’s environment, whether it is carried out by parents, school staff, therapy staff, nursing and care staff or volunteers.
• Assess, and organise the provision of necessary occupational therapy equipment.
• Support specialist interventions including upper limb splinting and casting with support from the Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist.
• Keep appropriate and accurate intervention records, fulfilling legal, professional and all other requirements of The Children’s Trust.
• Contribute to child related reports, including looked after children and annual review reports as required, and assist with the collation of these as required, in a timely manner in line with organisational targets.
• Liaise with all appropriate medical staff, whether employed by The Children’s Trust, visiting consultants or at off-site clinics, and attend clinics with the child as required.
• Support the delivery of a tiered model approach to occupational therapy at The Children’s Trust School, providing regular integrated time to classes and houses.

With experience of working in a complex environment, across a large and diverse workforce, you will be exceptionally organised with a high-level of attention to detail. You will naturally possess excellent inter-personal skills, and an ability to consult and positively engage with key stakeholders across the organisation.

For more detail, please see the Duties and Responsibilities in the candidate briefing pack.

AI Statement

We recognise the value of AI tools, particularly in supporting individuals who may benefit from assistance with writing. However, applications created mainly by AI can often appear generic and may not fully reflect an applicant’s, skills, knowledge, and experience

We’d really like to hear from you so please use your own words and personal experiences when completing the application form to give us the best chance of understanding what you can bring to the role.

About Us

The Children’s Trust is the UK’s leading charity for children with acquired brain injury, providing expert rehabilitation, education, therapy, and care at our national specialist centre in Tadworth, and to children and their families across the UK, via our Brain Injury Community Service.

Boasting a beautiful 24-acre site in Surrey, we are located just outside of London, close to the M25 (accessible via Junction 8, A217 to Tadworth) and easily accessible via National Rail, by way of: Clapham Junction, Sutton, and Epsom.

The work we do is highly rewarding, and in addition to an attractive salary, we offer a valuable range of benefits, including our staff flexible benefits platform, on-site nursery, free eye tests, enhanced Maternity and Paternity Pay, time out days for those experiencing menopause symptoms and time off for gender reassignment.

We also offer additional annual leave days for those with long service, with entitlements ranging from 35 to 41 days (including bank holidays) depending on your length of service.

Other benefits include free on-site parking; a staff shuttle service from Epsom and Sutton train stations to Tadwort Court, Car Scheme (subject to eligibility), subsidised cafeteria, on-site staff accommodation (subject to availability), the ability to retain your NHS pension (where applicable), Teacher’s pension (where applicable) or the opportunity to join an alternative scheme, and the opportunity to develop your career in a supportive and collaborative environment.

As a charity organisation independent of the NHS, we do not follow Agenda for Change terms and conditions. Consequently, we are unable to take into account NHS incremental dates or continuous service for salary, annual leave, or related entitlements such as absence payat the point of recruitment.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Many roles at The Children’s Trust are exempt from the provisions of Section 4 (2) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, by virtue of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2013 and 2020) and as such, are subject to an Enhanced DBS check. Successful applicants will be required to complete an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check, which will disclose all unspent convictions and adult cautions and any spent convictions or adult cautions that would not be protected. The exceptions to this are our retail roles within The Children’s Trust shops, which are subject to Basic DBS checks which will disclose unspent convictions or adult cautions.

Equal Opportunity Employer

To help us achieve our ambition to give children and young people with brain injury and neurodisability the opportunity to live the best life possible, we want to accurately reflect the UK’s diverse population. We want equity, diversity, and inclusion to be at the heart of everything we do, and our people, services, and culture to reflect the diverse needs of all. Through our diversity and inclusion strategy, we have made a commitment to increase the diversity of our charity and create an inclusive culture. We have networks across the organisation working to ensure that these aims are met - including an LGBTQIA2S+ group, Ethnic Diversity Group, and Spark - our broad EDI group. Read more about our EDI work here. We welcome applications from all who share our ambition regardless of background. We will strive to ensure that any reasonable adjustments are made in respect of interview and working arrangements.

Online Searches

In accordance with statutory safeguarding and child protection guidance, online searches will be conducted for shortlisted candidates before interview. The online searches will be conducted by a person who is independent of the interview and selection process and will focus on relevant information returned via searches of the candidate’s name (and variations thereof). Social media searches will be limited to professional platforms such as LinkedIn. Any concerns relating to suitability for work with children and young people will be forwarded to the interview panel, for discussion during the interview.