Senior Practitioner Occupational Therapist

Job description

Job responsibilities

You will work as part of a strong and dynamic Occupational therapy service. In this role you will be required to undertake strengths-based assessments in highly complex situations maintaining a sophisticated understanding and application of relevant legislation, advanced Occupational therapy skills and knowledge. You will utilise these skills to develop and implement plans of support, aimed at improving wellbeing and delivering outcomes for people.

You will manage, and support others to manage, a varied and complex caseload collaborating with people and family or friend carers. You will draw on a wide range of highly developed skills to make sophisticated professional judgements, and support others to make judgements aimed at improving wellbeing and delivering outcomes, including utilising community assets, and ensuring that eligible needs are met.

You will have a role in improving the practice of unregistered and registered social care practitioners and developing, leading, and championing best practice and professional standards. You will advise others and facilitate access to and dissemination of more specialist advice where necessary to further develop capability and professional confidence. You will be supported with professional supervision and a workload that is appropriate to your level of professional development. You will work effectively in collaboration with staff and other agencies and have an excellent understanding of all the relevant health, voluntary and private services in the area.

You will remain up-to-date and compliant with all relevant legislation and adhere to organisational procedures, policies, and codes of conduct as well as Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) professional standards and the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (Professional standards for occupational therapy practice, conduct and ethics) to uphold a high-quality, seamless service.

You will apply highly developed and sophisticated knowledge and experience to provide constructive and critical reflection and challenge, influencing others to enhance Occupational therapy practice. You will engage with, inform and adapt to challenging organisational contexts and contribute to the development of innovations, systems, policies and procedures that are fit for purpose, support organisational priorities and enhance best practice that contribute to better outcomes.

You will have knowledge of management strategies required to confidently manage internal and external issues. You will model, and develop in others, coaching, influencing and supervisory skills to enhance best practice, standards, and better outcomes. You will have sound and accurate IT and keyboard skills and will need to be able to work autonomously and flexibly. You will have undertaken clinical/fieldwork educators training and Fieldwork Educators accreditation and you will need to be enthusiastic about supporting and developing others, including students. There is a requirement to be able to travel across the county and work from various locations. The role may occasionally involve complex physical interventions, including transporting, demonstrating, and using community equipment.

You will be a lead professional, responsible for delivering an occupational therapy service to people who access it. You will be responsible for leading on one or more specialist areas of service delivery, ensuring that key developments are embedded working with colleagues and teams and that business change is successfully implemented. We are looking for a candidate who will be able to support and deputise for the Team Manager in terms of day-to-day management, team development and performance.

What youll need to succeed For this role you are expected to be working at Senior Occupational Therapist level or above, and demonstrate a breadth of advanced Occupational therapy theories, methods, and concepts. You will hold detailed organisational knowledge relating to the provision of a professional Occupational Therapy service dealing with very complex issues. An advanced understanding of interventions and approaches that can be used e.g. strengths-based and solution focused practice, systemic and evidence-based decision-making and an excellent understanding of organisational contexts including partner agencies such as health, housing, education, statutory, voluntary and independent sector, will be key.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Diploma orBSc Occupational Therapy or recognised equivalent Occupational Therapy qualification.
• Registration with Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Valid, full driving licence.

Desirable

• Current clinical-fieldwork educators training and Fieldwork Educators
• accreditation

Experience

Essential

• Experience of undertaking assessments in complex situations and occupational therapy intervention planning, implementation and review by means of creative and pragmatic solutions.
• Extensive experience of working in partnership with those who access the service and maintaining a focus on the needs and strengths of the people, and the outcomes they want to achieve, whilst handling conflict and disagreement.
• Experience of managing risk within a risk enablement approach.
• Excellent, up to date working knowledge of relevant legislation e.g., Care Act (2014), Mental Capacity Act (2005) etc.

Key Skills

Essential

• 1. Ability to work proactively as a member of the team to make an accurate assessment of needs and negotiate and implement effective plans and outcomes, whilst prioritising workload and meeting deadlines.
• 2. Demonstrable evidence of leadership skills when working in partnership with people, carers, colleagues and a variety of external agencies in complex situations to meet peoples outcomes.
• 3. Expertise of managing situations with complex and competing risks, utilising a risk enablement approach and using evidence-based practice. Solution focussed with the ability to analyse complex situations and provide forward thinking strategies and solutions that consider a variety of possible strength-based solutions, balancing risks, resources and desired outcomes.
• 4. Experience of contributing to or undertaking safeguarding enquiries.
• 5. Highly developed communication skills to influence in a multi-disciplinary setting and communicate clearly and effectively to explain complicated information to a wide range of people and negotiate and persuade others to adopt a particular course of action that they may not otherwise wish to take.
• 6. Able to model and use occupational therapy skills in practice, supervision, mentoring and leadership to develop and maintain an environment in which professionally curiosity, critical reflection and analysis is valued, staff are supported their find own solutions and practice capability is developed.
• 7. Able to employ a range of occupational therapy approaches and interventions based on theory, research evidence and evaluation, linking theory to practice including acting as a subject matter expert in one or more specialist areas of intervention.
• 8. Working autonomously with a highly complex, varied caseload often
• involving managing high levels of risk, prioritising and organising own work and work of others to meet agreed performance expectations.
• 9. Able to diagnose, research, analyse and interpret highly complex or technical information to make or support effective and robust judgements; and write reports and implement recommendations. Using evidence gained to inform good practice and maintain a focus on positive outcomes for service users, families, carers and communities. Ability to think creatively, innovatively and laterally and to adapt to changing situations in a measured and flexible manner to tailor the advice.
• 10. Ability to be proactive in maintaining up-to-date knowledge and
• understanding of changes in legislation and effectively lead and supervise others to enhance and support legally compliant practice.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

West Sussex County Council

Address

1 Madeira Avenue

Horsham

West Sussex

RH12 1AB

Employer's website

https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)