Miss Jaime Jenkinson1, Ms Jess Sudholz1
1Eastern Health, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Jaime is a Senior Occupational Therapist Clinical Educator at Eastern Health, with over 13 years’ experience working in Mental Health, across community, inpatient, secure and correctional settings.
Jess is an Occupational Therapist Clinical Educator at Eastern Health, with over 13 years’ experience working in Mental Health, across community, inpatient, secure settings.
Abstract:
Intro/rationale:
The challenge of maintaining an occupational therapy identity and lens in clinical mental health settings is clearly articulated in occupational therapy literature. Feedback from graduate Occupational Therapists in a metropolitan Mental Health Service, highlights a lack of confidence in their competency to translate discipline knowledge into practice, particularly when in non-discipline specific roles. Clinical Educators in a newly developed graduate program aimed to intentionally address this challenge by establishing a Community of Practice focused on an occupational lens with occupation formulation as a tool to support this.
Objectives:
Provide early career Occupational Therapists in a public mental health service, protected and structured development opportunities for translation of knowledge into practice.
Method / Approach:
Introduction of a monthly community of practice. Graduates present an occupational formulation to their peers for shared reflection and feedback, to strengthen their ability to communicate occupational complexity within multidisciplinary teams. Sessions are facilitated by Occupational Therapy Clinical Educators.
Results / practice implications:
Outcomes include:
– Increased utilization of occupational formulation in clinical work across all settings
– Increased confidence of learner Occupational Therapists to complete formulations
– Improved understanding of Occupational Therapy role and capabilities across multidisciplinary teams
– Increased satisfaction with building and maintaining professional identity and occupational lens in non-discipline specific roles
Conclusion:
Providing protected space for early career Occupational Therapists to reflect and share their work has supported an improvement in their confidence to translate new knowledge into practice and further developed discipline specific work in otherwise multidisciplinary roles.