Children & Young People's
Occupational Therapy
What does an Occupational Therapist do?
Occupational Therapists work with children who have difficulties with the functional skills necessary for their everyday life. The Occupational Therapist will aim to enable the child to be independent as possible and will support children, their families and those closest to them to maximise their opportunities to develop in the following areas:
- Functional abilities e.g. dressing, eating, toileting etc
- Schools skills e.g. pencil control, access to the environment, attention and concentration
- Play skills
- Sensory regulation
- Gross and fine motor skills
- Routines
Ways an Occupational Therapist may support a child and those closest to them, may include one or more of the following:
- Support and advice for parents, carers, teachers and other service providers
- Provision of treatment programmes/strategies
- Recommendation of specialist equipment to support functional skills, learning and sensory regulation(at home and school)
- Direct therapy with the child either individually, or in a group
- Occupational therapy intervention may involve joint working with others involved with the child
- Referral to a parent group
The Children & Young People's Occupational Therapy Team is community based and provides a Borders wide service to children aged 0-18 years.
A request for assistance to the service can be made via the child's school, Healthcare Professional, Doctor, Health Visitor, Nurse, Physiotherapist or Speech Therapist or by parents/ carers contacting the service directly.
However, we expect that before making a request you will have tried some of the strategies and advice both on this web page (see the tabs to the left) and on our Facebook Page, and only if these prove unsuccesful, consider contacting the service.
