Placement
It a requirement that all occupational therapy students complete 1000 hours of clinical fieldwork in order to reach accreditation standards. This can be an enabler for both role emerging positions and rural and remote areas. It was outlined as a theme in the literature search conducted of the importance of having fieldwork placement outside of the traditional and clinical places in order to gain greater independence and confidence in your own skills. Through community, rural or simply non-traditional placements, participants found they were able to use their skills at a greater quality than if they were within a hospital/rehabilitation setting. With a greater amount of graduates bring employed without an 'occupational therapist' position title, non-traditional placements, and the skills that they help to install within students, are now more than ever, of great importance and are held with high regard.
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Knowledge of the profession
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An overall view and confident knowledge of the occupational therapy professional can be brought into non-traditional placements, and built upon with the increased opportunity for students to advocate for occupational therapy within non-traditional contexts. A sound amount of knowledge within the profession, allows for the practice, within any given context, to be built upon the fundamental of occupational therapy including its models, frameworks, and concepts of client centred practice and goals setting principles. A basic understanding for all of these elements of practice, can allow students to present as resourceful, imaginative and innovative within a non-traditional student placement
A student’s ability to effectively communicate within a student placement context was continuously highlighted as an important skill that is essential in order to gain full benefits of a non-traditional student placement. This ability for a student to communicate directly with service users and building clinical relationships can help a student to develop confidence to provide a service within an unstructured environment such as a non-traditional occupational therapy placement
Creating an environment that prioritises time which includes planning, reflection and adapting to practice and experiences evidently increases skill development and competencies of a student while on placement. This process of reflection on practice allows for a deeper understanding of occupational therapy, allowing the student to understand and apply these to themselves in order to translate these into practice
A student’s ability to problem solve and have flexibility within their practice and interventions is essential within a non-traditional student placement. The development of this skill can be translated throughout any occupational therapy context and present with gains in therapy and intervention plans for those who implement this within their set of skills.
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With the development of the transferable skills and competencies above, that can be added to your very own unique graduate occupational therapy toolbox, employment within traditional or non-traditional occupational therapy roles can be a that little bit more achievable.
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Add these skills and competencies to your individualised student field work learning plan now!
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References: Wood, 2005: Bosser, Cook, Polatajko, & Laine, 1997: Thew, Hargreaves, & Conin-Davis, 2008: Dancza, Warren, Copley, Rodger, Moran, McKay, & Taylor, 2013: Fieldhouse & Feddon, 2009: Overton, Clark & Thomas, 2009