Alicia Karolewski

In my role as a Paediatric Occupational Therapist, I worked with children between 0-19 with a range of conditions, such as ASD, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy, Developmental Coordination disorder, as well as other developmental conditions. I see children and young adults within schools, their home settings and in the clinic.

During my week, I was based in a specialist schools and provided assessments for class seating and toileting. I worked closely with my speech and language and physiotherapy colleagues to ensure we work together to provide the best possible support for the students we work with.

The rest of the week was spent working in the clinic or visiting patients in their school or home. I completed assessments, for children with difficulties with their functional activities of daily living, such as dressing, washing, toileting, handwriting, attention and coordination difficulties, I provide a report to schools and parents with my recommendations. I make onward referrals to the community paediatrician, physiotherapy, Bromley Y.

I have been involved in service development, and have created advice sheets and teaching videos which are on the website, for parents, carers and schools.

I was the only Occupational Therapist in the school and was responsible for the delivery of direct, targeted and universal therapy support to students with a range of needs.

During my time at Riverston, I introduced touch typing to the curriculum which is an area that I am passionate about. I offered weekly lessons and small group support to student to develop their touch typing skills so they became confident typers.

I provided 1:1, small group therapy and in class support to my students dependent on what the individual child benefited most from. I enjoyed working closely with the speech and language therapist to help us work most effectively to help the students reach their therapy goals.

I offered weekly training to staff at school on topics such as handwriting, executive functioning, emotional regulation and the use of sensory strategies in supporting our students to manage their attention and concentration.

I attended annual review meetings with parents and other professionals and wrote annual review reports based on progress during therapy sessions.

During my time as a locum at Bromley Healthcare, I completed assessments with students with conditions such as ASD, ADHD, anxiety, DCD and Downs syndrome. I carried out assessments of their functional skills and provided advice to schools and parents to help the child to become more independent.

I also completed reports which contributed to a child's Educational Healthcare Plan.

During this job, I worked as an Occupational Therapist within the community. I was based at a Children’s Centre, but my role involved me visiting schools all over the local area of Lewisham. I was commissioned by the Special Educational Needs Department to carry out Occupational Therapy assessments to contribute towards a child’s Educational Health Care Plan. I also carried out therapy sessions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and who were in a resource base, attached to a mainstream primary school. These sessions were focused on achieving functional targets set by the children, therapist and teacher.

I have worked as an occupational therapist at Moor House School which is a school for children with special needs, and additional speech and language difficulties. In this role I worked with children on a 1:1 basis and sessions were individualised to their needs. I had to work closely with teaching staff to ensure that any strategies that had been used within my sessions were carried over into the classroom.

I taught one lesson a week of handwriting to a class and had to adapt the lesson for each child’s level of handwriting. I jointly led a life skills session which allowed children to work on life skills in a safe environment, such as making a hot drink or sandwich, making a bed and knowing where items belong in the house. I met weekly with the teacher to plan these lessons.

As part of my job, I had to write annual reviews based on assessments I had carried out and observations I had made. To help me write these reports I had to gather information from parents, teachers and residential care workers. I also had to attend annual review meetings to discuss my work with the child to parents, teachers, speech and language therapists and Local Authorities.

I worked at Fairley House School which is an independent school for children with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD.

Here I was responsible for the delivery of 1:1 and paired occupational therapy sessions which I tailored to the individual child’s needs. I also taught small groups and classes of children in motor skills groups to work on their gross motor skills, and in handwriting lessons which incorporated practice of their fine motor skills.

I jointly led a daily class of 5 children with different needs alongside a speech and language therapist. This class focussed on their spelling and reading skills. Whilst working at the school I supported on school trips to the London Southbank Centre, The Imperial War Museum and London Zoo. This developed my leadership skills as I was solely responsible for a small group of children.

I had to liaise with the school SENCO, other occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, teachers and parents regarding the progress each child had made, further developing my communication skills.

I assessed children's suitability for the school and had weekly meetings involving the speech and language therapist, educational psychologist and parents to feedback my findings.

In my role as a Teaching Assistant, I was required to liaise with a number of different members of staff, including teachers and teaching assistants. I worked in a year 3 and 5 class. I also had contact with parents in order to discuss and carry out the care of children.

Within this role, I assisted the teachers and helped facilitate the learning of the children in the class through working 1:1 with children, as well as working with small groups. I was given the responsibility for planning and delivering both individual and group sessions to pupils with Autism, learning difficulties, speech impairments and poor social interaction skills from the ages of 7 up to 11 years old. These sessions were designed to work on their fine and gross motor skills, handwriting and posture, and to improve their social interaction skills. I devised exercises and games for the pupils to do to enhance these skills and I followed guidance from notes provided by behaviour specialists and occupational therapists in order to tailor these treatment sessions for these children. This gave me some degree of autonomy and independence and I found this particularly rewarding.

I was also involved in contributing to IEP’s for specific children and assisted them in meeting their individualized targets. Through liaising with the SENCo and class teachers about the progress that children made during their occupational sessions, I provided regular written and verbal feedback to contribute to these IEPs and annual and termly reviews. I worked 1:1 with a child with moderate learning difficulties to help her meet her individualized numeracy targets and enable her to access the curriculum.

During the absence of different teachers I was responsible for teaching literacy lessons to full classes of children. Whilst working as a teaching assistant, I accompanied the school on day visits and a residential trip which has been invaluable experience for me, as I can appreciate how extracurricular activities contribute to the development of children.