Karen Mc Elligott
Ballina,Co. Mayo
Summary
I am a passionate OT with 12 years of experience in Paediatrics and Adults with Learning Disabilities in the UK.
I am relocating to Ballina, Co Mayo, which is my hometown.
As a Paediatric OT, I specialise in working with children with ASD with occupational performance issues linked to complex sensory and communication difficulties. My clinical work has includes the use of standardised and non-standardised assessments and the provision of a range of occupation outcome focused treatment options including: advice, therapy programmes, equipment, and specialist seating and housing adaptations.
My work involves teaching and educating parents, therapists and teaching teams. This has included lecturing on training days in health and education services. During the pandemic, I co-wrote and delivered online training on sensory processing difficulties and everyday skills training to meet the needs of our families safely and remotely during that difficult time.
Within my role, I provide therapy services to children in mainstream schools, specialist educational and learning provisions and a specialist schools for children with moderate learning disabilities and ASD. In the past, I have also worked as the lead therapist in a specialist schools for children with ASD and challenging behaviour.
I am the lead therapist within our team to assess the occupational performance needs for children to inform their Education and Health Care Plan, a legal document detailing support needs.
I enjoy service development opportunities and have been involved in developing clinical pathways, streamlining educational services, clinical audits, managing recruitment and updating protocols. I enjoy sharing my clinical experience and have supervised Band 6 team
Overview
12
12
years of professional experience
Work history
Occupational Therapist - Band 7
Croydon Paediatric OT Team
Croydon, UK
03.2017 - Current
- I use a range of assessment tools, including standardised and non-standardised assessments, to gather information in relation to dysfunction and environmental barriers to identify occupational and functional needs in the areas of self-care, productivity and leisure
- I am an autonomous practitioner who provides occupational therapy in clinic, schools, and the community, ensuring that intervention is responsive and sensitive to the social, cultural, linguistic and religious needs of the diverse population of Croydon
- As a senior member of the team, I am responsible for triaging new referrals
- This includes evaluating the referral information provided, determining the priority of need, and allocating children to appropriate care pathways
- I enjoy joint working as part of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency teams
- I have experience in care planning meetings, joint assessments, goal settings, reviews, child in need meetings and child protection meetings
- I endeavour to work collaboratively with families to identify and agree treatment goals based on assessment outcomes, support caregiver coaching and empower carers and families to apply occupational therapy recommendations within the context of the child's life
- I collaborate with families and their networks to evaluate client progress following OT intervention by using appropriate outcome measures and evaluation tools
- I have experience of working within the Social Services remit of the team to deliver home adaptations and equipment to children who have complex physical disabilities
- I have completed assessments and made recommendations to the Housing Department and other housing agencies regarding a client's housing needs, taking into account the nature and prognosis of their disability and the family circumstances
- I have been involved in adaptations that include level access showers, door widening, through floor lifts and external lifts
- I have experience in assessing for specialist equipment such as seating and sling and providing relevant moving and handling risk assessments to families and carers
- I have worked autonomously in a number of specialist education provisions including schools for children with moderate to severe learning disabilities and a specialist provision for ASD and challenging behaviour
- I am responsible for developing and delivering formal and informal training to families, education staff, colleagues, other health professionals and external agencies
- As a senior member of the team, I am responsible for supervising, appraising and supporting the development of a Band 6 Occupational Therapist and Occupational Therapy Technical Instructor
- This includes having regular meetings, performing appraisals, developing personal development plans and identifying training needs
- Band7 and Band 6 Occupational Therapist: Adults with Learning Disabilities
Occupational Therapist - Band 6/7
Orchard Hill College
Wallington, UK
02.2013 - 02.2017
- I was responsible for managing a varied caseload of learners with complex needs including physical disabilities, autism, profound and multiple learning disabilities, severe learning disabilities and social, emotional & mental health needs
- I supported our learners to be as independent as possible and try to involve them in their therapy in line with the mental capacity act, in addition to liaising with their support network
- I provided clinically effective and person centred occupational therapy assessments to learners across a variety of clinical care pathways
- This included functional skills assessments using homegrown and the Assessment of Motor and Processing Skills (AMPs assessment), sensory assessments using the Sensory Profile
- Due to the complexities of our learners, I also completed MDT assessment, which included joint manual handling assessments with the physiotherapy team, joint eating and drinking assessments with the speech and language therapy team and physiotherapy team
- I planned and delivered a wide range of person centred individual and group interventions including individual sensory diets, individual manual handling plans, sensory movement and deep pressure activity breaks, activity breakdowns, and specialist equipment as required
- I created and evaluated risk assessments on a regular basis in response to learners' needs and equipment provided
- An integral part of my role was to liaise with all team members and family/carers in order to provide a co-ordinated approach and ensure occupational therapy treatment was integrated into learner's objectives that support learning and skills for daily living beyond their college experience
- I was responsible for providing written reports for learners, families and other health and social care professionals to inform them of learners assessments, goals, programmes and plans beyond college
- I provided clinical supervision to two Band 6 Occupational Therapists and two Therapy Assistants
- Band 5 Occupational Therapist: Adults with Learning Disabilities.
Occupational Therapist - Band 5
Lambeth Community Learning Team
Lambeth, UK
02.2011 - 02.2013
- I worked autonomously to manage a caseload of adults of various ages and needs with learning disabilities
- This included working with service users in their own homes and in their community
- As a clinician, I provided client centred occupational therapy assessment
- This included both standardised and non standardised assessments, to meet the learning needs of this cohort
- This included AMPS, Sensory Profile, dementia review assessments, eating and drinking assessments and home grown assessments
- When I worked with this client group, I used a wide range of verbal and non-verbal communication tools e.g., Makaton signing, symbols, photographs, pictures and objects of reference to ensure effective communication
- Following assessment, I used SMART goals in collaboration with the service user to formulate individual goal plans to meet identified needs that were meaningful to the service user
- This client centred approach encouraged me to be creative and innovative in the design, planning and implementation of therapeutic interventions
- Evaluation of interventions were always completed in collaboration with the service user and modified accordingly in order to measure progress, ensure effectiveness of intervention and that the service users goals were being met
- I was responsible for providing written reports to inform other health and social care professionals and those involved in the care of the adult with learning disabilities of the occupational needs of the adult with learning disabilities
- A key area of my responsibility was to liaise with support workers, carers, families and other agencies to ensure that there was a clear transfer of information and programmes, and to provide guidance and training regarding teaching methods and techniques.
Education
Sensory Integration -
University of Ulster
2015
Sensory Integration -
University of Ulster
2013
Post Graduate Diploma - Occupational Therapy
London Southbank University
2010
Bachelor of Science - Psychology
Queens University
2002
Skills
Standardised and non standardised assessments
Goal Setting
Treatment Planning
Clinical Supervisor
Service Development
Service user, family and service education
Clinical Audit
Professional Registration
HCPC: OT62407
CORU: OT059312
Additional Information
Jo Kavanagh
Clinical Specialist OT
Crystal Development Centre
joannekavanagh1@nhs.net
Shikara Rajballi
Therapy Lead
Orchard Hill College
srajballi@orchardhill.ac.uk
Timeline
Occupational Therapist - Band 7
Croydon Paediatric OT Team
03.2017 - Current
Occupational Therapist - Band 6/7
Orchard Hill College
02.2013 - 02.2017
Occupational Therapist - Band 5
Lambeth Community Learning Team
02.2011 - 02.2013
Sensory Integration -
University of Ulster
Sensory Integration -
University of Ulster
Post Graduate Diploma - Occupational Therapy
London Southbank University
Bachelor of Science - Psychology
Queens University
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