Occupational therapy children's service (Peterborough)

The children's occupational therapy service

The children's occupational therapy service works with children 0-19 years old in the community who have a range of mild to complex disabilities and difficulties, including developmental delay, motor disorders and/or complex physical disability.

Who we are

We provide services to children and young people aged 0-18 and those who are 19 years old who are still in full time education. We work with individuals who have a range of mild to complex disabilities and difficulties, including developmental delay, motor disorders and/or complex physical disability. The aim of the service is to ensure parents and others supporting the child can manage safely and have the necessary skills and knowledge to help the child achieve their potential, promoting participation and independence.

Children's occupational therapy provides supports to empower and enable children to learn new skills or adapt tasks in order to overcome barriers that may be preventing them doing everyday activities (occupations) that matter to them. We are a family-centred profession with a person-centred approach to goal setting to promote a balanced range of occupations to enhance health and wellbeing and help a person reach their full potential.

Occupations for children and young people may include:

• Productivity - going to school or helping out at home

• Self-care - washing, dressing, toileting, eating and drinking, sleep

• Leisure - playing, socialising with friends, hobbies or sports

Individuals may experience disruption to their occupations due to injury, illness or disability. Occupational therapists will spend time finding out about a child’s and family’s typical daily life and what they want, need or are expected to do. They will need to work together with the young person to identify factors that affect their everyday function and develop goals that they would like to achieve. Together, possible solutions will be developed, such as exploring alternative ways of doing things, making changes to the environment, use of equipment, or developing coping strategies to support participation.

Sensory concerns

Within our Community Occupational Therapy Team in Peterborough, we do not provide individual sensory assessments. Our aim is to provide resources that can help parents and carers to better understand their child’s sensory needs; we also acknowledge that these needs will change and evolve as a child develops and moves through life-stages.

Our service offer is guided by NICE guidelines and evidence-based practice. We know some therapists offer Ayres Sensory Integration Therapy (ASI) which aims to address any impairment/deficit in underlying neural pathways involved in sensory processing however this approach is not currently recommended within the NICE or RCOT guidelines for our service to follow. Instead, we acknowledge that sensory differences can impact on engagement within daily activities (including unpicking a child’s behaviours and whether these are causing or have caused sensory difficulties) and so offer training and strategies around sensory processing with the aim to support families and education settings to be ‘sensory friendly’, aware of setting realistic expectations and aid engagement in meaningful activities.