Referrals can be made by health, education and social care professionals. This includes teachers, SENCOS, School Nurse, Physiotherapists, GP, Social Workers, Family Support Workers, Portage, Paediatricians, Nursery Staff (this list is not exhaustive).
You may have been signposted to more appropriate service and will need to make a referral to their teams. You may also have been asked to provide further information. This information may include; your child’s learning levels (so we can establish if skills are in line with their learning), impact on functional activities, what has been tried already, other services already involved. This information can be recorded on an existing or new referral form and then returned to our department. This will then be re-screened by a senior member of the Occupational Therapy team. You do not need to call us to discuss this. You will receive a further letter to advise if this information has now been accepted.
The Occupational Therapy Service offer three parent/carer support sessions including:
Parents and carers are invited to these sessions as the young person has been referred to our service due to difficulties with activities of daily living and/or sensory processing. This is our first level of intervention. Strategies will be recommended throughout the session for parents/carer to trial for a minimum of 12 weeks.
Research recommends for strategies to be implemented little and often throughout the day and therefore as parents/carers you are best placed to complete this. Implementing general strategies can really benefit a lot of the children who we have referrals for, and by implementing these into your daily routine can really help for your child to become more independent and therefore, can resolve the difficulties your child was experiencing.
We facilitate our online parent/carer support sessions via a system called Attend Anywhere. If you are invited to a support session, you will receive a link via email the day prior to your scheduled session. This link will take you through to the Attend Anywhere online waiting room. The therapist facilitating the session will then allow you access when the session begins.
If you require an interpreter for a parent support session, the facilitating therapist will contact you directly to arrange for a 1:1 session to be booked so that an interpreter can be accessed. This can then be booked by our admin team.
Please follow this link for additional information and resources.
The use of attend anywhere does require you to have access to the internet and can be accessed using any device e.g., a mobile phone, tablet, or computer. If you are unable to access the internet for any reason during the session, please phone our admin team on 02476 961 455. They will be able to support you further or request for a therapist to phone you back to discuss the information separately.
We would advise exploring alternative options to connect to the internet, including:
The therapist will have a conversation with your child and parent/carer supporting them and ask relevant questions to identify what their OT need is. Please feel free to bring along any recent reports or information which may be helpful towards the assessment. The therapist will then decide the suitable next steps which could consist of one or more of the following:
If the therapist identifies there is no OT need, they will be discharged and signposted to a relevant service if required.
If you know that your child is not able to attend their appointment, please contact the admin team as soon as possible to notify them. They can then support you with booking another appointment, however, this may incur a wait.
If your child misses their clinic appointment, the occupational therapist will give you a call at the time of the appointment to establish why the appointment was missed. You will be sent a ‘was not brought’ letter regarding your child’s missed appointment. You will then have 2 weeks to call back into the service to request another appointment to be booked for your child. This may however then incur a wait for another appointment.
Weighted blankets may be suggested by the therapist as a sensory strategy following your child’s or young person’s Occupational Therapy assessment. This will be based upon the child’s individualised needs and whether this is an appropriate piece of equipment for them to use.
There are contraindications that you should be aware of. Your child must be able to remove the blanket independently. There are also particular health conditions where weighted blankets are not recommended including (but not exhaustive of); cardiac problems, respiratory problems, skin problems, hypotonia, epilepsy and circulatory problems that mean the use of weighted Items may not be suitable for your child.
Weighted blankets are becoming more available on the market, however, we are not able to provide specific advise on which you should purchase for your child. We recommend reading the full resource attached below.
Please see the Royal College of Occupational Therapists Safe Use of Weighted blankets Briefing on the link below.
If the equipment is broken and/or requiring a repair, please contact Integrated Community Equipment Stores (ICES) on 02476 785353. Their opening times are 08:30-17:00 Monday to Thursday and 08:30-16:30 on Friday.
If you feel the child/young person has outgrown their equipment or if the equipment requires adjustments, please contact the Occupational Therapy Service on 02476 961455. The named therapist will then schedule a review.
Additionally, if you wish to return a piece of equipment, please make the Occupational Therapy Service aware of this, and they will be able to advise further regarding collection.
You can return equipment to our Integrated Community Equipment Stores. You can contact them directly to arrange a collection/return on 024 76 785353.
Please also contact your therapist to inform of the collection or return on 02476 961455
Please contact the Occupational Therapy team on 024 76 961455 to discuss your child’s individual case. We will also need to be made aware if you are moving out of area/changing school so we can update our records and refer to the relevant local services.
How we separate guidance and adaptations
If you feel your home is no longer meeting the needs of your child and requires major adaptations, they can be referred to Social Services Occupational Therapy Team. They focus on the following:
You can contact them to seek advice on 02476 78 7980. Anyone can refer into the service on behalf of the child including health professionals and parents/carers.
Referrals can be made to the Social Service Occupational Therapy team via this link: Adult Social Care – Referral form – Introduction – Coventry City Council
However, if your child requires additional equipment and provision of minor adaptations such as rails, we can support with this.