DAY LIFE IN THE FIONA GREEN

Fiona is a senior OT working within a community therapy housing team in Grimsby. Her role involves working with both adult and paediatric cases, conducting home visits and assessments, as well as applying for Disabled Facilities Grant funding and much more

What is your current role and how long have you been in it?

I am a senior OT with the community therapy housing team in Grimsby. I started with the team in July 2022 as a locum, but I loved it so much that I applied for a permanent role and was successful - I don’t think I’ll ever work anywhere else now!

Describe a typical day…

As a senior OT, I work with both adult and paediatric cases, so my work and the patients I meet are very diverse. I have a busy caseload and this needs to be constantly reviewed and updated so I check my emails for any updates from other teams involved in my patient’s cases and then check voicemails for the same reason. Our roles are very paperwork heavy so there’s a fair bit of admin to work through every day. Because we work in housing, often we are applying for Disabled Facilities Grant funding to make major changes to a patient’s home. Our aim is to make the environment work for the patient, not the other way around.

We are out and about visiting patients in the community daily. Our visits range from conducting initial needs assessments to simple equipment reviews. We meet the patient at their home, get to know them and go through a series of questions that help us to determine how a person is managing around the home and community. Once we’ve collated this information, we formulate a plan of action in conjunction with the patient as to how we plan to address the challenges they are facing.

Sometimes we need to call on the expertise of colleagues in physiotherapy or reps from various companies so making joint visits is commonplace. This allows us to provide a holistic service to our patients and is great for sharing knowledge among our peers.

What is the hardest thing about your role?

By far the hardest part is explaining to someone that their property can’t be adapted to meet their needs and they would benefit from moving. When this happens, it’s often the case that a person has lived in their home for decades but a health condition they didn’t plan for, such as lower limb amputation, means that the home is no longer accessible to them. We do everything in our power to adapt a property but sometimes it’s just not possible. This can be very upsetting to hear, especially when the patient has just had a life-changing health event and just wants to be at home. It’s important to empathise with them, listen to their concerns, offer reassurance and understanding and keep them informed as to what you can do for them rather than what you can’t.

What is the best thing about your role?

Hearing a patient say that an intervention you put in place is a ‘God send’ or ‘fantastic’ is the best feeling ever. Helping people get back to living their lives after suffering from poor health or disabilities is so rewarding it makes all the paperwork worth it! I also love the team I work with, the camaraderie between us all is great, everyone works hard and helps each other, and we laugh constantly and also rally around if someone is experiencing an issue. I really wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.

We are however short-staffed and actively looking for new members to join us. Alongside the housing team we have a team that covers moving and handling, palliative care, and patients being discharged from care homes. At the moment this team has a vacancy for a senior OT, and the housing team are looking for a band 5 and a band 6 OT to join us. Details of vacancies can be found on the NLAG website: JoinNLAG.co.uk/ vacancies.

Using therapeutic journaling as a tool to improve wellbeing

Life is hectic. In this day and age, we find ourselves busier than ever. Work, family commitments, busy social calendars, and the pressure to respond to emails, messages, and posts on social media, can all become a bit overwhelming.

For many it can feel like there is no escape, no downtime to just relax and breathe. Looking after our own wellbeing is vitally important though, especially for occupational therapists, as you can’t be expected to take care of others if you do not first take care of yourself.

There are many different ways people choose to unwind and centre themselves; yoga, meditation, running, listening to music, or painting. All of these activities can help improve our mental health and promote a sense of wellbeing, and different activities will work for different people. It is all about finding what is right for you or your client.

Therapeutic Journaling

Writing is an area that can help with improving overall mental health. It is an area that is often used to help people get their thoughts down on paper, with the most common practices being through keeping a diary or writing a letter as part of a therapeutic practice.

Therapeutic journaling is a less structured, and more open activity designed to help people to address their emotions. It is an area that can be utilised to help reduce feelings of anxiety, to alleviate worries or concerns, to work through a traumatic event, and to help make sense of the world around us.

Although there is little evidencebased research available on this practice, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence, and there has been a growing movement in writing for wellbeing that has seen supportive communities pop up across the world.

Lapidus International is one organisation that is bringing people together through writing. It is a member organisation that supports a community of people across the globe who are using the power of words to enhance and transform their lives. It has a whole host of resources to support writing for wellbeing and they support healthcare professionals through training and workshops.

There is also a growing body of research that is highlighting the benefits that writing about stressful or traumatic events has on emotional and physical wellbeing. Writing about traumatic events can be cathartic, but it can also unpack a lot of emotions and feelings, it is always advised that these practices be discussed with a mental health professional before undertaking.

How To Implement Journaling

Writing in a private, free and unbridled way can allow individuals to express feelings that they have kept to themselves, and this can be a very liberating practice. There is no set way to go about keeping a journal, but in order to get the most benefit from this practice there are a few key points to try to adhere to, whether you are doing this for yourself or with a client:

Build a routine Journaling is designed to be an ongoing process that can be incorporated into your daily life, so it is good to ascertain a regular time each day to sit down and write in your journal. It only has to be 10 minutes or so, but it can be as long or short as you need it to be.

Find somewhere peaceful

Finding somewhere quiet and away from all the noise and chaos of work or family life may be tricky, but it will benefit the process in the long run. Turn off your phone and seek out a quiet spot where you can switch off and simply focus on you as you write.

Don’t spell check

The beauty of journaling is that you are doing this for yourself, no one else has to see it. You are not handing it in to anyone to read (unless you wish to) so don’t get caught up with minor things like spelling or grammar, just let the words flow.

What to write

It can be good to decide on some areas of your life that you want to explore, these do not have to be set in stone, but if you make a start on one area, you do not know where it may take you. Be open to exploring your thoughts.

Be kind to yourself

Journaling can be an excellent tool for selfreflection, so be sure to use this in a positive way. Try dedicating some journaling time to writing down a list of your strengths, or things that have had a positive impact on your life, or even 10 things that make you smile.