Occupational Therapy BSc (Hons)

By the end of this module, you will have further developed your Occupational Therapy knowledge and skills by completing your second Occupational Therapy practice placement. This will build on the skills and experience gained during placement 1.

Through supervised practice, you will actively participate in the Occupational Therapy process, learning to apply knowledge drawn from your work in modules completed so far, as well as developing core practice skills. You will reflect on the core values important to service users and carers and consider their application to practice. You will learn about, and experience, the importance of cultural intelligence, collaborative working and utilise opportunities to develop your professional and organisational skills and consider the role of the environment in creating an enabling/ disabling experience. You will apply this knowledge to taking a more active role within the delivery of safe and effective occupational therapy practice.

The placement will continue to encourage your learning of the reflective process and support your development as a reflective and evidence-based practitioner and will make links to theoretical concepts from other Y1 and Y2 modules. Part of being a professional in practice is managing workload and your own emotional responses and there will be opportunities to reflect on this both in University and on placement in order to develop physical and mental health self-care strategies.

As you will be guided by professional and regulatory body requirements for student occupational therapists, practice placement is a fundamental part of preparing you for your own future professional employment. Hours completed on this module contribute to the 1000 hours of supervised practice required to be eligible to register to practice on completion of the programme. Some of the pre and post placement university learning can be verified as placement hours.

The preparatory period in university prior to placement will revisit the professional conduct required in practice as set out by the Professional standards for occupational therapy practice, conduct and ethics (RCOT, 2021) and HCPC Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics (2016).

This module will bring an occupational science perspective to local and global health and wellbeing issues. Drawing on concepts such as occupational justice, occupational marginalisation and occupational apartheid, you will explore how human activities and behaviours are influencing contemporary population health challenges (for example obesity, food insecurity and climate change), but also how occupation can be a solution for communities to move towards sustainable health and wellbeing.

You will be supported and encouraged to engage with local, national and global debates on health in order to develop and apply your own understanding of occupational perspectives of populations and public health concerns.

The development of knowledge and skills on this module will increase an appreciation of the political, sociocultural and environmental factors of human occupation and relationship to health and wellbeing.

This module will help you to develop your critical reading skills so that you will be in a position to make wise decisions about the selection and use of evidence to support your occupational therapy practice and continuing professional development. In this module you will be reading and critically appraising published research and other forms of evidence that inform health and social care practices, with a particular focus on occupational therapy. You will develop your understanding of the meaning of knowledge and how knowledge is generated within ethical parameters. Particular attention will be paid to current service user and carer involvement in healthcare research and how this can be facilitated in future knowledge generation. Service users recognised as equal partners and valued contributors will be considered as the key to the development and enhancement of service provision. You will develop knowledge and understanding of research terminology, methodologies and research methods by exploring relevant terminology, concepts and research processes. You will develop your critical appraisal skills to enable you to appreciate the value and limitations of a variety of approaches used in health and social care research. By the end of the module you will be familiar with the value of published literature reviews and will be starting to think of your topic for your own literature review to be undertaken in the final year of your programme of studies.

By the end of this module, you will gain an understanding of the benefit of occupational therapy in a variety of contexts. You will develop your knowledge of occupational science to inform your understanding of how the professional philosophy of occupational therapy and occupational justice can be applied in emerging and innovative settings to enhance and facilitate occupational opportunities for individuals, groups and communities.

You will also explore and critique current health, social care, economic and political drivers which are key in the development of occupational therapy services and debate the opportunities and barriers to occupational justice and professional practice.

Occupational Therapists use a wide range of practice skills to identify and assess occupational needs and to facilitate occupational engagement for those they work alongside. By the end of this module, you will have developed practice skills which enable Occupational Therapists to work with people with a range of needs and in a range of practice settings.

The core skills of an Occupational Therapist link to how they select, analyse, adapt and utilise occupations to promote occupational engagement, health and wellbeing. This module will focus on the occupational therapy process and the development of professional clinical reasoning skills. You will be provided with opportunities to learn and practice these skills and apply them to a range of authentic case studies and practice contexts. This will include consideration of listening and interviewing skills in order to understand occupational needs and priorities; practical skills in planning and facilitating individual and group activities in a range of practice contexts while considering a range of variables including risk management that impact on safe and effective practice . Alongside these practical skills, professional reasoning and decision-making skills will also be developed throughout the module. In addition, you will also have the opportunity to develop wider professional skills including skills in risk assessment, record keeping and collaborative working.

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.