Today I am kicking off a "Day in the Life" series on my blog to celebrate OT Month. One of the great things about the field of occupational therapy is the wide range of work settings where you can find OTs adding their distinct value. My goal with this series is to highlight the variety of settings where you can find occupational therapists working. I truly hope you enjoy it!
Occupational therapy has its roots in the field of mental health, and today I am so happy to have Sarah Lyon here to kick off this series and share what a "typical" day was like for her when she worked in a state psychiatric hospital.
Last year I had the awesome privilege of working with adult males
recovering from significant incidents related to their severe and persistent
mental illness. This was a dream job for me, as it entailed high amounts of
creativity and the chance to truly collaborate with patients.
The setting was our state psychiatric hospital. Patients were
committed to the hospital for anywhere from a few months to decades.
The work was varied and challenging. My programming team
consisted of psychologists, social workers, recreation therapists, and licensed
mental health practitioners. We worked under the Recovery Model.
I relied heavily on Tina Champagne’s
sensory room work, Karen Moore’s Sensory Connection
work, and Dr. John Liptak’s Life Skills Workbooks for guiding
theory and practical activities.
I worked part-time and everyday was a new adventure, but here is
an example of a Thursday:
8:30— Arrive. Greet my OT co-worker, who
works primarily with the women. Check email for information on status changes,
transfers, discharges, etc.
8:45— Frantically Prep. This typically
includes making copies, gathering supplies, checking the room.
8:50— Head to the ward. Check-in with
staff, grab my radio, start inviting the men to group.
9:00— Like Skills Group for group-home-bound
men. Topics in Life Skills varied from cooking, balancing your checkbook,
interview skills, navigating transportation, cleaning, etc. Our goal was always
to make the group as hands-on as possible. A typical structure would look like
this:
Intro-
5 min
Teaching-
10 min
Hands-on
activity- 20 min
Clean-up
and debrief- 20 min
10:00— Life
Skills Group for group-home-bound men II. Here I would run the same group
as at 9:00, but no 2 groups were ever the same since each gentleman brought
such a unique dynamic to the group.
11:00— Life
Skills Group for nursing-home-bound men. This group was focused more on
social and leisure skills. The men enjoyed cooking for leisure, working on
memory books, and collaborating on projects to improve the ward.
12:30— Programming team meeting. Team
meetings can be a drag. But this one was a highlight of my week. I worked with
an absolutely awesome programming team. It was led by our psychologist, who
worked hard to give our program an overall vision and help us process what was
and wasn't work for our guys.
1:30— Individual
sessions. Before working in mental health, I worked in physical rehab, so I
would occasionally have an individual on my caseload for issues such as chewing
and swallowing, overall strengthening, wheelchair management, etc.
2:00— Working
Projects. The OT department’s
two main working projects were the Patient Employment Program and Sensory Room
Initiative. These were both passion projects for the other OT and I. We could
have spent our whole day on them, but I was grateful to have dedicated time
each week built into our job description.
2:30— Documentation.
The bulk of our documentation was monthly notes. Monthly notes are awesome.
I would try to work on these throughout the month, but there was always a
little bit of a rush in the days leading up to the deadline.
3:30— Life Skills
Group with men bound for independent living. The goal of this group was to
make it as self-directed as possible. The guys would plan out the group’s calendar for the month
together. We often spent our time helping prepare whichever man was going to
discharge next by making shopping and grocery lists, learning about programming
and transportation in the area, and processing through other logistical
concerns.
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My husband’s
job took us to a new city a year into this job and I have since switched my
focus to blogging about OT at otpotential.com.
I would love to continue the conversation with you there. You can sign-up for
my newsletter here.
About Sarah:
Sarah received her BA at St. Olaf College and her Masters of
Occupational Therapy at New York University.
Her work experience includes: a critical access hospital, an acute
trauma hospital, and a state inpatient psychiatric hospital. She is the creator
of otpotential.com, where she blogs for OT students and new practitioners.
Nebraska is her home, but she currently live in Chicago.
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