Overview
The Bromley Healthcare Children’s Occupational Therapy Service provides assessment and support for children presenting with a wide range of functional difficulties to help them become as independent as possible, and developing their skills to be able to participate in their everyday activities.
Occupational Therapists are specially trained to understand the skills your child needs for self-care, play and school participation, and provide advice and strategies to support their independence in developing these skills.
This service offers play-based and child-centred assessment, practical advice and strategies to children and young people experiencing challenges with everyday activities.
We will work with you and your child to identify ways for your child to be able to participate in daily activities and support their independence.
We assess and recommend specialist equipment, e.g. specialist seating and toileting equipment in the educational environment (school/nursery). We assess and provide home equipment for children who meet the continuing care threshold, to support participation in their everyday activities, and also for short-term use required for hospital discharge.
Some example areas we can support include:
- Self-care (e.g. dressing including fastenings, independence with personal care skills, tool use such as cutlery skills at mealtimes)
- Play and leisure (e.g. Fine motor skills in using toys, coordinating movements and participating in activities)
- School participation (e.g. assessment and recommendation of specialist equipment, to support a child’s access to the school environment such as in the classroom and toilet facilities, handwriting skills/drawing and prewriting skills, scissors skills, organisation in school environment
The Bromley Healthcare Children’s Occupational Therapy Service work in partnership with families and other health and education professionals to support best outcomes for your child and to support implementation of strategies in all areas of daily life.
The current average waiting time for the Children’s Occupational Therapy service is 9.7 weeks.
Calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes. To find out more, visit Personal information – Bromley Healthcare.
Using the service
For first time referrals into the service, a completed referral form is required. This can be completed by any professional involved with the child or young person. For example, school, GP or other health professional.
Bromley Children’s Occupational Therapy Referral Form
Once a request has been received by the team, a therapist will consider whether the referral meets the service criteria (See ‘Who is the service for’). Our administration team will then contact you to give an update of the decision and next steps.
The service works to an episodes of care model, where needs are identified; advice and therapy given and the referral closed.
Where a child or young person has been seen in the service in the past two years, (and their episode of care has been closed), parents and carers can make a direct referral into the service’s Advice Clinic if needed, by telephone, email or letter/referral.
Some children with on-going physical needs will remain open on our caseload and this is likely where children have a complex physical disability and require specialist equipment at their education setting.
Telephone: 0300 330 5777
Email: bromh.cypreferrals@nhs.net
Calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes. To find out more, visit Personal information – Bromley Healthcare.
Who is the service for?
The Children’s Occupational Therapy Service is for children 0-18 who have difficulties participating in everyday functional activities due to a physical, sensory, coordination or neurodevelopmental disability, or due to developmental delay. We provide Occupational Therapy assessment and strategies/advice to support independence and development.
Children and young people aged 0-18 years of age who meet the following criteria:
– Are registered with a Bromley G.P,
– have identified functional difficulties impacting activities of daily living,
– If you do not have a Bromley G.P but have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan and attend a school in Bromley, we will deliver provision in line with the EHC, as required from our service.
Criteria for specialist equipment:
For school: We provide assessment and recommendations for specialist equipment as required, for children who meet the above criteria and who attend a school in Bromley. We also complete annual reviews of the equipment once in place.
For home: We provide specialist equipment for home (assessment and provision), in line with the above criteria, for your child to be able to participate in daily activities if:
– Your child is in receipt of Continuing Care funding
– If you child requires short term equipment following a hospital discharge
For all other specialist home equipment please liaise with the London Borough of Bromley Occupational Therapy Team. Telephone: 020 8461 7985
Calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes. To find out more, visit Personal information – Bromley Healthcare.
Appointments
OT Initial Assessment
Appointments can be offered at the Phoenix Children’s Centre; child’s school or home, depending on the individual need and reason for referral. If your appointment is at the Phoenix Children’s Centre, please make yourself known to the receptionist, and the occupational therapist will come to meet you in the reception area.
The Occupational Therapy assessment will typically last from 45 to 90 minutes. The assessment will be play-based and engaging for your child, to allow us to make clinical observations to guide our assessment. It may be appropriate to also use standardised assessments.
The assessment will involve a discussion with you and your child about their daily occupations and participation and the areas of need you have identified and would like to focus on. Please bring any information to support these discussions.
If your child has been referred for any concerns with dressing, we ask you please bring any fastenings/clothing from home, which your child is familiar with, to be used within the assessment.
Following your assessment, the Occupational Therapist will feed back to you and advise the next steps. They will give ideas of activities you can practice at home and may recommend small pieces of useful equipment you can purchase to use with your child. A short report, identifying the areas of strengths and needs from the assessment, including OT strategies and recommendations, will be sent to you, and whoever referred your child to the service. If your child attends a nursery, pre-school or school we will ask you if a copy of the report can be sent to them and to other professionals who may be involved with your child.
Advice Clinics
We offer an Advice Clinical pathway for children who have had an OT assessment with us within the past two years to be able to attend an advice clinic for any new functional difficulties that may have arisen.
Advice clinics are run by an Occupational Therapist and/or Occupational Therapy Assistant and the goal is to provide the opportunity to discuss any new functional difficulties and receive new recommendations and modelling of any strategies to support your child’s independence.
Changing or cancelling an appointment
We appreciate circumstances can change so If you need to change or cancel an appointment please contact the Care Coordination hub, giving as much notice as possible, so appointments can be offered to other children.
Calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes. To find out more, visit Personal information – Bromley Healthcare.
Resources for parents
Children’s Occupational Therapy Resources
Occupational Therapists help children to develop skills for everyday life in areas of self-care, schoolwork and play, to maximise each child’s potential.
We have created some resources to support you and your child with developing skills and independence with functional skills.
Helpful videos
Pre-writing skills:
Knife and fork skills:
Open ‘knife and fork skills’ written advice document here.
Zip skills:
Open ‘zip skills’ written advice document here.
Button skills:
Open ‘button skills’ written advice document here.
How to put socks on:
Occupational Therapy Advice Sheets and Resources
Making handwriting easier to read: placing the letters on the line
Advice for schools: requests for standardised assessments of handwriting (over age 9)
Teaching tips for scissors skills
Body awareness and coordination
Organising and alerting strategies
Some useful websites
bromley.gov.uk/LocalOffer
Information about local services, support and activities available to families, children and young people aged 0-25 years with special educational needs or disabilities.
rcot.co.uk
Royal College of Occupational Therapists. Provides useful videos and information about the services that Occupational Therapists can provide. There is a section for children and young people.
b-HIVE
A collective of therapy advice, support and services for children, teenagers and young adults in Bromley.
Calls are recorded for training and quality purposes. To find out more, visit Personal information – Bromley Healthcare.
For professionals
The service is for children and young people aged 0 to 18 who are:
- registered with a Bromley GP;
- have identified functional difficulties impacting activities of daily living
- If you do not have a Bromley G.P but have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan and attend a school in Bromley, we will deliver provision in line with the EHC, required from our service.
For first time referrals into the Bromley Children’s Occupational Therapy service, a completed referral form is required, clearly outlining functional difficulties. This can be completed by any professional involved with the child or young person, e.g. school, GP or other health professional.
Bromley Children’s Occupational Therapy Referral Form
If you are discharging a child or young person from hospital and require essential short-term equipment to support their access at home, please complete the following form to refer them to the service:
Bromley Children’s OT Hospital Discharge Referral Form
Hospital Discharge – Bromley Healthcare Children’s Occupational Therapy Process
Once a request has been received by the team, a therapist will consider whether your child meets the service criteria (see ‘who is the service for’). Our administration team will then write to you to tell you of the decision and next steps.
Referrals for handwriting are accepted from schools or home education. If another professional feels that a referral is required for handwriting, please ask parents for school or home education to make the referral.
Clinical Lead for Children’s Occupational Therapy: Sheena Kirk
Calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes. To find out more, visit Personal information – Bromley Healthcare.