What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational therapy improves health and well-being by enabling people to participate in activities of daily living that are important to them.

The Luton and Bedfordshire Paediatric Occupational Therapist service support children and young people to engage and participate as fully as possible in childhood occupations (activities) such as:

• Play
• Eating
• Self-care e.g. washing, cleaning your teeth, toileting
• Dressing
• School and life skills e.g. writing and alternatives to recording information and using scissors.
• Managing at school e.g. getting around the class / school, supportive seating, specialist toilet seats
• Hobbies and leisure activities.

We see children and young people:

• Aged up to 18 years old or 19 for a child with SEND if in full-time education
• With a Luton or Bedfordshire GP
• Present with functional difficulties that are not in line with their overall developmental abilities (this includes academic attainment levels).

Our approach is based on supporting parents/carers and schools to be aware of sensory processing difficulties and how to adapt the things around the child, such as the environment, the child’s activities and our expectations and responses. We cannot change the sensory experiences of children but would aim to increase participation and help you manage the impact of these at home and  in the classroom.

Our Sensory processing resources are available on our website, including our training video.

Also Included on our website page is our service statement which explains the service we provide, how we can support and help, and clarification over the offer for sensory challenges. 

 

Where can I go for more information?

You can find all our contact details, and information on referring to our service on our website page:  www.cambscommunityservices.nhs.uk/BedsandLutonOT.

Use our Recite Me function to translate pages

We have recently made the Sensory Processing and our ‘You make a Difference’ videos available as a transcript in a variety of languages via the ‘Recite me’ function.   In addition, all our pages, and some of our leaflets regarding our developmental skills packages are also available to translate into different languages.

To use recite, click on the 'Easy Read and Translation' banner at the top of the web page, click on the flag icon for languages.  You can even change the background colour of the page by clicking on the colour wheel icon.