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LEADS
Professional Leads
Family Health SupportWorkers
OccupationalTherapists
THEYEAR
IN GENERAL
It’s incredible thinking back to this time last year and
reflecting upon how much has happened in what feels
like such a short space of time! BUSHkids continues to
provide its staff with opportunities, challenges, learnings
and wisdom.
I continue to find the role of FHSW Professional Lead
to be one that is exciting yet challenging, inspiring yet
testing. The support of my Professional Leadership
colleagues and Clinical Services Manager is invaluable
as we try our very best to lead, support and guide our
staff from afar, and as we take on board and run with
the strategic directions of the organisation.
I would like to thank all FHSW team members, who, with
the experience and skill that exists collectively amongst
the team, have assisted me to provide professional
leadership to them all. Every FHSW brings to the team
a varied background, skill-set, and knowledge base
which jointly offers high quality care and support to the
children and families of BUSHkids.
I would also like to acknowledge how wonderful it has
been to have Marianne Taylor join our service as the
EIF Professional Lead – her wisdom and experience
has made a huge impact for many!
As I reflect on the previous year and commence writing
my contribution for the 2015–2016 report, it is not hard
to feel a little proud of the number of goals achieved
and activities undertaken during this time. It was also
encouraging to see the raising of BUSHkids’ profile
across Queensland, and increased recognition by local,
state and federal levels of government of the vital work
undertaken by our services in regional and rural areas.
This period saw my continued role in BUSHkids’ clinical
leadership team, supervision of BUSHkids’ Occupational
Therapists and additional responsibilities – including
being the convener for BUSHkids’ annual Conference
and support to the Clinical Services Manager.
THETEAM
2015-16 was a very busy year, with successful delivery
of multiple group programs. Each FHSW worked
particularly hard to meet activity targets and to attribute
more of their time to clinical rather than admin activity.
FHSWs have continued to receive exceptionally positive
feedback post-delivery of group programs, for example:
“COS taught me to see my child’s needs rather than see
his tantrums…which makes me a stronger wiser kinder
parent”
. We’ve also made huge progress in employing
family-centred principles of care: for example, providing
parents with feedback about their child’s functioning in
the group and raising any concerns noted; encouraging
parents to continue with skills learnt in the program to
consolidate learning and strive for better outcomes for
the child; ensuring that referrals (internal and external)
are made after completion of the group program where
indicated.
Through supervision and team meetings, FHSWs have
increased their awareness of social constructs including
domestic and family violence; child protection; impacts
of chronic disadvantage upon children and families;
impacts of trauma upon child and family functioning;
social determinants of health; impact of adverse
childhood events upon health outcomes; cultural
considerations to practice; parental mental health
impacts; impacts of grief and loss. This will ultimately
lead to a more holistic approach to the child and family’s
care planning and care management.
We continue to meet on a monthly basis, building a new
structure around how we use this time together. We are
currently trialling a system whereby we rotate through
a three-monthly cycle of admin, PD, peer supervision
/ case presentation meetings. We have also held two
planning meetings exploring the strengths, priorities and
goals we hold as an FHSW team, particularly as many
team members are formulating PADPs. All were readily
able to identify how their role makes a real difference to
children and families.
The last 12 months have seen the development of a
stronger sense of professional identity and connectivity
rather than working in silos. FHSWs have identified
more strongly as a professional team despite having
varying qualifications skills and experience. My focus
has been on helping everyone see the commonalities of
their role and their practice, to help them work out what
their core skills, strengths and areas of focus should and
do look like, and to constantly be on the lookout for peer
mentoring and support opportunities.
The OT team met regularly via Skype for discipline-
specific meetings to discuss clinical issues, operational
issues and complete in-services around topics including
toileting, sensory processing and skill acquisition.
A peer support network was established, with newer,
less experienced OTs establishing regular phone
contact with one another across the state. This fulfilled
an important role in providing peer support and reducing
feelings of isolation often felt as the sole OT on the
team.
Occupational Therapy services provided by BUSHkids
in this period saw a shift to include more targeted
programs for early intervention including Fingergym,
The Alert Program, and Sleepwise.
Other OT team activities during this period included the
successful implementation of a standardised outcome
measure – the Canadian Occupational Performance
Measure (COPM) – for goal-setting with families and
pre- and post-measurement on performance and
participation in goal areas. Collation of completed
COPMs during this time revealed statistically significant
positive change across all goal areas, highlighting
the effectiveness of occupational therapy clinical
intervention provided by BUSHkids.