A week in the life of…Adeilade from the community rehabilitation team

No day is the same in the role of an associate mental health practitioner. Often people get confused about the term “Associate Practitioner,” it’s basically just a fancy way of saying occupational therapy assistant!

I work in the Community Rehabilitation Team which is a recovery focused team made up of Occupational Therapists and Associate Practitioners. The aim is to promote services users’ independence in areas of dysfunction to reach an optimum level of functioning and to prevent hospital admissions. The team works as intensively as needed to provide individualised support in order for service users to reach their goals. The Occupational therapists will write a care plan with a service user and the Associate practitioner will then provide support to carry out this care plan.

Our work includes:

• Supporting and establishing structure and routine to daily life
• Supporting with the transition period from acute hospital environments to the community
• Activities of daily living
• Graded exposure work
• Accessing the community independently
• Travel training
• Implementation of coping strategies to promote positive mental health
• Support to complete Wellness Recovery Action Plans

Being an Associate practitioner is a very rewarding role, however some days can be challenging as you often work with individuals who can become quite unwell which can place you in challenging, unexpected situations. Our work can be life changing for most individuals and this is amazing to see whether it takes weeks, months or years.