Oakfield House School has its own on-site clinical team who work multi-professionally, and in close collaboration with class teams, SENCO and Senior Wellbeing Officer, to create environments which remove barriers to learning and enable children to thrive.
The team is made up of Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language Therapists and a Forensic Psychologist. The Clinical Team work within a Trauma Informed and Neurodiversity Affirming Approach.
Occupational Therapy- Occupational Therapists (OTs) support children and young people to increase their independence when participating in activities of daily living. OTs support children with physical, motor skills, socio-emotional, perceptual or sensory difficulties that impact on these occupations. Occupations for children and young people include Self-care and independent living skills, schoolwork or being productive and leisure activities.
Speech and Language Therapy- Speech and Language Therapists provide support for children who have difficulties with speech, language or communication. They work to remove barriers to their engagement in education and to work towards children reaching their full communicative potential. This could include use of non-verbal means of communication, increasing social communication skills or developing speech sounds.
Psychology– Rather than asking “what’s wrong?”, psychologists focus on understanding “what has happened?” and “what might help?”. A key aspect of this role at Oakfield House School is helping to develop this shared understanding of the child and their situation with the systems around the child to build a fuller picture of their strengths, needs, and experiences. From this, we can think together about supportive and practical ways forward.
Support is given at different levels in the OFG Clinical Pyramid. This differentiates the levels of clinical therapeutic support according to the strengths, differences, traits and needs profile of every individual.
Individual– Some individuals may require specialist direct support for a period of time to meet need.
Group– Groups of individuals may require more focussed support for a period of time to meet need.
All– All individuals receive support at the universal level. All level clinical input at Oakfield House School includes:
- Baseline screening to identify clinical need, put general supports in place or to identify a need for further group or individual involvement. This occurs at point of admission for all pupils and is reviewed in response to changes in need, as is required.
- Clinically informed student documents (Communication Profile and My Sensory World) to ensure there is a shard understanding of each child’s sensory and communication needs
- Multi-modal Communication approach and Sensory-Friendly environments
- Joint working with education teams to review progress and update goals and outcomes, including for EHCP reviews
- Clinically based training for education teams focusing on whole school, class or individual pupil needs
For more information, please contact Lead Clinician, Nicola Urquhart