Welcome to Belle's OT Corner

Join me for the first episode of Belle's OT Corner!

This episode is a brief introduction where I introduce who I am, what my motivations were for creating the podcast and what to expect throughout this podcast journey! 

Follow me on Instagram @bellesotcorner for more content! 

Transcript

Intro Episode:

Hello everybody and thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to Belle’s OT Corner, my brand-new little podcast where we're going to be talking all things paediatric OT.

Today on the podcast it's going to be a little bit of an introduction episode I'm gonna tell you about why this podcast has come to light, what my hopes are for the podcast and a little bit about me as well so we can get to know each other.  I'm also going to outline what I see is the vision and the scope for the podcast which I'm sure is gonna change but to give you a little bit of a heads up of how it's gonna be run what the format's gonna be like, so you know what's gonna be coming.  

So, a little bit about myself and I guess the most common question I get asked is why OT, which is fair enough - it's my first question when I have a client is what's brought you to OT.  So why OT for me and it does come with a bit of a story. I never knew about OT when I was growing up, I knew that I wanted to work with kids, and I had no idea in what capacity I wanted to do that. And I knew I didn't want to work at daycare, and I knew that it probably wasn't teaching for me, but I wanted to work with kids in some capacity. My beautiful mum, as all Mum’s do, got on and did a fair bit of research for me unbeknownst to me at the time and just quietly one day comes up and says well what about occupational therapy have you have you ever thought of that.  I had no idea what it was and so we organised for me to go and spend a day of work experience at a school in Australia for kids with disabilities and it was fantastic. I mostly spent the day with the teachers and shadowing the teachers and got to spend maybe two hours with the OT and have a little bit of a chat with her and I fell in love and was hooked and ever since then, and going through uni I have just fallen in love with it more and more. Since being out and working with the families in the kids that I'm lucky enough to work with again my love for it just grows more and more. 

So that's a little bit about why OT for me, a bit more about me in terms of my professional life I have been lucky enough to work across a couple different private practices in Sydney and have recently worked internationally as well. So, loving having all the different experiences and getting to meet some really incredible individuals and it's kind of brought about this little passion project. 

So, I guess I should talk a little bit about what occupational therapy actually is for those of you who don't know.  So as occupational therapists we look at all of the activities and the things that somebody has to do within their day.  So, this could be the things they have to do, and these are things like getting up, getting dressed, eating some food, and having a shower.  And we also look at the things that an individual might want to do, and this could be playing with their friends, going and playing a sport, maybe they have an interest in playing some music, whatever the activities are and the hobbies that that individual has. Now with kids it gets a little bit more complex because some of the things that they have to do include school, as well and being able to focus on the teacher and all of those things. 

So, what we do is we look at what the activities are that a child has to do, where they're having some difficulties, what's important to them that they would like to get better at, or they would like to become more independent at, as well as what's important to the family unit.  And we nut out some goals that we then work on with these families. But the most important thing that I find amazing that we do as occupational therapists is we get to look at all the building blocks. So, if a child is having difficulty with dressing for example as occupational therapists it's our job to be able to step back and look at that task break it down to figure out where the difficulty is, but then break it down further to figure out what is the cause of that difficulty. Is the cause of that difficulty something to do with motor control or motor coordination. Is the cause of that difficulty something to do with the way the child is processing sensory input. Is the cause of that difficulty something to do with the child’s problem solving and executive functioning skills which is the way they think and approach the task. Or is the difficulty with some attention and some concentration the list goes on and on. But we get to look at all of these little building blocks that all work together for a child to be able to complete their goal. It’s one of the reasons why I love OT because we get to essentially help children and their families make their lives easier and help them be more independent. And there is nothing better than watching a child achieve their goals, something they thought would be impossible to them and the pride that comes with that and the excitement that comes with that is just amazing.

And now why this podcast and this really came about from my experiences as I've been working. I have been a paediatric occupational therapist ever since I left uni of couple of years ago now. And one thing that I have noticed quite commonly and consistently across the various places I have worked, is a lot of the information that we as occupational therapists know and are lucky enough to share is quite similar in some respects. And there is this access to information that for some parents can be really challenging and when I know there are lots of parents on wait lists, or maybe not being able to access as much therapy as they would like, or maybe they're just finding it hard to get in the groove, or their teachers commenting things, theres so many reasons why people might be looking into occupational therapy.And a lot of our world can be quite confusing at times, and I have put my parent's hat on and stepped into your shoes and done a little bit of a Google search. And I know what I'm looking for and I found it hard to find the information.  

So, my hope is that through this podcast we can demystify are some of those occupational therapy things, demystify what some of those words mean, and really help to build some knowledge and build some confidence and skills for all of the amazing parents and teachers that work with the kids that I get to see, and with the kids that I don't get to see. You know the idea is that we're really gonna make some of this information really accessible with nice practical little things you can do within your days aren't gonna mean you have to change everything. And it's just a way to kind of get some information out there in nice bite sized little bits. So that when you have those magical 5 minutes to yourself, or maybe you are doing the dishes, or you’re driving to pick the kids up from school, wherever it is that you have your pockets of time you can plug in have a listen. Not have to sit there and scroll for forever to try and find the one piece of information that you're looking for. Hopefully we will be able to bring it all together make it nice and accessible so that you can just pop it in and have a listen. And feel confident in being able to see your kid go do you know what I think I might know what is a little bit tricky for you, and I have the confidence to use my language, use my body, and I can just understand. Because so much of what we do when I work parents and I work with teachers is helping them to understand what might be happening within their kids' brain because once we understand we have that compassion, and all of a sudden, the world just gets that little bit easier. 

So, this podcast is really about building that knowledge, and building that understanding, and just sharing so that anyone who maybe wants to access a little bit more occupational therapy, or maybe just want to build their knowledge can come here to have a listen and learn together. So this podcast you may have picked up is going to be tailored a little bit more towards parents and teachers, but I'm open to everyone listening so if you're an OT student, or maybe an OT who's new to paediatrics, or maybe a parent whose friend is seeing an OT and they recommended the podcast and so you want to have a listen, everybody is welcome and I am so happy to have you all along on this journey with me. 

And the last thing I wanted to touch on in this episode, this little teaser before we jump in is what the flow is going to look like. Because honestly when I was sitting down to do this I got overwhelmed with the amount of information and the where to start. So, I can only imagine for parents how much of an information overload you must go through on a daily basis let alone if there is a diagnosis in the mix that you are dealing with and going through that learning curve as well. So, what I have decided is for my podcast, I'm going to run a little mini seasons or little mini packets where for about I’m thinking 4-6 episodes, but we'll see how we go. I'll focus on a particular topic if I feel the topic needs more or needs less this, they will vary depending upon this. But this way if you're looking for something in particular you can have a bit of a scroll and just tune into what you want.

And the really big thing that I want to do through this podcast is have a look from this framework of what are all the building blocks. What are all the things that happen within our brains, within our bodies, within our emotions, within every aspect of our life, what's all the bits and pieces that we need to have balancing together to be able to do whatever the activity is that the child or the parents want to have happen. And so, when we look at those little building blocks around what my little seasons are going to be based on.  We might have a little season on sensory processing, we’re probably gonna have a couple seasons on sensory processing, we're probably gonna have one on play, we will have one on what is childhood occupations, we’ll have one on postural control and motor development. And as we go along building on these little mini seasons so you can pick the one that you think your child needs. We’ll definitely have some on executive functioning skills as well and have some on working with teenagers and what that transition into a teenager role looks like, and how we can help and support the individuals. So, you can see the list is endless, but through putting it in little seasons it makes it nice and accessible. There probably be multiple seasons for some as I mentioned before, so that we kind of build on the knowledge that we got from there last season.  But that will be the flow of the podcast. 

The first season I am going to address is going to be a short mini season on sensory processing. Second season is going to be all around postural control and some of our basic motor development skills, and then from there I haven't decided yet. We'll see where we get to. But I am so excited to have you all along on the journey with me and once again thank you so much for being a part of Belle’s OT Corner and I cannot wait to start this process with you all.  Talk soon, bye!