Organisation(s)
AECC University College
Megan Wellman
MSc Occupational Therapy, pre-registration. Undertaking a year one placement, which was a seven week community mental health placement, split between two teams
Summary of placement
Throughout this placement, I was split across two locality teams. Mondays and Tuesdays were spent in one, and Wednesdays and Thursdays were spent in the other. Due to the long travel, Fridays were dedicated to remote work, including teams calls with practice educators, writing notes, creating interventions, and catching up with placement paperwork. I enjoyed a varied schedule of community visits and outpatient clinics. In one locality I worked closely with the OT and support time recovery worker, and in the other I worked closely with the OT, nurse prescriber and psychiatrist. Naturally, working between two teams, it is impossible to plan and think of everything. We realised soon on that I missed both MDT meetings. However, my practice educators were flexible, and we were able to amend my schedule to fit this in. I particularly loved the community aspect of this work and felt benefitted that my practice educators were so opposite, with one providing structure and the other excitement for what the day would bring. Overall, this split placement provided me with a varied range of experiences and insights, and left me eager to delve deeper into community mental health.