Deciding to work for yourself in any profession is often an exciting but daunting prospect. Most OTs seem to say they started independent work confident in the professional services they could offer, but had little business acumen to support themselves on their journey.

Always having to explain what we do - There is a widespread misconception about the OT profession.

Well I love variety and I hate stagnating. I want to be really good at what I do and it’s essential that I get to do what I’m really good at.

A previous article from Harrison Training considered; ‘Could using an online portfolio help you to organise your CPD evidence?’. One of the benefits of using an online portfolio is access to ready-made templates for recording CPD activities.

As an independent practitioner your roles may not fit neatly into CPD categories defined by professional and organisational bodies.

I had been working as a senior OT for a Local Authority for a number of years which I enjoyed however due to the lack of career progression within my role, I wanted a new challenge.

I was working as an OT manager for Health and Social care; I loved my job and the team around me but found that I really missed the hands on clinical aspects of doing my job.

I’m glad I took the leap, but I wish I’d had the courage to jump a bit earlier in my career. I certainly wish I’d planned it a bit better at the start, so that the point I’m at now might have been a smoother journey.

I am passionate about OT and its underlying philosophy. I really enjoyed the majority of my work within statutory services; however I became increasingly frustrated and felt stagnant in my roles.

For a long time I'd been curious as to whether working independently as an Occupational Therapist could work for me. I was self employed for some time before I trained as an OT so had already had some experience of the book keeping side of things.

To earn more money, and as my career took me into acute inpatient work, I wanted to keep my community, rehab, adaptation type work up to date.

Diary of an apprentice private practice OT

At Inclusion we’re always looking for experienced Occupational Therapists. We offer a variety of work options from one off pieces of work through to ongoing contract work…

I had my last blue badge clinic today, which was set in a remote assessment centre, so isolating me from the blue badge team.

Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the Eurogamer Video Game and Technology Expo. This was purely for entertainment (and to keep a geeky husband quiet) however, as usual, I had a whinge about the heights of the surfaces, the distance a wheelchair user would have to travel to find an accessible entrance and so on.

Diary of an “Intern” Private OT