Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist 12m FTC - Until September 2027

The role of the Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist is to provide a high quality, evidence based occupational therapy services, which promote participation and functional activity of children and young people.

You will support community service provision, offering virtual advice and brain injury education, early supported discharge from inpatient neurorehabilitation at The Children’s Trust, outpatient packages and community rehabilitation in the Southeast (restricted postcode locations) ensuring high quality, evidence based occupational therapy assessment and interventions to children and young people with acquired brain injury and Neurodisability.

Our service delivery aims to promote outcome focussed interventions, safe care, function and participation of children and young people. You will provide clinical leadership to the occupational therapy community team ensuring accountability and effective communication with internal and external team members.

Staff benefits include shuttle bus, and more… Read more below.

Role Requirements

• Lead the provision of high quality, evidence based occupational therapy provision for children and young people receiving support from the Community Rehabilitation Service in partnership with other members of the multi-professional team.
• Undertake specialist occupational therapy assessments of children with a range of needs including highly complex needs.
• Devise and carry out therapeutic interventions that are developmentally appropriate, goal directed, and occupation centred both in terms of means and outcome.
• Devise suitable, individualised occupational therapy programmes/strategies that fit within the child’s daily routine, whether to be carried out by parents, educators or members of the Multi-professional Team; these should be monitored, evaluated and adjusted appropriately according to the needs of the child.
• Develop therapy goals, in collaboration and with the child and family/carers, as well as the multi-professional team, to maximise recovery and facilitate the participation of the child in their daily life.
• Provide a range of occupational therapy interventions for outpatient intervention packages e.g. provision of splints and casts, upper limb Botox management, functional task training.
• Provide leadership across the community occupational therapy service.
• Be a positive and inspirational role model for all team members.
• Work closely with all members of the Multi-professional Team, as well as the child and family, to provide a fully integrated approach to the overall management of the child. This will include any home/school visits, professional child related meetings and/ or appointments, as required.
• Provide clinical cover across the service during episodes of staff shortage/heavy workload, in order to ensure effective service delivery.
• Work flexibly in terms of hours, in order to meet the needs of the service.
• Represent the Therapy Team and The Children’s Trust when appropriate, deputising for the Community Therapy Team Lead as required.
• Work closely with the Business Development and Commissioning Team to support active admission and early supported discharge planning where this would be beneficial for children and young people
• Support the Community Team Lead to demonstrate impact of virtual advice-based services and support the community therapy team to manage demand and throughput of requests.
• Support the operationalisation of an early supported discharge model for children and young people residing in the Southeast.
• Collate data to demonstrate meaningful outcomes when offering an early supported discharge model of support, e.g. reducing length of stay, improving information sharing across multi-agency teams, improved transition to home, school, community and reduced waiting times for community therapy.

Interview Date: 30th July 2026

If you would like to discuss the role, please contact the Recruitment & Compliance Team, on 01737 365 880 or email: recruitment@thechildrenstrust.org.uk

For more information, a copy of the candidate briefing pack and application form please click here.

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY – ‘How to Apply’

Terms and Conditions

PLEASE NOTE: The Children's Trust Application Form MUST be completed and submitted, for your application to be considered. As part of the shortlisting process, gaps in employment will be examined and further explored during the interview process. 

Strictly no agencies, please.

As we often receive high levels of applicants for our roles, we regret that we will only be able to contact those applicants who are shortlisted for interviews. Therefore, if you have not heard from us within 2 weeks of the closing date, please assume you have not been shortlisted for an interview on this occasion.

About Us

The Children’s Trust is the UK’s leading charity for children with acquired brain injury, providing expert rehabilitation, education, therapy, and care at our national specialist centre in Tadworth, and to children and their families across the UK, via our Brain Injury Community Service.

Boasting a beautiful 24-acre site in Surrey, we are located just outside of London, close to the M25 (accessible via Junction 8, A217 to Tadworth) and easily accessible via National Rail, by way of: Clapham Junction, Sutton, and Epsom.

Staff Benefits

The work we do is highly rewarding, and in addition to an attractive salary, we offer a valuable range of benefits, including our staff flexible benefits platform, on-site nursery, free eye tests, enhanced Maternity and Paternity Pay, time out days for those experiencing menopause symptoms and time off for gender reassignment.

We also offer additional annual leave days for those with long service, with entitlements ranging from 35 to 41 days (including bank holidays) depending on your length of service.

Other benefits include free on-site parking; a staff shuttle service from Epsom and Sutton train stations to Tadworth Court, subsidised cafeteria, on-site staff accommodation (subject to availability), the ability to retain your NHS pension (where applicable), Teacher’s pension (where applicable) or the opportunity to join an alternative scheme, and the opportunity to develop your career in a supportive and collaborative environment.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Many roles at The Children’s Trust are exempt from the provisions of Section 4 (2) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, by virtue of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2013 and 2020) and as such, are subject to an Enhanced DBS check.  Successful applicants will be required to complete an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check, which will disclose all unspent convictions and adult cautions and any spent convictions or adult cautions that would not be protected.  The exceptions to this are our retail roles within The Children’s Trust shops, which are subject to Basic DBS checks which will disclose unspent convictions or adult cautions.

Equal Opportunity Employer

To help us achieve our ambition to give children and young people with brain injury and neurodisability the opportunity to live the best life possible, we want to accurately reflect the UK’s diverse population. We want equity, diversity, and inclusion to be at the heart of everything we do, and our people, services, and culture to reflect the diverse needs of all. Through our diversity and inclusion strategy, we have made a commitment to increase the diversity of our charity and create an inclusive culture. We have networks across the organisation working to ensure that these aims are met - including an LGBTQIA2S+ group, Ethnic Diversity Group, and Spark – our broad EDI group. Read more about our EDI work here. We welcome applications from all who share our ambition regardless of background. We will strive to ensure that any reasonable adjustments are made in respect of interview and working arrangements.

Online Searches

In accordance with statutory safeguarding and child protection guidance, online searches will be conducted for shortlisted candidates before interview. The online searches will be conducted by a person who is independent of the interview and selection process and will focus on relevant information returned via searches of the candidate’s name (and variations thereof). Social media searches will be limited to professional platforms such as LinkedIn. Any concerns relating to suitability for work with children and young people will be forwarded to the interview panel, for discussion during the interview.