Concerned with a child’s ability to participate in their daily activities

Advice for a parent or practitioner who is concerned with a child’s ability to participate in their daily activities.

There are two main services which provide Occupational Therapy support to help children and young people in Somerset with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities achieve their potential. This is to help them to participate in activities to the maximum extent possible in their everyday lives.

Occupational Therapy Services

Occupational Therapy – part of the Children and Young People’s Therapy Service (CYPTS)

Parents or practitioners may identify concerns in a child’s ability to engage in play, participate in nursery or school, or complete self-care activities. The CYPTS Occupational Therapy service provides advice, assessment and therapy to address these difficulties. You can find information on the NHS Children and Young People’s Therapy Service here.

You can look up information in our ‘Fact Files for Early Years or for School-age’ which includes a range of advice sheets. You can also find forms and explanations as to how to refer the child or young person to this service.

If you need further advice, phone CYPT’s Advice Line on 0303 033 3002 – open 9am to 12pm Monday to Thursday (not available on Bank Holidays)

You can find a flowchart with more detailed information here

Occupational Therapy – part of Children and Young People’s specialist service

Parents or practitioners who may consider that these concerns could be addressed by changes to the child’s environment by adaptations or specialist equipment can refer to the service with their concerns, and we will offer functional occupational therapy assessment followed by advice, provision of equipment or adaptations.

Our core offer focuses on maximising occupational performance by:

• Changing the environment to meet the child or young person’s functional abilities: Supporting re-housing to meet the child or young person’s needs
• Minor and major adaptations to property
• Enabling participation in daily occupations: Specialist supportive equipment
• Training on safe manual handling techniques
• Complex postural management

This leaflet gives further information

You can find more information on our Occupational Therapy Service page.

If you need further advice or would like to make a referral, phone Somerset Council Customer Contact at 0300 123 2224.

If a written referral does come through to one service but the support requested clearly fits the other then the referral will be passed to the other team to avoid delay in getting support.

Disabled Facilities Grant

You could get a grant from your council if you are disabled and need to make changes to your home. Find out more on our Disabled Facilities Grant page.

Sensory Processing

The Somerset Sensory Processing pathway has been co-produced with parent carers to raise awareness of sensory processing. It provides information on how to support children and young people who experience difficulties with sensory processing.

Using visuals

Ruth from Somerset Parent Carer Forum leads an interactive session on how to create visuals to help your child or young person during our Local Offer Live week.

You can access Somerset’s Inclusive Communication signs and symbols for free.

There is more information about when to use visual prompts in the Fact Files for Early Years or for School-age.