Our people

---

Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist 

As a Clinical Specialist OT, Debbie has practiced as an Occupational Therapist for over 30 years, working with children and adults with a range of complex needs, including neurological, physical, cognitive and sensory difficulties offering assessment, treatment and equipment and adaptation assessment and provision.

Debbie has provided highly-specialist clinical expertise in appropriate therapeutic management of patients. Debbie has taken responsibility for clinical leadership for the OT services that she has worked in in her specialist areas. She has developed programmes which have been used to educate Consultants, parents, support staff and educational staff regarding OT core business and educating them on the OT process, treatment principles and knowledge of conditions. 

Debbie has led on service-wide specialty-focused projects. She played an integral lead role in devising and securing a 2-year pilot for a sensory service provision of assessment and treatment for clients with sensory difficulties for the CCG in the area where she worked. She has led on implementing outcome measure tools which can be used across all areas of OT. Debbie has been involved in undertaking research into outcome measures, devising and adapting outcome measures, piloting this against others and implementing and auditing the chosen measure to collect data. The work she did has assisted with the introduction of new outcome measure tools, which have been used across different disciplines.

Debbie has completed a variety of postgraduate study of neurological assessment and intervention techniques, as well sensory processing, postural management studies and more specific methods of assessing hand function of children with hemiplegia. This means that she is accredited to use a variety of assessment tools and therapeutic techniques to aid her assessments and interventions. Debbie has always had a keen interest in neurology and paediatrics. Since qualifying, she has covered all aspects of paediatrics. She has experience of treating and assessing children from birth to 19 years old with a variety of conditions including cerebral palsy and other neurological conditions, developmental delay, developmental coordination difficulty, sensory processing difficulties, muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, congenital and chromosome disorders, head injury and other trauma injuries. She is proficient in using a variety of standardised and non-standardised assessments. Debbie is an Accredited Bobath trained therapist. She attended an advanced upper limb course in July 2013, which gave her advanced classification.

Debbie works closely with and involves parents, carers and other professionals in the child or adults’ occupational therapy programme, to ensure a collaborative approach, thereby maximising successful outcomes. This includes formulating goals and intervention plans in discussion with parents and carers, ensuring that they understand their role and the time scales set out for the period of intervention. She involves parents/carers and other professionals at all times during the OT process, encouraging full engagement and continuation of advice and treatment. Providing 24-hour postural management programmes, which include the recommendations for specialist equipment. Deborah is trained in assessing and fabricating upper limb static and dynamic splinting to improve positioning for hand function and to prevent the development of deformities. Debbie is able to assess, fabricate and monitor the use of hand splinting for neurological conditions to support hand function and support upper limb and hand postural management to reduce the risks of deterioration.

Debbie has significant experience of undertaking detailed assessments of children and adults with a wide range of disabilities, to identify care needs and the provision of specialist equipment. This involves undertaking moving and handling, equipment and environmental risk assessments in the client’s home, educational or community setting. She Is trained to provide moving and handling training to support workers, family members and carers.

Professional Qualifications

Dip COT SROT; Salford College of Occupational Therapy; 1989

BSC Hons in Health Care & Welfare; The University of Salford – Second Class Honours Division One; 1993

Membership of Professional Bodies

British Association of Occupational Therapists (BAOT)

Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)

BABIT – member of the British Association of Bobath Trained Therapists

Children, Young People and Families OT Special Interest Group

Postgraduate Qualifications and Training

2022 - Safeguarding Adults and Children Training

2022 - Mental Capacity Act & Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Training

2021 - Level 4 Award Train the Trainer and Risk Assessment in People and Handling

2021 - Manual Handling training

2019 - Giraffe posture and equipment training

2019 - Sensory Integration Assessment -Module 2

2018 - Sensory Integration Theory Intervention Module 1- Foundation

2017 - Record Keeping

2017 - Principles of Care and Confidentiality

2016 - Manual Handling Train the Trainer course

2015 - Postural Management of the Complex Disabled Person

2013 - Bobath Upper limb course Advanced

2013 - Assistive Hand Assessment (AHA)

2012 - Appreciative Leadership

2012 - Fieldwork (Apple) Re-Accreditation;

2011 - Care Aims

2008 - Integrating NDT and Sensory Integration

2008 - Outcome Measures (Bobath Course)

2007 - Sensory Integration Theory Intervention Module 1

2006 - Bobath Advanced Early Assessment & Intervention of Babies & Young Children

2006 - Fieldwork (Apple) Accreditation

2005 - Paediatric Splinting – Neoprene

2002 Dec - Bobath Refresher Course

1996 Jan - Bobath 8 week neurodevelopment course.