In February, I wrote about wanting to spend more time outside in nature, two weeks later my family and I went on holiday to Wales, and 2 months after that we moved here! We’re now based in beautiful Llanelli, and feeling grateful, particularly for our daily walks along the coast.
I’m still seeing a small number of clients in London, on a fortnightly basis. I’m in the process of finding a therapy room in West Wales and excited about seeing clients here, too. Continue reading
London feels different at 6.15am. There’s a sense of opportunity: a new day stretching out ahead. The streets and trains are less crowded, the city feels calmer. Now I’m self employed I bounce out of bed each morning with the sunrise… just kidding! I am doing two early starts a week though, so I can offer therapy sessions before school. Surprisingly, I’ve enjoyed being up earlier than normal. I’m using the change to try out new ways of organising my day. Continue reading
I’m in a transition phase; I’ve left my NHS role and started work as an independent therapist. I find change tricky. I had an interesting conversation with Abi Roper and Tom Starr-Marshall that made me think — why is change in the NHS so difficult? And in a solution-focused kind of way, what makes particular projects successful?
Looking back, there was a pattern to my attempts at service development (try and follow along with the diagram!):
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I recently left a job in one London borough to start a new one in another part of the city. The aim of the move was to find a job that would allow me to develop my supervision skills, and get involved with service development work, while continuing to progress my clinical skills.
The change made me reflect on the positive aspects of the old job, so I’m jotting them down here.
It was a large, friendly team of therapists and I was well supported. I worked autonomously: free to manage my own time and workload.
I spent 18 months working with the same caseload, so I was able to get to know the families. When we met in the street, they would stop and chat; I felt a part of the community. I was also able to develop good working relationships with other professionals, such as staff in the Children’s Centres.
The team has a good universal service in place; they are working at the population level to raise awareness and prevent difficulties arising. In this respect they’re ahead of many other boroughs!
We were encouraged to carry out clinical projects, so I developed a drop-in group focussing on parent child interaction strategies, in my patch. With support from the Children’s Centre I was able to grow this group and access hard to reach families.
I think the new job will also be a positive experience; when I’ve moved through the initial ‘information overload’ phase and begin to find my feet, I hope I will enjoy the new challenge. I’m looking forward to developing the universal service and working with nursery settings.
I find starting in a new team difficult and admire locum therapists, who move from team to team regularly—I wouldn’t cope! If you’ve got any tips about how to make the transition as stress-free as possible, please add a comment!