We are Deborah and Angi, two forward thinking Occupational Therapists (OT), working at South Edinburgh Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) (NHS Lothian, Tier 3). As we are both Allied Health Professionals (AHP) and practice educators who provide OT practice placements. In 2023 we were approached by our AHP Practice Education Lead who asked if we’d be interested in providing interdisciplinary practice placements for paramedic students. Needless to say, we jumped at the chance.
At some point in our lives many of us will have experienced contact with paramedics, as they are invaluable within our communities, being there for our children, parents, friends, and neighbours. Our paramedic colleagues provide emergency and lifesaving interventions, but that’s only one part of their ever-evolving role. We can now find them working alongside other health and social care practitioners and within education and research.
As AHP practice educators this was our chance to give something back and support the journey of future paramedics. We hope that by reading these reflections of our experience you will consider providing placements for paramedic students in the future too.
Our reflections of our own experience….
When we learned that Queen Margaret University were arranging cross sector placements for paramedic students as part of their degree programme and CAMHS were considered a targeted learning opportunity we couldn’t say no to getting involved.
We felt the learning opportunities this would create for all involved were too valuable to miss and would contribute to quality improvement in both services, ultimately benefiting those that matter to us most in CAMHS – our children, young people, and their families.
We offered to support one student each from QMU for a duration of two weeks per student as part of a placement rotation. As we both currently provide practice education for occupational therapy students, we had to carefully consider the impact the planning and delivery of additional placements would have on the service and our job plans.
Upon reflection, doing the pre-placement planning which involved using resources already in existence and tweaking them, saved time. We used what we already had from our occupational therapy practice-based learning offers. Preparing timetables of placement activities and liaising with the wider team and service beforehand also meant we had a plan and felt prepared. This meant we were able to focus on the interdisciplinary learning opportunities during the placements and there were many.
Overall, the paperwork required, and admin time was minimal, and the final assessment was a one sheet sign off. There was lots of support from QMU which included a short presentation about practice placement and assessment and NES provide a short video available here: Paramedic Student Placement Animation | Turas | Learn (nhs.scot)
Students’ contributions and feedback…
The students were extremely proactive and settled in well with our MDT. They reflected that they found our pre-placement reading extremely beneficial, recognising this was a short placement and wanting to get the most out of their time. Being part of a well-established MDT made up of Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language Therapists, specialist nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, and our social worker, gave them lots of opportunities to observe and participate in a variety of assessments and interventions.
They reflected that they were able to observe the patient’s journey from referral to discharge and learn in depth about caring for children and young people with a range of different disorders and diagnoses impacting on their day-to-day function.
Shared learning…
Targeted learning opportunities required for these placements included communicating with children, young people, and caregivers as well as learning about the best ways to engage with and respond to their needs.
An example of one students’ learning is, following an appointment with a patient with an eating disorder, they appreciated the benefits of separating the disorder from the child. They were able to reflect on how this can work, no matter whether the patient has a mental or physical health concern. This provided evidence to us of a greater understanding for the need for good “soft skills” and having the ability to communicate at all levels.
One student chose to evidence their learning by developing a social story for an autistic young person to explain what will happen when a paramedic visits them at home when they have self-harmed and feel too anxious to go to A&E for assessment and treatment.
A second social story was developed to explain what happens when a paramedic comes to transport a young person and their caregiver to hospital.
This joint working provided lots of opportunities to discuss the different communication needs of children and young people accessing CAMHS and paramedic services and how communication can be adapted to meet a range of needs.
We hope that by reading about our experience this may also inspire and encourage other AHPs within CAMHS and other services to provide interdisciplinary student placements. We would like to emphasise that this has been extremely rewarding for us and students alike.
Angi Tague and Deborah McCartney
Specialist Occupational Therapists
South Edinburgh CAMHS
NHS Lothian
AHPs across health and social care. 