BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy Bachelor's degree at the University of Brighton

This module will introduce you to professional standards of practice, the study of occupational science the theories and practice of occupational therapy. It will also help you to develop academic skills such as study, research and computer skills.

This module introduces you to the practice context and gives you the opportunity to develop your assessment skills and build confidence in working with service users. You'll work with your practice educator to transfer the theoretical concepts of occupational therapy into the practice context and learn to assess and identify occupational issues.

You will begin an in-depth study of the occupational therapy process, focusing on the skills needed to gather information relating to service users functional and occupational abilities, risk factors and assessing occupational performance and participation. You will develop communication skills and show how these can be used to build a professional relationship with a service user. You will conduct interviews and reflect on your interviewing skills.

In this module, you will continue to study the occupational therapy process, focusing on theory and strategies so you can assess functional and occupational abilities, risk factors and occupational performance and participation. You'll explore the use of both standard and non-standard tools for assessment. You will also further develop your clinical reasoning skills to facilitate the initial collaboration between service user and occupational therapist.

This module focuses on interventions as part of the occupational therapy process, including practice of group facilitation skills, identifying treatment goals and objectives and use of occupation or adaptation to facilitate therapeutic change. You will look at concepts of occupational imbalance and alienation; occupational performance areas – functional mobility, personal care, home management, work and productive activities; and occupational science subsystems – physical, biologic, information

By tackling real-life situations that pose challenges for team working, you will continue to advance your knowledge in the core areas of occupation and build on theories of group dynamics within teams to inform decision-making. You'll deepen your understanding of the role occupational therapy plays within health and social care teams and the need to build and sustain professional relationships both as an autonomous practitioner and collaboratively.

This seven-week placement gives you an opportunity to participate fully in the occupational therapy process, with a focus on intervention planning. You'll be able to test your therapeutic skills and knowledge and develop your understanding of teams. With guidance, you will begin to evaluate your interventions and develop effective communication skills both with service users and team members.

The profession of occupational therapy is growing and becoming more diverse, with an increasing number of occupational therapists working outside traditional health and social care services. To equip you with the necessary skills to work in such settings, this module facilitates your deeper understanding of the occupational needs of people within wider communities and populations and to consider the value of and opportunities for occupational therapy in different settings.

This eight-week diverse practice placement provides you with an opportunity to promote the role of occupational therapy in a setting that does not traditionally employ an occupational therapist. You will demonstrate how an occupational perspective can be used to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals, groups and/or communities.

This module introduces you to research in occupational therapy, exploring different research methods, the relevance of evidence-based practice and how to critique research papers. The module content includes the theory of occupation, occupational capacities, clinical reasoning and therapeutic skills.

As an occupational therapist you need to evaluate your practice in the light of relevant evidence, so you need to be able to understand and critically evaluate research in occupational therapy and occupational science and also have the skills to carry out research. In this module you will learn how to develop a research proposal through problem-based learning tutorials, action learning sets and lectures.

On completion of this final eight-week placement you will have learnt to be an independent thinker, planner, initiator and organiser. Although you'll continue to learn, you should be safe to practice and take an active role in the whole occupational therapy process. During the placement, you will carry out all aspects of occupational therapy assessment, intervention and evaluation and adhere to all the professional standards expected of a newly qualified occupational therapist.

In this module you will justify your employability and defend what it is to be an occupational therapist by critically reflecting upon, evaluating and consolidating the skills and knowledge you've acquired during the four years of your degree course. You will demonstrate a commitment to lifelong learning and the ability to take responsibility for your own conduct, performance and ethical continuation of professional development and leadership capacity.

As an occupational therapist, you'll need to work in ways that are tailored to each person's unique interests, values and social environment. This penultimate module aims to consolidate, extend and promote your autonomy as an emerging professional practitioner who can design, justify and evaluate person-centred evidence-based occupational therapy treatment plans. This will prepare you for future professional practice and increase your employability.

During this final module, you will identify and evaluate your individual strengths as well as any areas you need to further develop to support your transition to becoming a compassionate, autonomous, safe and ethical occupational therapist professional in line with HCPC standards of conduct performance and ethics.