Careers
The skills and attributes that an Occupational Therapy qualification aim to develop are:
- The capacity to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and attributes appropriate for a competent entry level practitioner
- The ability to develop strategies to enable individuals, groups and communities to participate in everyday occupations that they want and need to do
- The skills required to apply principles of activity and occupational analysis, and energy conservation as well as grading and adapting of equipment, tasks, activities, and environments with clients of occupational therapy
- The ability to appraise barriers to people’s participation in everyday occupations and devise strategies to overcome these
- The capacity to articulate the unique professional contribution of occupational therapy
- The development of a client-centred approach as a practitioner
- The ability to be proactive in prevention oriented and health promotion practice, demonstrating commitment to the health of populations as well as individuals
- The knowledge required to critically appraise the nature and meaning of occupation, the occupational nature of human beings and the theories and basic principles related to enabling occupation and occupational performance
- The knowledge and communication skills required to explain biomedical, psychological and social science concepts underpinning occupational therapy practice
- Quantitative research: the ability to describe and demonstrate quantitative research methods relevant to occupational therapy practice: scientific method, research questions, hypothesis testing, sampling methods, research designs (eg nonexperimental, experimental, quasi-experimental designs, single-case design, surveys, and randomised control trials)
- Qualitative research: the ability to describe and demonstrate qualitative research methods relevant to occupational therapy practice: basic premises, research questions, sampling methods, research designs (eg. in-depth interviews, focus group interviews, ethnography, action research, and discourse analysis)
- Statistics: the ability to calculate basic statistics for data sets (eg. measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion, degrees of freedom, statistical significance, inferential statistics, parametric statistics, nonparametric statistics)
- Research approaches: the ability to describe different research approaches and to be skilled at applying the best available evidence to everyday practice
- Professional practice: the ability to practice ethically, respectfully and collaboratively, and assume leadership, supervisory and management roles as appropriate
- Career management skills: the ability to create personal strategies to maintain high standards in professional life, contribute to the professional community and engage in lifelong learning
- People skills: the ability to recognise the intrinsic value of people irrespective of culture, values, beliefs and socio-economic status
Careers and specialty areas that can be moved into with these qualifications:
- Assessment Officer
- Case Management (eg. Case Manager)
- Community Occupational Therapist * Compensation Case Manager
- Disability (eg. Disability Assessor)
- Early Childhood Intervention Officer
- Equipment and Assistive Technology (eg. Equipment Advisor)
- Family Services Case Coordinator
- General Medicine
- Hand Therapy (eg. Hand Therapist)
- Injury Management Consultant
- Injury Management Advisor
- Lecturer
- Legal Consultant
- Medico-Mental Health Clinician
- Mental Health Services- acute, community, youth, young adult and aged (eg. Mental Health Clinician)
- Neurology (eg. Neurodevelopment Therapist; Neurological Rehabilitation)
- Occupational Health and Safety (eg. Occupational Rehabilitation Consultant; Occupational Therapist)
- Pediatrics (eg. Pediatric Occupational Therapist)
- Rehabilitation (eg. Rehabilitation Consultant)
- Researcher
- Vocational Employment Rehabilitation (eg. Return to Work Coordinator; Workplace Rehabilitation Consultant)
Industry sectors related to these qualifications:
- Acute Care
- Aged Care
- Allied Health
- Community Health
- Disability
- Early Intervention
- Education
- Government
- Health Promotion
- Hospital Industry
- Industry and Commerce
- Mental Health
- Non-governmental Industry
- Prisons and Secure Hospitals Industry
- Private Practice
- Rehabilitation
- Social Services
- Supported Housing
Graduates of occupational therapy will be able to:
- demonstrate the knowledge, skills and attributes appropriate for a competent entry level practitioner:
- develop strategies to enable individuals, groups and communities to participate in everyday occupations that they want and need to do
- appraise barriers to people's participation and devise strategies to overcome these
- articulate the unique professional contribution of occupational therapy
- be client-centred in their approach
- critically appraise the nature and meaning of occupation, the occupational nature of human beings and the theories and basic principles related to enabling occupation and occupational performance
- explain biomedical and social sciences concepts underpinning occupational therapy practice
- be proactive in prevention-oriented and health promotion practice, demonstrating commitment to the health of populations as well as individuals
- describe different research approaches and be skilled at applying the best available evidence to everyday practice
- practice ethically, respectfully and collaboratively, and assume leadership, supervisory and management roles as appropriate
- create personal strategies to maintain high standards in their professional life, contribute to their professional community and engage in lifelong learning
- recognise the intrinsic value of people irrespective of culture, values, beliefs and socio-economic status.
For more information about Employment and Career development in the Occupational Therapy field, please see