Goodbye for the Last Time

All placements must come to an end. After weeks of working closely with a client, who wouldn’t wonder - what happened to my client who I saw daily for therapy? What happened to my client who became tearful when they spoke about their fears? What happened to that equipment funding request I helped write? Your student’s genuine curiosity and concern could be endless but cannot be appeased as we must abide by strict legislation to protect personal information.

As a therapist, you have faced a variety of similar experiences where the end to a therapeutic, client relationship felt unfinished. Modelling ways to gain closure will support your student’s ability to cope as a clinician later.

So how can you, as fieldwork educators, facilitate a sense of closure for your student during placement?

Here are a few suggestions:

·      Remind your student to tell clients of their eventual departure with a specific end date to establish boundaries,

·      Protect time at the end of placement for your student to individually say goodbye to clients and suggest sharing: 

§  Something they have learned from the client,

§  Ways in which the client helped shape their professional growth,

§  How they have appreciated their work together,

§  Strict boundaries regarding communication moving forward,

§  How you, as the therapist, have been updated on what was being worked on and will continue to provide services.

·      Allow time to close your own student-educator relationship during the final evaluation as you would for a client (above),

·       Consider being open and honest about your own feelings and strategies you use to cope with lack of closure or difficult goodbyes as they occur in real-time during placement.

Goodbyes are hard but it is a hard we need to learn to cope with as therapists as one goodbye makes room for a hello with a new client. And if that’s not encouraging enough, remind your student of the timeless wisdom of Dr. Seuss - “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Julie

Please note: the term client is being used to symbolize individual persons, patients/residents, caregivers/support systems, and communities.

Taking an OT student during COVID-19: Thoughts from a community-based OT.

We know that OT fieldwork educators are working so hard to manage challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic in their work environment. To add to this, navigating new ways of doing things while also having a student is no doubt challenging, to say the least!! Here is a glimpse of what one community-based OT had to say about taking a student during COVID-19: 

Taking a student during the COVID pandemic was a little daunting; how could they work remotely? Would they get to see clients? Would the educator get redeployed?

We decided to offer a placement anyways and hoped for the best. We settled on sharing the student between 2 educators to help cover any sick time that may arise. And it’s actually gone much better than we expected!

We’re in the community and we’re all working from home as much as possible outside of client visits. The university was supportive of us using Microsoft Teams (or similar) so we could video conference with students. Programs like Microsoft Teams offer a “screen sharing” option where the student can see what I’m working on/typing on my computer in live time, so there’s no reason for us to have to sit closely together at the same computer or even be in the same room.

This particular placement has been a great exercise in self-directed learning; there’s been many times where plans have had to change last minute where a client has become code orange/red, the student hasn’t been able to attend the visit, and they’ve needed to pivot to working on projects/research. 

There are parts that aren’t perfect, for sure, but this is the reality of what’s going on in the real world right now and these students are getting a chance to see how we’re coping with the resources we have at our disposal.

At the end of the day, we are so grateful for the hard work and creativity of the OT fieldwork community in making fieldwork possible during these uncertain times- THANK YOU!! OT students are gaining unique experiences that will be invaluable for them to take forward into their OT student journey. 

*Thanks to the OT educator who graciously offered to share her feedback 😊

Teresa & Margaret Anne

 

CBFE Midterm Tips: Intermediate 1 Fieldwork (Level 2)

Here are some tips to help you with completing the midterm evaluation for Intermediate 1 Fieldwork: 

GETTING A HEAD START!

• Take time to review the evaluation and the minimum placement expectations that you have set for each competency. This will help you to refresh your memory on areas that you are evaluating for midterm. This will also help to target your observations and begin to gather examples of how your student is doing.

• In addition to direct observation, consider other evaluation strategies such as:

o   Talking through a client session with your student,

o   Reviewing written documentation,

o   Gathering perspectives of team members and OT colleagues. 

 

EVALUATION OF COMPETENCIES:

• Please rate your student on each competency using the drop-down arrow provided. 
• Please remember that for Intermediate 1 you are to score a maximum of 6 at midterm and final. 
• Consider your student's performance in relation to:
• your minimum placement expectations ( where you expect your student to be at  the end of Intermediate 1 fieldwork)
• CBFE competency descriptors  
•  Use the comment section to provide examples of how your student is meeting expectations, strengths, and areas for improvement.

• Grading

o   Intermediate 1 & Intermediate 2 fieldwork both fall under Level 2 on the CBFE.

o   A rating of 6 indicates mastery of Level 2 and ready to transition to Level 3 (Advanced).  For Intermediate 1, we would not expect students to reach a rating of 6, as this would mean that they are ready to transition to Level 3 (Advanced fieldwork). It is possible that your student may be performing at a 6 by the end of Intermediate 1, however, it is not expected.  Your students still have another placement (Intermediate 2) to work towards achieving mastery of Level 2!    

o   By the end of Intermediate 1, we would expect students to reach a 5 in order to meet expectations, although there may be some variation across competencies. *Students do not need to have 5’s in all competencies in order to pass their Intermediate 1 placement.

• Reminders:

o   *Determination of a pass or fail by the university is based on the average of the competency marks and comments at final.

o   Please do not rate your student above a 6 for Intermediate 1. If your student seems exceptional, please feel free to use the comment section to indicate this.

o   Please do not struggle with the electronic form! If you are having issues, you can use a paper copy and email us a scan of the document at the end of the placement.

 

EVALUATION OF STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

•  Review and evaluate each objective by placing a vertical line on The Learning Objective Rating Scale.

o   Hover over the dot on the scale; a hand will appear to allow you to choose the rating.

• You can copy and paste your student’s learning objective information into the evaluation on the student-learning objective page. This will help provide some context to your evaluation. 

 

• The student-learning objective page will primarily contain student information that you have copied and pasted.  Feel free to use the “validation” column to provide feedback about your student’s progress with learning objectives. You may also use the comment section to provide feedback about student learning objectives. 
  

• What if you need to edit your rating?

o   Hover over the line above the dot you selected. Once the hand appears, and it is “sitting” on the line, you can click to delete.

• What if your student has more than one learning objective for the same competency? How do you provide a rating in this situation?

o   In this case, you can provide a rating that captures an “overall picture” or an average of your student’s progress in meeting their learning objectives. 

• Your student may carry forward objectives not completed into academics or future placements. 
  

•  Reminder:  Student learning objectives are not included in the overall score and do not determine pass or fail.

 

BONUS TIP:  Consider emailing the evaluation to your student prior to your evaluation meeting to allow time to “digest” everything.

As always, please reach out if you have any question or concerns :-)

Teresa & Margaret Anne