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Is Occupational Therapy a good career if you want a lot of family involvement?

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Lashay’s Answer

Hi Nelonna: Thanks for asking a quesiton on Career Village.com. Although I'm not completely clear about your question, I want to try to answer it. If my answer is not correct, by all means, feel free to send the question again with some qualifiers. If you mean, you want your own family involved, unfortunately, Occupational Therapy will not allow the practitioners (your) family members to be present in the treatment of strangers as healthcare is a very private, personal, and guarded type of care. So much so, that there are laws, HIPPA, that protect strangers from healthcare records and information about others outside of their family. Your family can possibly help you if they are in the field of Occupational Therapy as well by dicussing areas in which you feel stuck,but again only if they are Occupational Therapists themselves and still not using patient names or information.

If you are asking this question to determine of family members of the patient can be involved, than yes, Occupational Therapy can benefit from patient's family members supporting the patient at home with practicing the treatment plan designed for the patient. Family can also help to arrange the home and meals that can aid in healing the client faster. I hope this helps to clarify your question. Best wishes!
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Rebecca’s Answer

Occupational therapy, especially in settings such as early intervention, require family involvement from the client's family. In these cases, the client is more than just the child- it's the whole family. So in this scenario, yes it's a fantastic career if you want family involvement. In other settings, such as in rehab working with adults, family involvement decreases because adults typically are able to implement interventions without additional assistance. That being said, family training can still play a role in therapy sessions, such as when a client is preparing to return home, or when working in a home setting.

You cannot have your own family involved in an occupational career, due to HIPAA laws and confidentiality. If you were interested in having your own business, there may be a place for some of your family depending on their education (for example, someone with business experience would be beneficial in this scenario).

As an occupational therapist, you have the opportunity to personalize your schedule, depending on the setting. In home health, you often have to see a certain number of patients or work a certain number of hours each week, but there may not be set hours each day so you have flexibility there. You can work in a school, which would mean that you are on a school schedule- holidays, snow days, summers. Another option is to work part-time or PRN. PRN means that you work as needed. In this setup, an employer or coworkers will ask you to work certain days based on when there is an influx of client needs or a coworker needs off. These types of positions allow you to choose when you work and you can say yes or no based on your own schedule. This position does not come with benefits, but it is very family-friendly since you can choose when and how much you work.
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