Remote Working
Audio reading of the blog post
Welcome to our weekly CENMAC blog post
Remote Working | by Abeer Essa, CENMAC Advisory Teacher
Making the impossible possible: Face-to-face jobs are now working remotely.
Pandemic restrictions have meant many jobs have had to suddenly switch to homeworking. Working in therapy has always been thought of as an essential face-to-face job. While this is true, therapists have now had to ‘think outside of the box’ to deliver therapy – and this has made working remotely a surprising success!
The ‘new normal’ forced therapists and other professionals to embrace ‘teletherapy’!
“Myself and the other Dysphagia SLTs will continue to work remotely as we find that getting parents to send us videos of their child eating and drinking and also observations via video calls is more beneficial than bringing them to clinic in a false environment and gives us a much clearer picture of the feeding.”
Therapists working in schools, hospitals, clinics, centres and at patients’ homes share intimate and personal experiences with patients; you see the patient, build a rapport, interact with them, and eventually build trust. Although it is still difficult to achieve all of this through virtual sessions, it has highlighted other benefits which professionals had not thought of before, such as learning about the patients in their most natural and safe environment. Also, involving parents is powerful and adds value to the therapy outcomes – they encourage their children to generalise skills across different settings! Nicky – a Dysphagia Specialist Speech and Language Therapist, said: “Myself and the other Dysphagia SLTs will continue to work remotely as we find that getting parents to send us videos of their child eating and drinking and also observations via video calls is more beneficial than bringing them to clinic in a false environment and gives us a much clearer picture of the feeding.”
On the other hand, this might be more challenging when working with patients with attention, language and communication difficulties. Helen – Specialist Speech and Language Therapist said: “For children with attention and listening difficulties virtual platforms present both positives and negatives – I have experienced intense interest in the assessment materials and the IT interface, as well as a total lack of engagement in the session.” Moreover, working remotely with adults has different challenges, particularly for those who have no access to technology. Lucy – Specialist Speech and Language Therapist said: “I have found it difficult to build a rapport with patients via the telephone who have no access to video technology. Not having the facial expressions or gestures which we rely on so much when communicating our feelings and experiences has been difficult.”
… so many people were working at home and multi-disciplinary teams could be brought together virtually at the drop of an email invite
Working remotely made attending multi-disciplinary meetings more accessible. Helen – Specialist Speech and Language Therapist said: “I think there has been an increase in multi-professional interaction while so many people were working at home and multi-disciplinary teams could be brought together virtually at the drop of an email invite”. However, this can also create a sense social disconnection.” Rosie – Dietitian said: “I also felt isolated being away from the team.”
Although it is clear working remotely opened many doors and options for therapy, we cannot deny the continuous technical frustrations! Pamela – Speech and Language Therapist said that working remotely “relies heavily on tech, creating additional tech learning, troubleshooting and maintenance responsibilities for all staff.”
The past year has affected us all in different ways, but from speaking to a number of professionals, it sounds like a mixed approach is likely to be encouraged, conducting both virtual and face-to-face sessions! This will depend on several factors: technology, travel and convenience; but most importantly the patients’ individual abilities and preferences.
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working remotely “relies heavily on tech, creating additional tech learning, troubleshooting and maintenance responsibilities for all staff”.
