Hi, I am Nadia and I joined the bOunceT team in February as a Play Resource Officer for a 3 month graduate internship. Fast forward to now, I am coming to the end of my internship but will still be working with bOunceT on a part-time basis as we have so many exciting things coming up for you guys!
I graduated last summer from Glasgow Caledonian University on their BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy programme. I decided to get into Occupational Therapy after discovering the profession kind of by accident and having an amazing post high school internship with a paediatric Occupational Therapist in the United States. I was actually born in the US and lived there predominantly until I was 14 when my family moved back to Germany where my father is from.
I have always been both a very academic person and a very athletic person, so I took that into consideration when looking into careers. This is when I came across Physiotherapy which I had decided was the perfect career because it combined my love of learning about how the body functions and working with people. Right after high school I was offered the opportunity to shadow an Occupational Therapist to gain experience on a profession that often works closing with Physiotherapists. I was initially unsure about this because I wasn’t yet familiar with Occupational Therapy, but it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. Within the short time I spent in that clinic initially, I absolutely fell in love with OT.
I decided to then take a gap year so I could apply for Occupational Therapy programmes. During my gap year I spent several months working full time in hospitality and then I spent several months travelling around the world. At the end of that year I also went back to that same OT clinic in the US, where I was first introduced to OT, to spend a few weeks interning before beginning University. This gave me a great experience of OT within child services, sensory integration and play as a therapeutic tool.
I moved from Germany to Scotland shortly before my OT course began and was very excited to start my life in Glasgow. Glasgow has been amazing to me and I have had loads of amazing experiences here in Scotland so decided to stay and apply for jobs after graduating. I was interested in paediatrics, play based interventions and sensory integration so when a friend came across this internship she recommended it to me, I applied and now here I am!
This internship has been such a great insight into working for a social enterprise and OT in the private sector. As a Play Resource Officer, I have been working on a new project within the bOunceT team to create resources for therapy at home or family led sessions. It has provided me the ability to use my OT activity analysis skills and my creativity with developing a practical play resource card. I am looking forward to continuing to develop this project and begin involvement with clients to trial the resources.
