Allied Health Week: Meet Doyel Khaleque
It's Allied Health Week at CAHS (2 November - 8 November) and we're meeting some of our allied health professionals at CAHS! Meet Doyel Khaleque, a Senior Occupational Therapist at CAMHS.
What do you do?
My role involves assessment and intervention for young people with complex mental health concerns, from an occupational therapy perspective. This involves getting to know young people, assessing their mental state, risk and functioning, and then helping them to identify goals that they would like to work on. As an Occupational Therapist (OT), I focus on what the young person wants to do, what they need to do and how they can learn the required skills or adjust their environments to make daily living more manageable. My role also involves consultation with the wider team about sensory processing, developmental issues and functional living skills.
How did you get into this job?
I trained concurrently as an Occupational Therapist and primary school teacher, and started thinking about young people’s coping skills while I was doing my Honours research. In my final year of university, I was lucky enough to get a student placement in the only adolescent mental health program that employed OT's at the time, and was offered a role when I graduated. I’ve since worked across various CAMHS programs to help promote the OT role in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
What’s a typical day for you?
Unpredictable! Sometimes I have planned appointments with young people or parents, while at other times I may be required to respond to crisis situations. I often have to liaise with schools, GP's and other services to advocate for patients to receive the support they need in other environments. In some roles I provide group therapy – it really just depends on what’s happening on the day.
What is the best thing about your job?
The best part of being an OT is that I can do so much of my work through activities that people enjoy – such as art, craft, movement and games. I have opportunities to be playful, creative and practical while enabling patients to work on their goals. I enjoy being an OT because it’s a very hands-on role and I can always adapt what I planned to do to fit that patient’s needs and abilities.
Tell us something we might not know about allied health professionals...
Most allied health professionals have to commit to ongoing professional development and a high standard of practice to maintain their registration with their national boards – it’s not enough to just have a qualification in the area anymore.
What’s been the best and hardest part of 2020?
The hardest part of 2020 has been noticing the impact of the pandemic on young people, families, my colleagues and services in general, while being unable to do much to change things. The best thing is the implementation of technology to bring CAMHS up to date – it’s been amazing to be able to offer Telehealth support to families, meet with colleagues via MS Teams and have iPads for completing forms.