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Job Title: Paediatric Occupational Therapist
Job Type: Full Time, Agency Contract
Location: Ballyboden Primary Care Centre

Salary: Aligned with HSE Staff Grade Occupational Therapist pay scales

Excel Recruitment are recruiting a Paediatric Occupational Therapist to join a Primary Care team based in Ballyboden Primary Care Centre.

This is an excellent opportunity for an Occupational Therapist to join a warm, child-centred and well-established multidisciplinary team.

Overview

As a Paediatric Occupational Therapist, you will be an important member of the Primary Care multidisciplinary team, delivering high-quality, child-centred assessment and intervention services for children aged 9 years and older, helping them develop the skills they need to participate more fully in daily life.

You will manage a paediatric caseload and work closely with families, schools, and the wider MDT to deliver interventions that empower children and create meaningful, positive change for those who support them every day.

The Role of the Paediatric Occupational Therapist

Paediatric Occupational Therapists support children and young people to carry out the activities – or occupations – they need, want, or are expected to do. Children may experience difficulties with everyday activities due to underlying challenges with particular skills.

You will suggest alternative ways of carrying out activities, advise on learning new approaches, and help children and young people develop their functional skills, independence, and confidence so they can reach their full potential.

Key Occupational Areas

• Self-care: Washing, dressing, feeding, toileting, and sleep.
• Productivity: School-based activities such as writing, organising belongings, completing homework, and using assistive technology.
• Leisure: Play-based skills, hobbies, and interests.

Performance Skills

• Fine motor skills: Supporting the small hand movements needed for grasping and manipulating objects, writing, cutting with scissors, tying shoelaces, and fastening buttons. These tasks require precision, hand strength, and bilateral coordination.
• Postural control: Developing strength and stability through the hips, trunk, shoulders, and neck. Posture and sitting position can directly affect fine motor tasks, including handwriting.
• Sensory processing: Helping children gather, organise, and understand information from touch, taste, sight, hearing, smell, body awareness, and movement. Sensory processing difficulties can affect activity levels, responses to sensations, learning new movements, and everyday participation.
• Attention: Identifying and addressing factors that may affect a child’s ability to attend, including challenges with understanding a task, high activity levels, or environmental distractions.
• Executive skills: Building the planning, organisation, time management, attention, self-control, self-monitoring, goal-setting, decision-making, and problem-solving skills young people need to become more independent.
• Gross motor skills: Supporting coordinated and controlled movement using the body’s larger muscles. This includes core strength, balance, bilateral coordination, and body awareness for activities such as running, jumping, skipping, hopping, and ball games.

Types of Paediatric Primary Care OT Intervention

• Parent training and coaching to support functional skill development.
• School-based intervention designed to build skills and capacity among those supporting the child.
• Targeted interventions for children experiencing functional and participation difficulties.
• Specific training for small groups, including transition programmes for Primary and Secondary School.
• Treatment clinics focused on targeted skill areas, including fine motor, sensory, life skills, and handwriting development.
• Parent workshops

Candidate Requirements

• Recognised qualification in Occupational Therapy
• CORU Registration (Essential)

• Minimum of 2 years’ experience, with paediatric experience highly desirable

• Experience managing complex caseloads and working within multidisciplinary teams

• Strong knowledge of paediatric conditions including Autism, DCD, ADHD, and developmental delays

• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organisational skills
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team while managing your own caseload
• A driver License and access to a car

How to apply:

For more information about this opportunity, please reach out confidentially to Charlene Cooke by email or telephone 00353 89 945 5139.