Choosing a career path for your future seems like a big decision, and graduating from university as a new graduate therapist comes with a lot of different emotions and challenges. It can be both thrilling and stressful. A new graduate can choose from a wide range of opportunities in various health sectors, such as hospitals, private practice, community health, assisted living facilities, rehabilitation services, and many more.

Disability therapy is a sector that has rapidly grown in recent years and, for new graduates, it provides an important and fulfilling opportunity. The NDIS has provided many new opportunities and career prospects whilst also offering the chance to make a positive impact to empower both kids and adults with disability.

There are many reasons why a graduate therapist should consider this pathway, and below are some, put together by our team of new grads.

Building Meaningful Client Relationships and Seeing Real Progress

The significant effects that therapists have on their clients’ lives are one of the biggest arguments for taking disability therapy into consideration when choosing a career path. As new graduates in the disability field, they are frequently involved in helping to set a participant’s NDIS plan goals, and they frequently have the opportunity to establish and strengthen relationships with their participants over longer time periods.

By developing these connections, the therapists often get to witness small but incredibly meaningful gains over time, whether it be functional improvements or increased independence. Helping a participant achieve goals – whether it be walking independently, communicating more effectively, returning to work, or engaging socially – can be professionally fulfilling. This is often very different to those in an acute care setting, where often these interactions are brief and medically focused. New graduates commonly report that observing these big or small wins with clients they have worked with for extended periods of time strengthens their sense of purpose and identity as a professional and individually.

Embracing a Holistic and Collaborative Approach to Care

Another significant positive is the exposure to working collaboratively with the multidisciplinary team. People with disability, in a lot of cases, require the support and engagement of a team of people to achieve their goals. This could include their family, friends, support workers, support coordinators, teachers and allied health team. A collaborative approach to care, whilst ensuring that the client remains at the centre and involved in all decision making, ensures success for your intervention. 

This also enables new grads to hone their skills in effective communication. For example, initial assessments rarely occur with just the client. It may involve a 60min appointment with the client and their support worker, a 15min phone call to the house manager to better understand the routines of the group home and a 20min phone call with an adult sibling (the plan nominee) to better understand the health history of the client. Ensuring you know who to ask what questions, and how to bring to team together to share the same goals, is an essential skill to develop.

Diverse Clinical Experience and High Job Security

Another advantage of considering disability therapy as a career is the wide range of opportunities provided to you to work with many clients of different ages and with differing diagnoses, impairments and abilities. This can include many conditions, including but not limited to cerebral palsy, MS, autism, intellectual disability, schizo-affective disorder plus many more. By working with a large range of clients, all who have different diagnoses but also different presentations within those diagnoses, you will build a vast skill set in a very short period of time, opening yourself up to many more opportunities in future. The other bonus of that is finding out faster where your interests and passions may lie within disability!

Allied health is always going to be needed in the disability space as it plays a large role in supporting someone to be more independent in their life; whether it’s OT to support daily living skills or physiotherapy to improve physical function.