Barriers and facilitators to noviceoccupational therapists working effectivelywith children

Introduction:
Over the last 30+ years, occupational therapy literature has explored some of the broad factors that influence a new graduates' experience of working in different practice settings. By contrast, limited evidence regarding the facilitators and barriers to novice occupational therapists working effectively with children aged 0–18 years, exists. Anecdotally, in Australia, a recent increase in new graduate occupational therapists working in the private paediatric context has been noted, raising the question around how to best support novice occupational therapists to work effectively with children and families.

Objectives:
To synthesise what is known about the barriers and facilitators to novice occupational therapists working effectively with children.

Method:
This scoping review followed the PRISMA-ScR method to identify the existing literature in terms of the characteristics, volume, and nature of the topic area. Searches were conducted through Scopus, PubMed, and CINAHL. Titles were included if they described occupational therapists with 0–3 years of practice experience and contained a description of an occupational therapy caseload of children aged 0–18 years of age. Covidence was used to screen and complete data extraction, and results were analysed thematically.

Results:
1853 titles were located through searches of scholarly databases. Preliminary analysis identified themes relating to novice occupational therapists' confidence, knowledge, skills and support requirements when working with children and families in the first 3 years of practice.

Conclusion:
This scoping review provides insight into how novice occupational therapists can be better supported to work effectively with children and families, and informs future research priorities.