In his first few years at university, Ryan wasn’t certain where his degree would lead him and certainly didn’t think it would be a role with Aspect. Whilst initially uninterested in paediatrics, Ryan enjoyed working with children on a 3rd year placement working in schools. By the time he started his 4th year placement at the Aspect Hunter School he knew it was an area he wanted to pursue. Straight from graduating with a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy (Honours), Ryan started with Aspect in January 2020.
In securing a role with Aspect, Ryan joined not only the close-knit team in the Hunter but also the wider Aspect Therapy team of over 200 therapists nationally. “I think the best part about the team is that between operational leaders, supervisors and the broader team in general, everyone's always open to provide feedback, answer questions or provide you with support. You know that you can just pick up the phone at any time, even if you're not seeing the team in person, you can reach out for that support.”
“The support that we have had since we started from all the staff has just been amazing. I would say that the induction period was definitely a highlight in terms of the really gradual increase to our caseload and going through all of the training at the start. I think it's super important as a new grad to know that you can get that and it’s essential to have that sort of gradual uptake of clients to make us feel comfortable as well, which I know Aspect did really, really well.”
Although Aspect therapy has been providing Teletherapy services since 2015, in 2020 Aspect Therapy services pivoted almost entirely to Teletherapy in order to continue supporting families and participants during the COVID-19 period. “Even the transition to Teletherapy pointed out the supportive and collaborative qualities of Aspect too. We were provided with training to set it up and we learned how to use the system before we're expected to go straight into it. We had a lot of awesome support that was coming from everywhere in the organisation, anybody that had a little bit of experience with Teletherapy was providing strategies for the whole therapy team.”
If you want to be a part of a team with a collaborative nature and know that you're meaningful within that team, where you can also provide some really great, person-centred support, I think that Aspect’s definitely the place to come. Don't let the itinerant nature of the work, sort of steer you away from it, particularly as a new grad. I think that it's a very, very supportive place to work and there's always lots of avenues to gain that support, it's definitely well known that it's okay to reach out for that. It’s just an awesome place to work!