If you are an ESSA-accredited Exercise Physiologist wanting to work in Occupational Rehab, here’s what you need to know.
Benefits of working in Occupational Rehab
There are many benefits to working in Occupational Rehab (Occ Rehab), including:
- It offers flexibility around start and finish times, extra paid leave, Rostered Days off, part-time and contracting work
- It’s less physical than a clinical role because it’s case management, not clinical work
- There’s a lot of scope to progress into a variety of specialisations such as OHS, medico-legal, training, equipment prescription, legislation, complex claims specialists etc
- You have the ability to choose where you work ie. your home, the office or a combination
- Comfortable salaries: OK, OK, we tell a lie. The salaries are amazing! Grads get $75,000 – $80,000 Base + Super + phone, tablet, travel, comprehensive training, in-services and CPD funding
- It offers a diverse career with career-mapping opportunities on a city, state and national Level.
How to transition into Occ Rehab
If you’re ESSA-accredited, you’ll have a Provider Number which allows you to provide a clinical service in a clinical practice to people who have been injured at work.
However, to perform work in an Occ Rehab setting, you need to be qualified in the SIRA modules of Workplace assessment and Functional capacity evaluation (in NSW only). This is not a requirement in other States or Territories but we highly recommend it.
How to qualify for Occ Rehab
Register with ESSA to take this course.
About the course
This course is run by ESSA. ESSA waits until they have a certain number who want to take this course, then work with a University to hold it.
- “The Workplace Rehabilitation course is presented at a postgraduate level and represents close to 150 hours of total learning (the exact time required to complete the course will vary depending on an individual’s prior knowledge, skills and competencies in this area).” – ESSA
- Find all the relevant course details here: SIRA modules
- The course credentials last forever, so once you get them, you’ve got them for good
- This is worth having in your back pocket.
Securing reimbursement
If the cost of this course excludes you from taking it right now, there are options.
Unfortunately, you can’t be forward-recruited for a role in Occ Rehab if you don’t have this accreditation, so you need to have completed the course before you can job hunt.
BUT, many employers contribute towards their staff’s CPD in order for them to keep up their ESSA accreditation. So you can ask your employer to pay towards this course, with the goal being that you’ll transition to a new role after, or just keep the qualification up your sleeve.
If your current employer won’t contribute, or you’re job seeking in this area, get in touch because we can find you an employer who will pay for all or some of your course.
What next?
ESSA is not planning on running another one of these courses until January 2023, so if you’re interested, sign up now.
All the best with it!
If you’d like to find out more about working in Occ Rehab, or about how a course like this could benefit your career, give us a call. Our services are free for Jobseekers.
