In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, I’m joined by Marie, an experienced occupational therapist who has recently transitioned from hospital and community mental health into private practice.

With over 15 years of experience, Marie reflects on the shift from structured public health roles into the autonomy of private work. While the transition has brought flexibility and creative freedom, it has also introduced new challenges particularly around business systems, financial management, and the invisible load of admin.

Together, we explore what it really looks like to build a sustainable mental health OT practice while balancing clinical care, business responsibilities, and personal life.

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring, or reflective practice, visit www.theotcoach.au  to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce is joined by Sophia, an experienced occupational therapist who is navigating early private practice while holding the weight of past system reform, identity shifts, and changing personal priorities.

With over a decade of experience across government disability services, hospitals, schools, and child development teams, Sophia reflects on how previous large-scale funding changes continue to shape her response to uncertainty today and how those experiences have also deeply strengthened her clinical reasoning and adaptability.

Now running a small private practice alongside motherhood, she shares openly about reclaiming joy and creativity in her work, redefining professional success, and building a service that aligns with her values rather than external expectations.

We explore

Living at a point of clinical mastery and why familiarity can feel unsettling

The emotional imprint of past system reform and how it resurfaces during current NDIS uncertainty

Identity shifts as OT becomes part of life rather than the whole of it

Neurodiversity-affirming, relational, and nervous-system-informed practice

Transitioning from government services into values-based private practice

Navigating Medicare, NDIS, and private funding without shrinking clinical ambition

Contracting, intentionality, and clarity in parent-focused work

Holding space, slowing down, and trusting professional judgement

Building sustainability without pressure to grow faster than feels right

Key takeaways

Feeling unsettled at a point of competence is often a sign of growth, not failure

You don’t need to know everything before stepping into private practice

Intentional contracting supports confidence, boundaries, and clinical clarity

Presence and relationship are powerful therapeutic tools

Success in private practice can be defined by alignment, flexibility, and values not just income or growth

Mentioned in this episode

Alyce’s Caregiver Capacity Framework

The Therapy Conversation Planning Tool

Contracting and intentionality in therapy delivery

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia.

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, reflective practice, or business mentoring, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce sits down with Jane, an experienced occupational therapist working in a Grade 3 leadership role within the public health system while also running her own private practice.

After more than twenty years working across clinical roles, Jane recently stepped into a leadership position supervising a growing occupational therapy team. While continuing her own clinical work privately, she now also supports supervision, service development, and team leadership within a public health setting.

This conversation explores the realities of stepping into leadership as an occupational therapist. Many therapists find that the transition from clinician to supervisor brings a new set of challenges, including navigating difficult conversations, supporting team development, and balancing competing responsibilities across clinical and leadership roles.

Jane shares openly about the complexity of holding these roles while maintaining strong relationships within the team.

We explore:

This episode highlights how leadership in allied health often evolves gradually as therapists take on greater responsibility for supporting colleagues, developing services, and shaping team environments.

Key Takeaways

Stepping into leadership often changes the nature of work from primarily clinical to a combination of supervision, service development, and team support.

Difficult conversations are a normal part of leadership and often become easier when supported by clear systems and expectations.

Regular check-ins and structured supervision can help create space to address small challenges before they grow into larger issues.

Supervision approaches often need to adapt to the different learning styles and experience levels of individual therapists.

Leadership roles often require therapists to balance multiple responsibilities while supporting the growth and development of others.

Mentioned in This Episode

Michelle Bihari – Supervision and Leadership Training

Toni Knight – Wellbeing for therapists 

Situational Leadership Model for adapting leadership style to clinician experience

Zoom AI Companion for supervision summaries and documentation

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring or reflective practice, visit www.theotcoach.au
to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce sits down with Mary, an occupational therapist running her own private practice across several rural towns. After stabilising her caseload and building systems that support sustainable rural service delivery, Mary finds herself asking a new question. Not how to build a practice, but how she can best serve her community beyond individual therapy sessions.

Working in regional areas often means therapists see the gaps in services very clearly. Schools needing support, education assistants feeling overwhelmed, and limited access to professional development and therapy services. Mary shares how she is beginning to explore new ways to contribute to her community, including developing educator workshops that support school staff to better understand regulation, behaviour, and practical strategies for supporting students. We also explore the role rural therapists can play in growing the future workforce, including hosting student placements and increasing awareness of rural practice opportunities.

This conversation reflects a common shift many therapists experience after building a stable service. Once the day-to-day clinical work is running well, new possibilities begin to emerge around education, mentoring, and community support.

We explore:

Key takeaways

Building a sustainable clinical caseload often creates space to explore broader community initiatives.

Supporting the adults around the child can have a powerful impact on outcomes for children.

Rural therapists often hold valuable knowledge about community needs that can inform education and training programs.

Student placements can play an important role in increasing awareness of rural practice and strengthening local services.

Therapists working independently may underestimate the expertise they have developed through building and sustaining a service.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia.

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring, or reflective practice, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce sits down with Paige, an occupational therapist working in adult mental health and psychosocial disability within the NDIS. Paige reflects on her pathway into OT, including beginning her career in NDIS LAC and community roles before moving into clinical mental health practice and establishing herself as a sole trader.

With several years in practice, she shares how her early experience shaped her tolerance for complexity, her ability to manage open work streams, and the systems she now relies on to work sustainably. As her clinical work has consolidated, Paige finds herself at a point of professional recalibration. The conversation explores her growing interest in supervision, not as an add-on to clinical work, but as a distinct professional role that requires intention, structure, and clarity.

Together, Alyce and Paige unpack how supervision mirrors good clinical practice: understanding the person in front of you, setting clear goals, recognising strengths, identifying areas for growth, and choosing when to teach, guide, or reflect based on developmental stage. They also discuss the importance of time containment, boundaries, and pacing, particularly when supporting others alongside a busy clinical caseload.

We explore:

Key takeaways:

Mentioned in this episode:

Michelle Bihari and her work on supervision and contracting

Occupational Therapy Australia Mental Health Capability Framework https://otaus.com.au/resources/mental-health-capability-framework 

The Client Snapshot Tool

The Supervisors Space, a peer thinking and reflection space for supervisors run by Alyce and Claire Britton.

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia.

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring, or reflective practice, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce is joined by Ruby, an experienced occupational therapist working across a broad regional caseload while building her sole trader business alongside part-time hospital work.

Ten years into her OT career and around 18 months into self-employment, Ruby reflects on what it has been like to grow quickly without a clear structure to hold the work. With paediatrics, driving assessments, NDIS work, and support at home all sitting under one business, she finds herself overbooked, stretched thin, and carrying too many competing priorities at once.

Together, Alyce and Ruby unpack how overwhelm can emerge when growth outpaces planning. Rather than framing this as burnout, the conversation focuses on workload volume, blurred boundaries, extensive travel, and the absence of a clear plan for how different types of work fit together.

This episode is a grounded, practical conversation for therapists who are established in private practice but feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of their caseload, unsure how to create clearer structure, and wanting to work in a way that feels more contained and sustainable.

In this episode, we explore

• The realities of regional practice and the impact of long travel days

• Holding a mixed caseload and the cognitive load of constant context switching

• How rapid growth can lead to overwhelm without clear systems

• Treating reports, planning, and admin as protected clinical work

• The tension between flexibility and sustainability in sole trader life

• Making values-aligned decisions about scope, income streams, and capacity

Practical recommendations discussed:

• Using a master timetable to group similar work and reduce cognitive load

• Protecting non face to face time so reports and planning are not booked over

• Planning leave and catch-up time intentionally using a yearly calendar

• Narrowing clinical scope to improve sustainability

• Completing a time and task audit before seeking admin support

• Staying connected with peers or mentors to avoid holding decisions internally

Resources mentioned:

• Getting the Admin Support You Actually Need – a workshop focused on clarifying support needs before outsourcing admin

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia.

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring, or reflective practice, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, I’m joined by B, an experienced paediatric occupational therapist navigating a demanding and uncertain season of practice. After eight years as an OT and nearly five years running her own business, B reflects on the emotional load of long-term paediatric NDIS work, the pull toward creative and entrepreneurial projects, and the challenge of holding multiple professional roles at once.

While she remains committed to clinical work, she’s questioning what kind of OT work feels sustainable and meaningful moving forward.

We explore:

Key takeaways:

Mentioned in this episode:

Alyce’s Caregiver Capacity Framework (also available in Adapting Therapy to Support the Family workshop)

The Therapy Conversation Planning Tool, for structuring complex or emotionally charged conversations

Like-Minded Bitches Drink Wine (Facebook group), for product-based and entrepreneurial business development

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia.

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring, or reflective practice, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce sits down with Elsa, an experienced occupational therapist with over 15 years across hospital, community, leadership, and NDIS practice.

Elsa shares her journey from working within structured hospital systems overseas, into community-based roles in Australia, followed by leadership and management positions, and more recently stepping into solo private practice. With a strong background in adult services, equipment prescription, and home modifications, she reflects on how her clinical experience has shaped the way she approaches private work with clarity, boundaries, and realistic expectations.

This conversation explores what it looks like to start private practice later in your career, not from urgency or pressure, but with intention and self-awareness. Elsa speaks openly about cognitive load, scope clarity, admin overwhelm, and the importance of building systems that support both the clients and the therapist behind the service. 

We explore

• Long-term career evolution and changing professional priorities

• Starting private practice after years of clinical and leadership experience

• Choosing clinical work that aligns with strengths and energy

• Managing cognitive load, admin, and decision fatigue

• Using a master timetable to support capacity and decision making

• Planning time, PD, and rest as part of sustainable practice 

Key takeaways

• Starting private practice later allows for clearer scope and stronger boundaries

• Clinical experience supports more confident and ethical decision making

• Cognitive load increases quickly in solo practice without intentional structure

• A master timetable can significantly reduce mental load

• Good intentions need systems to be sustainable

Resources mentioned in this episode

Master timetable

Sensational Start to Private Practice

Getting the Admin Support You Actually Need

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia.

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring, or reflective practice, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce sits down with Ezra an occupational therapist and small practice owner who’s committed to doing leadership differently. Ezra’s service supports clients across mental health and disability, and she’s actively mentoring both a new grad and early-career OT.

With strong values and a reflective approach, she’s created a workplace where learning is intentional and supervision is embedded not tacked on. But as the business grows, so do the demands. Ezra is navigating the reality of holding others, managing her own caseload, and leading a service all while asking, what does sustainable leadership actually look like?

We explore:

Supporting early career therapists in real, sustainable ways

Building rhythms and systems that reduce mental load

Honouring psychological safety and emotional wellbeing

Supervision, reflection, and protecting your own growth as a leader

Key takeaways

Supporting early career therapists takes structure, not just availability

Supervision and reflection need protected time not just good intentions

Sustainable systems must support the leader too

Psychological safety matters for clients and clinicians

Mentioned in this episode

Michelle Bihari – Supervision & Leadership Resources

Client Snapshot Tool - download here

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia

Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like support through supervision, business mentoring, or leadership development, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

To express interest in being featured on a future episode of OT Coaching Confidential, apply at www.theotcoach.au/podcast-1 

In this episode of OT Coaching Confidential, Alyce Svensk shares a real mentoring conversation with Kane - a thoughtful OT who has transitioned from paediatric clinical work into supervision and management. Together, they unpack what it looks like to support early-career therapists, hold professional boundaries, and navigate the realities of leadership in private practice.

Kane reflects on finding balance between helping and over-helping, how to manage reports and proofing while still seeing clients, and the art of having tricky conversations with clarity and care. This conversation explores the real learning curve of supervision. How to lead with purpose, support growth without losing yourself in the process, and keep your work grounded in empathy and reflection.

You’ll Hear About

• The shift from clinician to supervisor and manager

• Supporting early-career therapists without over-helping

• Contracting clearly with supervisees and families

• Balancing caseloads, reports, and leadership responsibilities

• Building confidence for difficult conversations

• Using the Caregiver Capacity Scale to adapt therapy to fit each family’s capacity

Key Takeaways

Supervision isn’t about having every answer it’s about creating space for reflection, learning, and growth. Boundaries and clarity are essential for sustainable leadership. Frameworks like contracting, structured feedback, and the Caregiver Capacity Scale help therapists tailor support that fits both clients and teams.

Brought to you by Alyce Svensk at The OT Coach Australia Supporting occupational therapists and allied health professionals to build confidence, clarity, and connection through mentoring, supervision, workshops, and The OT Coach Academy.

If this conversation resonated with you and you’d like to work with Alyce Svensk through mentoring, supervision, or professional development, visit www.theotcoach.au to explore how The OT Coach Australia can support you.

To express interest in being featured on a future episode of OT Coaching Confidential, apply at www.theotcoach.au/podcast-1.