Mental Health Occupational Therapist

Biography

Shaista Zaidi is a Mental Health Occupational Therapist, qualified since 2004, with over two decades of experience working across the full continuum of mental health services, including forensic settings, acute inpatient psychiatry, community adult services, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), and later life psychiatry.

She holds a Master’s degree in Child and Adolescent Mental Health and has completed a range of advanced leadership and professional development programmes. Her specialist training includes sensory integration approaches within mental health practice and detailed functional analysis for children and adolescents, enabling occupation-focused, evidence-based intervention across complex presentations.

Shaista approaches mental health through a lifespan lens, with a strong commitment to early intervention, prevention, and long-term quality of life. Central to her philosophy is the belief that environments, physical, sensory, relational, and systemic, profoundly influence wellbeing, behaviour, and recovery.

Her current work focuses on collaborating with multidisciplinary mental health teams to shape therapeutic environments within approved centres and specialist services. She is particularly passionate about designing spaces that support self-regulation, reduce distress, and minimise restrictive practices. Through understanding individual sensory profiles, triggers, and regulation needs, she advocates for environments that empower service users to develop self-regulation strategies, enhance autonomy, and actively lead their own recovery journeys.

Shaista brings a systems-thinking and recovery-oriented perspective to environmental design, ensuring that therapeutic spaces, equipment, and regulation areas are intentionally structured to promote de-escalation, independence, and meaningful occupational participation.