OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST ASSISTANT

Job Title

Assists professional occupational therapist in selecting and conducting therapeutic activities and programs for mentally and physically ill patients; performs related duties as required.

Salary and Other Information

Announced for: Nassau County School Districts, Board of Cooperative Educational Services and Nassau Health Care Corporation. Announcement amended on 3/16/23 to revise salary: Varies: BOCES: $43,176 - $81,760 NHCC: $55,373 - $78,048. This examination will be held on a continuous recruitment basis. Applications will be scheduled for review according to the date on which the application is received. Names of successful candidates will be certified on the eligible list in score order, regardless of the date on which application was filed. Names of successful candidates will be removed from the eligible list at the time of appointment to a full or a part time position or one year after being placed on the list. Candidates may refile for this examination nine months after being placed on the list.

Minimum Qualifications

Must be met by the day the application is submitted: Continuing possession of a current, valid certificate as an Occupational Therapy Assistant issued by New York State Department of Education. Note: To qualify, you must submit a copy of the current registration of your license or certificate. Note: You may receive a higher score if you also provide a copy of your original license or certificate. Note: See items nos. 1 and 2 of general information.

Supplemental Information/Subject of Examination/General Information

How to apply: Online applications are available at The advantages of filing electronically include the storage of submitted applications in your personal user account and application processing fee payment by credit/debit card. Additionally, our Examination Announcements webpage includes a link entitled Job Descriptions and Job Interest Cards, which offers the opportunity to view class specifications and fill out a form so that you may receive an email notification when an open competitive examination for a particular title is announced in the future. Please note: Computers are available to file electronic applications in our office at 40 Main Street, 2nd Floor, Hempstead, NY from 9:00 AM to 4:45 PM, Monday thru Friday. In accordance with our goal of making the Nassau County Civil Service Commission a paperless agency, no hard copy application is available. Residency: See item no. 5 of general information. Note: Candidates must be legal residents of New York State for at least twelve months immediately preceding the date the application is filed. Preference in appointment may be given to successful candidates who are legal residents of the appointing jurisdiction. Fee: Non-refundable processing fee must be submitted for each separately numbered examination for which you apply. This fee must be paid by credit or debit card. Carefully review the minimum qualifications on this announcement to ensure that you meet them, as this is a non-refundable processing fee. Applications submitted without proper payment will be rejected without review. Application fee waiver: A waiver of application fee will be allowed if you are unemployed and primarily responsible for the support of a household. In addition, a waiver of application fee will be allowed if you are determined eligible for Medicaid, or receiving Supplemental Security Income payments, or Public Assistance (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families/Family Assistance or Safety Net Assistance) or are certified Job Training Partnership Act/Workforce Investment Act eligible through a State or local social service agency. Active-duty military service members and military veterans shall be exempt from the payment of application fees. All claims for application fee waiver are subject to verification. If you can verify eligibility for application fee waiver, when prompted to submit the application processing fee, choose the Fee Waiver option. Follow the directions regarding downloading and submitting the required fee waiver form. Note: See item no. 6 of general information regarding additional credits for veterans, and for children/siblings of firefighters/police officers who qualify under sections 85A/85B of civil service law. If you believe you qualify for such credits, answer "yes" to the applicable question(s) in the application. Vacancies: See item no. 4 of general information for information regarding vacancies and background check requirements for appointment to certain positions. Note: More than two no-responses to canvass letters will result in the removal of a candidate from the eligible list.

Subject of examination: Training and experience evaluation. Read the following information thoroughly. This information will affect your final grade! The only subject of examination will be an evaluation of your training and experience. You will receive a grade on this exam based upon your continuing education credits and your licensed work experience as an Occupational Therapist Assistant - and how you document the required information. Be specific; vagueness and ambiguity will not be resolved in your favor. Additional information will not be accepted after submission of your application. It is critical that you follow the directions exactly as shown below.

• In order to receive credit for continuing education, you must document 90 hours of continuing education (or 9 college credits) within the past 6 years. You must list your continuing education activities in chronological order and indicate the date of participation, the number of contact hours, the topic and the sponsor of the activity in the Continuing Education Chart.

Use THIS LINK to access the chart and attach the chart to your application. Do not fill out the chart if you do not fully meet the above requirement. You may be asked to submit supporting documentation as proof to the information you enter through the above link at a later date. Therefore, you should gather your documentation now and be prepared to submit it immediately if requested. A delay in submitting documentation may affect your inclusion on the Eligible List.

• In order to receive full credit for your work experience as an Occupational Therapist Assistant you must indicate the date of when you were originally licensed by the State of New York. If you only provide the date of your current registration then you will not be given credit for any work experience that pre-dates your current registration.
• You must also supply all of the information requested on the application for each position you list. If you do not, you may not receive credit for that work experience.

Pay particular attention to the following items:

• The dates of your employment must be in mm/yy format,
• Do not write "varied" or give a range of hours for "Hours Worked per Week." Instead, estimate the number of hours worked in a typical week.
• Under "Title" and "Duties," clearly differentiate between licensed experience as an Occupational Therapist Assistant and all other work experience.

Note regarding resumes: Most resumes do not contain the detailed information needed to evaluate your experience. Therefore, the submission of a resume – which is not required - is a supplement to a fully completed application, not a substitute for it. To receive credit for a job, basic information such as employer's address, name and title of supervisor, hours in the work week, final salary, reason for leaving, etc. must be entered in the appropriate areas of the examination application. It is the responsibility of the candidate to notify this commission, in writing, of any change of name, mailing/legal/email address, or phone number: indicate examination number and title, and your social security number.

Disabled veterans: Visit our homepage at to view information (including a downloadable credit request form) on a recent amendment to the New York Constitution regarding the award and use of additional credits for certain disabled veterans on civil service examinations.

General information 1. Applying: Inquiries should be directed to the Executive Director, Nassau County Civil Service Commission. The Commission does not accept responsibility for non-delivery or delivery delays of emails due to issues with your email account. The Commission reserves the right to reject for lateness or to accept applications filed after the advertised filing period. 2. Training and experience: The burden of establishing qualifications to the satisfaction of the Commission shall be upon the applicant. For the purpose of meeting the training and experience requirement of any examination, no credits shall be given for any work experience which is determined by the Commission to have been gained or acquired in violation of the provisions of the Civil Service Law. Where required, certificates, licenses, and military separation papers (DD214) must be submitted with your application. Proof of claimed education, (copy of your high school diploma, Military, GED, New York State or comparable Equivalency Diploma) may be required to be submitted with the application. If education beyond high school is required, official transcripts must be submitted directly to us by the school College education is considered at the rate of 30 credits completed per year. For open competitive qualifications only, paid experience, if other than on a full time basis will be prorated. Volunteer experience may be accepted if verifiable, and the experience claimed must have been in a structured program. Documentation signed by an official of the agency indicating hours per week, level of work, etc. must be provided. Where additional experience may be substituted for an academic degree/diploma, the interpretation of the note, generally, is that for a full substitution, the underlying educational requirement for a Master's degree must be a Bachelor's degree; for a Bachelor's