Search Results

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 191 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this Episode of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, Jayson Davies welcomes Dr. Jamie Hunter and Dr. Kaisa Syväoja from The College of St. Scholastica to discuss how OT practitioners can utilize grants to advocate for mental health services in schools. Learn how grants can expand your OT practice beyond traditional tier three services, whether you're looking to fund a sensory room, provide professional development, or implement a school-wide mental health initiative. This conversation demystifies the grant-writing process, offers practical tips for finding and applying for grants at the federal, state, and local levels, and highlights the power of collaboration to sustain impact beyond the grant period—making this a must-listen for OTs ready to expand their role and amplify OT’s value in schools. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Learners will identify how to apply for grants (both small and large) to expand mental health services and other OT initiatives within school settings. Learners will understand how to effectively advocate for occupational therapy's role in supporting mental health at all tiers (especially tiers 1 and 2) within school-based practice. Learners will develop strategies for creating sustainable partnerships and programs that can continue beyond initial grant funding by demonstrating OT's value to school administrators and staff. Guest(s) Bio Jamie Hunter, OTD, OTR/L, AFWC Jamie Hunter is an Assistant Professor, Academic Fieldwork Coordinator, and Co-Director of the Department of Education Mental Health Service Provider Grant at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN. She has over 27 years of professional experience in school-based practice, pediatrics, leadership, and fieldwork education. Kaisa , OTD, OTR/L Kaisa Syväoja OTD, OTR/L is the current Program Director for the Master's of Occupational Therapy program at The College of St. Scholastica and the co-project director for the Mental Health Service Provider grant funded through the U.S. Department of Education. She has a background working with a variety of practice settings including early intervention and school-based practice. Her recent work has been focused on providing mental health related occupational therapy services within school-based settings . Quotes “It’s opened my eyes to how school-based practitioners can practice. It expanded my practice and just different ways that I see school-based practice and where the future of school-based practice can be.” — Dr. Jamie Hunter “It’s a lot of collaboration and co-teaching with counselors, teachers, and really focusing on the prevention and promotion aspect of just positive mental health and well-being.” Dr. Jamie Hunter “If you are an idealist and a visionary, find someone who’s a type A analytic.” — Dr. Kaisa Syväoja ”You have to be able to sort of build your project around their timetables. So that's something also to think about, is it's nice to have like a longer range plan, where do you want to go as a district or as an OT? So then when those grants open up, you're able to apply for them.” — Dr. Kaisa Syväoja ”Those businesses in your community, if you see them out there supporting your local school district…that probably means that business is interested in supporting endeavors that might be related to occupational therapy.” — Jayson Davies, M.A.,OTR/L Resources 👉 Every Moment Counts  - Susan Bazyk's program for supporting mental health in schools 👉 Autism Level Up  - Program developed by Jack and Amy 👉 Energy Meter  - Tool developed by Jack and Amy at Autism Level Up 👉 Grants.gov  - Federal government grant resource portal 👉 Mental Health Service Provider Grant  - U.S. Department of Education grant program 👉 The College of St. Scholastica OT Program Episode Transcript Expand to view episode transcript   Jayson Davies     Hey there, and welcome to episode 191 of the OT school house podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I am your host, Jayson Davies, and I'm excited to have you here. So I think I speak for a lot of school based ot practitioners when I say even just the idea of submitting a grant seems too daunting to even consider. Am I right? If I'm not, please reach out, because I want to know what grant you have submitted. But if you do feel that way too, the next 54 minutes or so will definitely help to calm your nerves and also help to see how maybe a small grant can help you to implement a new change in your schools, whether you want to build a sensory room or organize a library of tools that you can share with teachers throughout the year, or maybe you even want to bring on a full time or part time employee to support a program that you designed. This episode will help guide you to do just that. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Dr Jamie Hunter and Dr Kaiser savoya from the College of St Scholastica. Dr Hunter brings over 27 years of professional experience in school based practice, pediatrics, leadership and fieldwork education, while Dr savoyes serves as the program director for the Masters of OT program and has extensive experience in both early intervention as well as school based practice. Together, the two of them are leading a groundbreaking mental health service provider grant that's transforming how ot practitioners approach mental health in the school setting. And so if you have ever wondered how maybe a grant could support you and the practices that you want to implement at your school site, you are in the right place, we'll explore how to effectively utilize these grants to support your practice, implement mental health initiatives across all of the MTSS tiers, and also create meaningful partnerships within your district. So let's go ahead and dive in.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development now to get the conversation started, here is your host. Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Jamie Kaiser, welcome to the OT school house podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you here, and you know we're going to be talking about grant writing within school based OT or not, particularly the writing process, but the actual using of grants to help school based occupational therapy practitioners. And I'm excited to have you here to talk about that, to get started. I would love to let you both share a little bit about where you are in your ot career, kind of how you got here, and why supporting grants or helping school based ot practitioners get grants is so impactful for you, Jamie, would you like to kick us off?    Jamie Hunter     Sure, absolutely. Thank you, Jayson for inviting us to speak today. I am Jamie hunter. I am school based practitioner by heart. I think I practiced for 23 years in a school district in Wisconsin, prior to shifting to academia, I am now currently the academic field work coordinator for the occupational therapy program at the College of St Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. I work alongside kaisa as co director of our mental health service provider grant, and it has been an absolute whirlwind, you know, over the last few years for us to be able to grow and develop programming we are supporting area school districts. And so it has just been It's opened my eyes to how school based practitioners can practice it is has expanded my practice and and just different ways that I see school based practice and where the future of school based practice can be.    Jayson Davies     Love that I appreciate you sharing how school based OT is kind of been supported by your expansion beyond just school based OT, and you know how grant writing can really support you. So kaiza, what about you? I'd love for you to share a little bit about your background and your your passion for grants and school based occupational therapy.    Kaisa Syvaoja     Yeah, thank you, and thank you for having us today. This is a topic that we love to talk about. We spend a lot of time talking about it, so we're happy to be here. My name is kaisi suvoya. I am the Master's Occupational Therapy Program Director at The College of St Scholastica, and like Jamie said, I'm also the CO Project Director for a mental health service provider grant when we embarked on this journey. And Jamie puts it very eloquently, like it has been a whirlwind of a journey, but it's been really exciting. We launched this particular grant initiative being one of the first ot programs to be able to be awarded this particular grant. And that has really. Shown us what OTs can do and how we can practice at the top of our licensure in so many different ways. I too came from school based practice. I worked in rural practice settings, so I've worked in a lot of different settings. But prior to coming to academia full time, I had been in rural school districts. I had a really big caseload birth to 21 and I think that this particular grant showcases all that OTs are actually able to do within those spaces, and a lot of it is advocacy. It's advocacy that we see on the ground with these particular grants, and it's also advocacy for all OTs to say, like, yes, you you have the capacity to be able to do this. And I think that's been the beauty of this particular grant, perfect.    Jayson Davies     You know, why don't we just actually go right into the grant that you both have? Kind of are working with that mental health service provider grant and share a little bit about what it entails. I know nothing about grant writing or about grants or very little, and I'm sure most of the people listening similar. So just share with us, kind of what the goal and what it looked like to potentially even get it, and what it's allowing you to do. Yeah.    Kaisa Syvaoja     So this was a depart federal us, Department of Education grant. So at the federal level, which has its own nuances. So if you're looking at for somebody, that's brand new, if you're looking at grants, there's federal grants, state grants, and then grants that are from outside of governmental organizations. So when you're dealing with a federal grant, there's a level of structure that goes into both the application and applying for it, as well as the day to day operations and the management of grants. So this particular grant was a mental health service provider grant that was really focused on training, so working with professions that are considered mental health within scope, which occupational therapists are within mental health. We know this as OTs. We've done a lot of advocacy in those areas, and so this particular grant was really intended to train individuals to be able to go into school settings and be able to provide some of those supports, to kid OTs, to school personnel to really address some of the mental health needs that our young people are experiencing today. This particular grant came from the bipartisan safer homes act. So it was something that came through Congress as a grant for expense. So that was sort of a little bit of the general context to that particular grant.    Jayson Davies     Gotcha, and you mentioned that it allows for training. Is this training occupational therapy students? Is it training ot practitioners that are already practicing, what does that what does that    Kaisa Syvaoja     look like? So our particular grant right now has been working with Level Two fieldwork students. So ot students obviously pre licensure and going out into area schools and completing one of their level two rotations through the school districts, with the primary emphasis on mental health and how ot can work within those school settings to support the mental health of kid OTs from an occupational therapy lens, wow.    Jamie Hunter     And I think if I can jump in and just add a few additional details when I think about the vision of what it was expanding and helping to fill the gap of mental health services. We're partnering with four area school districts to be able to provide additional supports. Many of them were in rural areas or areas where they just didn't have the services to be able to support needs of students. We're not only doing the training with this next generation of OT practitioners that could potentially be school based practitioners in the future or pediatric mental health practitioners in the future, but also being able to provide training to the staff, the teachers, the administrators, paraprofessionals, anyone that is working alongside our students. It's a lot of collaboration and co teaching with counselors teachers, and really focusing on the prevention and promotion aspect of just positive mental health and well being so that's kind of a nutshell of the beginning of our project.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I love it. And, you know, we as as ot practitioners, we often reference like the 17 year research gap, how it takes 17 years from research to get into practice. And, and, yeah, you're potentially working primarily with the level two students. But how? Much of that knowledge is then going back to like what you mentioned, Jamie, the rest of the staff there, and it sounds like you might even be working directly with the staff a little bit education. But even more importantly, the OT practitioners that are supervising those fieldwork students. I'm sure they're learning a lot more because, I mean, I speak with ot practitioners, you know, every week, if not every day, and I often get I don't know how to support mental health on campus. I don't understand what that actually means. I don't understand what it looks like. You know, is that SEL or what is it? And so it's great that we are now supporting those students, and this grant is allowing you to do this, but in turn, those students are going to kind of spread the word and support others, which is fantastic, congratulations.    Jamie Hunter     Yeah, and our students enter additional training before they start their rotation, we built out training modules that really focus on understanding school based practice. What is multi tiered system of support. What is individual education plans? What is special education? What is all of those components? How do we begin teaching them additional avenues to explore pediatric mental health? What are the supports that they need to be able to be functional in those settings? And we relied on every moments counts. Susan basics, her, her work, that, that she has done, to develop that every moments count, programming autism level up. We referenced that and gave additional training for our students to be able to use the edge the energy meter that Jack and Amy, Amy, Amy, yes, that Jack and Amy have developed so definitely giving the students a forefront of learning before they even hit the ground, running at at the sites that they're Going to and the school districts that they're helping.    Jayson Davies     I love that, because those are not cheap programs for new practitioners to get access to, to learn from Amy and Jack and Sue basic and the entire team over at every moment counts. So that's awesome. Kaiser, did you want to add?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Yeah, I was going to say that that's a really critical element to what we've been doing is because what, what our students are doing, is a little bit unique in the sense that we don't have a lot of OT practitioners in the school settings that are doing this, in practice, in in a large scale. I think all of us as OTs do this, right? It's, it's foundational to who we are as providers, but we don't necessarily have that Avenue at the district level to be able to do this in a larger scale. And so a lot of the practitioners and providers right now are looking at it from approaching it from that tier three aspect, which I think is really important, right? We have a lot of kiddos at that tier three level that need additional mental health supports. What we are doing is focusing a lot more on that tier one and tier two, so preventative, and also those students that are more at risk. And I think that that's been really, a really great thing from a ot advocacy lens, because we are able to showcase at the district level. This is what you can use your OTs, and this is sort of your your return on that investment. But also that's been something that we've had to be really mindful of when we work with our level two students to say, you know, you're going to be walking into spaces that are going to look different. You're going to have to apply your ot critical thinking skills in a little bit different way, and so we've had to do a lot of that early training for them in order to be successful. And I think our students have really walked away with a lot of benefit from that.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, you know, I have so many follow up questions I just want to and we can touch on this maybe in a moment, but both of you have really mentioned that rural component, and how there aren't a lot of practitioners in the area using mental health, and this is just going to overflow. But before I do that, I want to kind of direct follow to that question, because I know with if you get a grant, you've got to kind of measure this, just like an IEP goal, you've got to measure in order to get potential future funding and whatnot. And so are you? I'm sure there's multiple ways you're taking data, but are the field work level two students then in some way implementing our project in their level two that kind of corresponds with this program?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Yes. Jamie, do you want to take that one?     Jamie Hunter     Yes. So our students absolutely are, they're doing projects. They're, you know, I think this last cohort of students that that we have out currently started doing some research. You know, even in their their coursework before, like, two semesters. Before they actually went out to rotations. And you know, they've done research to be able to develop programming and planning. Some of them were focused around teacher burnout and well being. How do we use cognitive behavioral therapy supports to be able to support the teachers we can't support our kids without identifying that we need to address teachers well being as well. You know our students when we think about application of tier two interventions, being able to develop some cafeteria interventions, some things that are happening at the resource recess level, all of our students, depending on the district needs, are meeting the needs of our clients, which are our districts in a variety of different ways. Some wanted those embedded strategies right in the tier one classrooms and our students have created an intervention menu to be able to push to teachers and say, What things are you needing in your classrooms? Is it movement and mindfulness? Lessons, is it growth mindset? Lessons? Are there ways that we can look at just regulation and CO regulation needs within your classroom? Our students are doing assessment to be able to determine what might be needed in a classroom. When we look at the population level of a classroom, or a whole cohort of sixth grade students, or do they look at more tier two, where it maybe is some smaller groups of students who might be at risk, and the teachers are bringing forward, hey, could we do an anxiety group? Or maybe we've got a tech dependency theme that's happening, and we can help address and provide some lessons. So those are just snippets of some of the projects our students have been working with, and it just depends each district has come forward with different areas of need to be able to support the students they have.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I am totally resisting the urge to go on a deep dive with you all into MTSS, because I know that's not the topic of this podcast. We have other podcasts that we can save that for. But you mentioned all these wonderful things that are happening. Remind me again, how long have you all been working kind of under this grant?    Kaisa Syvaoja     So we are in our third year, okay? So we've been working with our districts, really, for about two, two and a half years, okay? And we've done a lot of build with that space. This particular grant was a non continued grant, so we'll be ending in December, so we'll we're sort of wrapping up our project as we have initially envisioned it. We've got a lot of things that we've got in the works, as far as how we're continuing this in other capacities, and those partnerships with our districts, because we've done a lot of really good work. The other piece with this too, is with a federal grant, there are specific things that we have to measure. This was a mental health service provider training grant, so we were really looking at like number of students that were trained and practitioners, number of placements, number of like recent hires, those types of things. So they're looking much more at that higher level space, which gave us a lot of opportunity to be able to really directly interact and meet those district needs. And then what we have done from an OT advocacy piece is we have really encouraged and focused on being able to disseminate this information to other ot practitioners, to other people that are going to interface with our districts in various ways, whether that's at the local level or nationally. So we've been a lot of different places, and that's that's been a really, I think a big benefit of this particular grant is we've been able to do that, and obviously having conversations with you that type of thing.    Jayson Davies     Yes, yes. We love conversations about it.    Jamie Hunter     Yeah. Even though it's been a non continuation, it definitely has planted seeds of how, how could this look? How can we continue this with sustainability? Specifically within our four area school districts, there are things that are going to continue that we've been creative to identify. How can we continue this, this work, but then also, at, you know, there is going to be that continued advocacy to to examine, how does this impact where school based practice is going in the future, you know, whether it's impacted individual OTs. And just saying, Hey, I never even thought I would be able to work in this area. Oh, I didn't know that the ESSA laws allowed for ot to work in this space. Yes, there is idea you could allocate funding to be able to support those preventative and promotion levels. So it definitely for me. I came from school based practice where I was mainly tier three. I. With IEPs, and I thought I was siloed in only being able to work with those on my caseload. And it really has opened up the opportunities to to see the possibilities of where I knew that we could work, even though I felt like I had the restrictions of where I could work, if that makes sense, yeah.    Jayson Davies     Oh yeah, absolutely. And, and I the reason I asked how long is because I actually want to look a little retrospective these four districts. Were you working with them actually, before? Did you have students going to those four districts?    Kaisa Syvaoja     No, we weren't currently working with students in this capacity, like we might have had field work placement students, in a general sense, going in, yeah, and doing what we consider that typical OT, but no, we were not doing this particular program or partnership with any of these districts prior.    Jamie Hunter     Yeah, they had gone there for a traditional school based practice, and it opened the door because we had the existing partnerships with these districts, but it allowed for expansion of, how can we really enhance this partnership to be able to support the district beyond just the student learning aspect of a level two student being taken by a ot at the district, perfect.    Jayson Davies     And that's exactly what I wanted to bring up. Is, what did it actually look like for our Level, Level Two students going before this program, right? These students were, you had students five years ago. They were going to school based ot placements, but they weren't going with this knowledge that they're now going in with. It sounds like they get one or two terms of education before they go into their field work on every moment counts, and autism level up and other programs that are fantastic. But have you seen, I guess, a big shift in what you know, your level two fieldwork students from five years ago compared to those that are going in today?    Jamie Hunter     Yeah, I would say yes, we've seen a huge growth with the students capacity for learning while they're on the site, but then also what they can bring as as resources to the districts that they're working in. And so previously, students that would go into school based practice in these four school districts, it was that traditional tier three, you know, caseload that that you see OTs typically working in, you know, and I think even from the our first year of the grant, there we were, what is our phrase, Kaiser, we were saying we were building the plane as we were flying it, right? So here we're building programming. We're building the different interventions. How do we assess at the group level? How do we assess at the population level? We're building things that our students could be using, reflecting now to the students who are out on rotations right now this group of students, we embedded them in research prior to going so here they immerse themselves in in the language of everything school based, all the language you know, it's a foreign language when you're a medical professional and you're going into the educational setting, right? And so it immerse them in that. It immerse them in the evidence based components that are going behind. What is school based practice, and what are the mental health components that are needed? And definitely in addition to those learning modules that we have the students do before they go on site, but then also the programming that our students and our field work educators have built over the last two and a half years. Now we have programming. We have things built so that we can really expand and begin to build those things at the district level. And so it definitely has made a huge difference, and students are feeling more confident in in that advocacy and being able to build programming for our districts.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And on the flip side of it, because you mentioned right having that opportunity to collaborate, I'm sure you're also getting feedback from people at the district, whether it be teachers, other service providers, hopefully even administration. What has that looked like? Like? Are people like, Oh, I understand ot now? Or are they like, Oh, I'm surprised. I didn't know that ot could support mental health. Or, I guess, what are you hearing when? When other both OTs, but also non ot practitioners?    Kaisa Syvaoja     So all of the above you can probably imagine. You know, a lot of that goes back to the advocacy piece. So, you know, like when we first started those conversations, we got a lot of, oh, I didn't realize that ot could do that. Or some hesitancy is that, you know, is that a direction we want to go? You know, we sort of got the system and process, so there was a little bit of that as we have built the relationships. And I think as you are able to see. What your OTs in those schools are able to do to support the whole school, that conversation has really shifted to, you know, what else are you able to do? How can you expand these types of things? They start to come and see you as more of a partner in whatever those initiatives are at that district level. So I think a lot of that just comes back to continually being present and advocating for for us as as a profession, and then advocating for those kiddos too.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. Love it awesome. I just love how you know, it starts with just the fieldwork students, but then it expands so much beyond the fieldwork students and like, what I mean to extent you call that, like, grassroots advocacy, right? Like you just start with the smallest number of people that you can and just grow from there. And that's awesome. Kudos to y'all. All right, we have spent a lot of time really talking about the program, what it has looked for the two of you, and for the students and and for the schools that you work with, but now that we got everyone excited about what they can do if they get a grant, let's talk about grants. And first of all, is this something that is too overwhelming for a school based occupational therapy practitioner? Obviously, the grant that you got, the two of you got, is a little different, right? You were getting a grant to educate others so that they could make progress. But is getting a grant, whether it be federal or others, I don't even know what exists out there, feasible for school based ot practitioners that are, you know, working a 3540 hour week, absolutely.    Kaisa Syvaoja     I mean, will it be work? Yes, but I think that there's a lot of payoffs for that, you know, whether that's getting a smaller grant, and there are a lot of smaller grants out there, especially if you're looking at maybe just a school level or at the district level, and you're not trying to do, like, what we're doing, where we've got really big partnerships and placements and stipends related to placements, and, you know, that type of aspect, and you're really just looking at the implementation of an initiative like this, you can certainly find smaller grants that are going to support that, that are going to support some of those startup development costs, getting diversifying your assessments, and, you know, resources that You have at at the school level, and then also being able to provide some potential offset to your increased workload, or shift in that workload. I think that that's a big area that people need to be thinking about, if you're looking at it more from that practitioner level, is the school districts, especially if you're coming from a district that is short OTs, they're not going to want to pull you, even if you are really skilled and wonderful and can do all these wonderful things. And so being able to have some dollar amount, to be able to offset that, is going to be incentive to your districts, and it's going to help you get your program launched. There's a number of non government grants, but then at state levels, there's a number of states we're in Minnesota, so I pay attention to Minnesota, Wisconsin pretty frequently. But you know, there are state level grants that do come through. The big thing with applying for a grant, whether this is at the small level or the larger level, is really think what your project. Think through what your project is. Think through what are all the different elements of it. Have a really clear vision of what that is. And for OTs, that can be really hard, because we're good at everything. We can do lots of things. So narrowing that down being really concrete with what it is that you are able to offer how many people or kid OTs, or what's that impact look like? You know, how are you serving them? And what are your specific project areas are going to be helpful to somebody that is going to be reviewing that grant that is 99.9% of the time not going to be an OT. So you have to explain what OT is in a way that's tangible, and also not get tangentile in that explanation with really clear. This is my like to say, like the artifact. These are the things in the point that you can that you can see and walk away with,    Jayson Davies     yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want to touch on something you just said. But before I do, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. And you mentioned this thing that, how do I phrase this? I thought about grant writing. I've thought about trying to figure out something, maybe even Donors Choose, or whatever that website is called, where other people finance things. But I always, to a degree, almost felt a a little bit selfish or b I didn't know what to actually ask for. And so I love that you brought up some assessments. I also really love that you brought up the idea of potentially compensation to bring on, like another ot practitioner to help out, even if it's a few hours a week. Yeah. Is that something you've seen practitioners do? Like, in I guess do you have to kind of, like, lay it all out on a spreadsheet? Like, I need these assessments. Is going to cost this much. I need a part time. OT, we have a contract company that we work with. It's going to be this much. And is that kind of what it looks like?     Kaisa Syvaoja     Yeah. So you would essentially be creating a budget spreadsheet. And within that budget spreadsheet you're going to have those operational things that you know are tangible things, you know, the assessments, the equipment that you need, the potential, you know, if you had to do any renovations, those kinds of things, right, that have a really easy attached dollar amount. The other part to that budget is your time like you have to see yourself as an entity, or somebody else as like you need to. You need to monetize that time in some way, whether that is yourself to say, Okay, this percentage of my workload is going to be covered through this and put $1 amount to that, and also then for the district, because now they're going to lose that person percentage of your workload for your traditional services that you had been providing that then you're going to need to say, okay, and I'm either going to work overtime, and this is going to be the percentage that The grant is going to pay me for overtime, so you essentially compensate that for yourself, or you're going to bring in somebody else that's going to be able to offset that cost, and you're able to pay for that through a grant source. Obviously, some grants don't allow for personnel, so that would be something you need to look at specific to your grant, but assuming that you have a grant that allows for you to build that budget, and they have, they have guidelines, and you're not just, you know, you don't guess here, um, they'll tell you, I can    Jayson Davies     totally see, sorry, really quickly, I could totally see, like, an OTs will therapist, like, going out, getting this awesome grant for like, $50,000 to help them, like, offset their work, and then being like, how do I give this money to the district? Like, just not understanding all that, but obviously, all the guidelines, or each grant has guidelines. Most of the times it goes through the district in some capacity, correct?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Yes, yeah. And this is where, like, obviously, like, you might have one person writing it, you might have one person envisioning this, but you're not going to probably go rogue and just, you know, create a grant, or apply for a grant and get a grant, and your district's not aware of it. So like, you need to have these conversations at the district level, or if you're in a cooperative, you know, with your cooperative, however you're however you're structured. So yeah, don't go rogue. But within that budget spreadsheet, like you really want to be thinking about, what are those tangible things, and also, what are those personnel aspects? Because that is what's going to make your grant successful. Because you can have all the most brilliant ideas in the world, and you might not have either time to do it, or there's nobody to be able to pay to be able to do this. And when you are looking at shortages of personnel, districts, cooperatives, whoever is paying you and building out that case so that they're going to be really protective of your time in those other spaces too, because they need you to be working with the kid OTs that they currently have. And we know that there's a lot of kiddos that need to be worked with for ot across the board. So these are really, really great opportunities to build my recommendation. If you're a practitioner looking at this, start small. You don't need to do a multi million dollar, massive project with all of these different aspects to it. Think about, what can you do if we're looking at like a tier one approach, and that's your focus. Like, what can you do in that classroom level? What can you do in those between classes times that's going to help with supporting the culture in a positive way at that particular school that you're working with, or that particular classroom that you're working with like these don't need to be huge, massive projects that are really challenging to organize. You can start small and then build that also is helpful. If you're working with a district that maybe is a little bit on the fence, or you've got teachers who don't really understand this, it's a good way for them to be able to see in small snippets what you are able to do and how you can support them, and then you can build from there, and whether that's through additional funding or they reallocate things at the district level, and you've got some release now for that, because now they're allocating dollars coming in from other sources to your salary. You know those are those are ways for them to be able to see it, but those grants are really helpful to be able to launch that, especially with a district that maybe doesn't have the means or resources to be able to do that on their own, or maybe doesn't understand what you are able to do as an OT in those spaces.    Jamie Hunter     And I think, yeah, I think, you know, like Kaiser said, Don't go rogue. It is you have a team. You know, many times you're working alongside counselors or teachers who have passion and have, you know, similar ideas. Start having conversations about, hey, I have this idea of how we could grow programming. I saw this grant right? How do you work collaboratively as a team? It may be something that you need to bring to administration and get that buy in too, right? And maybe, then, whether you're at a bigger district where maybe you might have some people who have been had experience writing grants, you know, that was my first taste. Is I partnered with a teacher and we wrote a grant for a sensory room, you know. So I think it's very feasible to be able to write those grants. But you know, having other eyes on it is another supportive measure. And and showing your district administration, hey, this is what ot can do. And how can we showcase this through grant writing? And here is the idea that we have to bring to the district to enhance what's already happening and and build from there. So yeah, definitely start small, but don't do it by yourself.    Kaisa Syvaoja     My big advice to this is, if you are an idealist and a visionary, find someone who's a type A analytic to read through and clean your proposal.    Jayson Davies     Yes, yes, I am the first and definitely need a lot of help with the person, people who implement so I totally understand that statement. I had a question, and you made me laugh, and I forgot about it. But no, the question is, is ot practitioners, we often go to our administrators in times of need, and the sense of I'm burnt out, I need more support to help me get through my already high case load. And we sometimes forget that when we go to our administrators, I find when we go to our administrators, we go with problems, and we don't often go with solutions. And I feel like this can kind of help us to go with a solution. Yes, it takes a little bit more work. Don't get me wrong, it does take hours beyond seeing kids, assessing kids going to IEPs, to sort this all out. But long term, it can support us. Is that kind of how the two of you see it?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Yeah, absolutely. You know it's, it's definitely some work on the front end and and I don't think it's a quick fix. So if you are a practitioner who is burnt out, this is not going to be just like the next day. Things are all wonderful. But the work that we have particularly been doing through the grant, and if you can get a grant to support this is sort of twofold, like you're able to do more at that tier one and tier two level, which, in theory, and we've seen, I think, good, good anecdotes to that this actually works. But you know, when you're working with tier one and tier two, you're preventing potentially more involved tier three needs, which, if you're a burnt out practitioner, can also be helpful, because maybe you're not working with them at a high intensity in a tier three IEP capacity, and you're maybe working preventatively with some of these kiddos so that you don't have as large of a tier three caseload. So that's where a benefit is. Obviously, that's not immediate. I think the other thing to just in context and have people think about is like, this will take time for you to learn and to get a system and process like we've been doing this now for a couple of years with our students. We've learned a lot along the way. Definitely, the way we're doing it now is not how we started, and if we could go back, it would probably be a lot easier. But, you know, those that first time that you're trying something new, it's going to take more cognitive load and also planning and work on your part, so you're putting more time in early, yeah, with the return hopefully later on, yeah, in different ones.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And Jamie, if I can come back to you, because you mentioned how you actually worked with the teacher to develop a sensory room on campus, I would love to just kind of get a quick overview of kind of how that got initiated and the steps that you kind of took to make that happen. Yeah.    Jamie Hunter     So in practice, when I was working for our school district, I was working with an autism teacher, a teacher that's specialized in in that area. At the high school, we did not have a resource room. We did not have a place that that students could go to decompress, to take a break, to get some of those sensory needs met. And so we had a local grant that the teacher was like, Hey, do you want to see if we can apply for this grant together and see if we can get funding to be able. To get the equipment that we need. The district was on board to say, hey, we'd provide a classroom space for you. We'd allocate that, but we just don't have the money to be able to buy the equipment that we would need to be able to support that. And so the grant was written to be able to get equipment. So we were able to get swings, we were able to get scooters. We were able to put mats in the room. We had lower lights, you know, all of those sensory based tools that that students may need, depending on on what where they were at with their regulation for that moment of time. And so it definitely was a great opportunity for us to apply for the grant. We received it again, those same factors that Kaiser shared before, we had to itemize everything that we wanted on our wish list. What would this money go towards? How would we spend it? We had to give like we were going through catalogs and absolutely writing down every single thing that we could potentially put in for the funding, and then we had to document that on the tail end side when we did receive the grant, to be able to spend the funding down.    Jayson Davies     So so just to demystify a little bit more, here you thank you for kind of sharing that last step that you really had to do, or several the steps that you had to do at the end of your answer. If, how long did it take from the moment that you guys, like, had this idea to actually being done with the process? Not like, how many hours it took you? But was this a week long project? Was it a years long project, months?    Jamie Hunter     So kaisa asked, Hey, do you want to do this grant?    Jayson Davies     I'm just talking about the small one. Not the not the big one, but like the small one, the small one that we're talking about right here, the sensory room, right?    Jamie Hunter     So the small grant that we did, gosh, you know, I think it was a meeting. We we met. We talked about, what does this look like? You know, I think we met a couple times. We had a shared document that we were growing and developing. The application process, I took over kind of looking, because OTs, we look at those sensory catalogs and equipment and things like that. A lot I took on that aspect of diving into what things would we want to go in there, how much money would each of those things cost? The teacher kind of took on more of the responses to, what are the questions? Why do we need this? What is the need? So we kind of tasked it out that way when we were applying for for the grant, you know. So, I mean, definitely it took some time and investment, you know, definitely a few meetings looking at that deadline, you know, are we meeting that deadline of when it needs to be applied and submitted? You know? So, and then on the tail end, once we did receive the grant, then it took a little bit more time again, going through the orders working with the district, because it had to come through the district where all the funding went, and, you know, the processes to get it all ordered and set up, and then the training, yeah. So then, after that fact, we had to do training to whoever was using that room so that we knew that the equipment and everything was going to be used appropriately. So definitely, when you're thinking about, what is your product, what are those outcomes? What are the components that you might need to invest in to make sure it's a successful run?     Kaisa Syvaoja     Can I jump in real quick just on some logistics for grants? Having some ideas in your head is a really great thing. You can write them down on paper. Obviously you're going to tailor your project specific to the funding requirements in the source. So you might have a big project that you have to make a little bit more tangible to that particular grant. So, you know, have that in the back of your mind. The other thing with grants, typically, they operate on cycles. So usually, you know, there might be a heads up for a grant, like, Hey, this is going to post, or we anticipate it's going to post at a certain time. But grants typically aren't just continually available. I mean, smaller maybe non governmental grants, you might have just a pool of money that's available and they do it on a rolling basis, but usually you're going to get a grant window time. So between, you know this date and this date, you can put in an application. And so you have to be able to sort of build your project around their timetables. So that's something also to think about, is it's nice to have, like, a longer range plan. Where do you want to go as a district or as an OT? So then when those grants open up, you're able to apply for them. Yeah?    Jayson Davies     Is the easiest way to find grants. Just kind of go on google search California education grants and kind of obviously type a little bit more details than that. I'm assuming every state's different and all that. But is that kind of the starting point?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Um, yeah. So. There's a couple of good places at the state level, like looking at your state websites are going to be probably your best options. And there's there's grants specific to individual elements or aspects of that state government structure. So you can apply to be on listserv and get email notifications when grants get posted at the state level. I do that for Minnesota, and that's across, I    Jayson Davies     think, like the Department of Education,    Kaisa Syvaoja     Department of Education, but it's really through, like, there's your state government, and it posed pretty much all grants, at least ours does within that that spectrum, as far as what you're wanting to sign up for. So that's one grants.gov is going to be your go to for federal grants. And that system, you know, once you're in it, it's a little bit clunky. You can sift and filter through and just look at forecasted ones or ones that are open. You can look at certain funding sources, so if it's us, you know, Department of Education, or an NIH grant, or something along those lines. It lets you sift through that way that's going to cover your governmental grants, non governmental your we have foundation level for, like, local areas, whether that's a city level or, like a couple of counties, that's usually a good place to start, because they might be pooling a number of people, or just reaching out to those foundations and organizations is also helpful to just say, Hey, we've got this project. We're looking at some funding sources, you know, what might be some local, you know, area dollars that might might be interesting to look at, and they're usually pretty useful.    Jamie Hunter     I think the local one, like, like I spoke to about funding equipment for the sensory room at the high school, right? That was a foundation locally. It was through a hospital, you know. So looking at your local organizations, sometimes those retail organizations that are local to you might put out small grant funds that that you can apply for funding. We've had some of our students apply for those at a retailer, and they've gotten $500 for equipment to help at middle school recess. Kind of you know, where they have some more equipment available for for students. So definitely different ways that you can look at exploring those funding options.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's a that's a good idea, like, because I know recently in our community, I think it's smart, and final, has been just kind of out there in the community. Really like doing things for our schools, and I almost see that as like a way to also potentially find they might not have a specific, quote, unquote grant writing or grant a program. But those businesses in your community, if you see them out there, supporting your local school district, if you see them out there, you know, maybe your city just opened up a new playground and it was provided by or sponsored by this business. Well, that probably means that business is interested in supporting, you know, endeavors that might be related to occupational therapy, and so reach out to that company, and maybe it's not a formalized grant or something, but they might be able to support you in some way. So great idea.    Kaisa Syvaoja     One of my best advices is go with a project. Don't necessarily go and ask for the money. Just go and say, Hey, I've got this idea. I'd love to be able to talk to you about it. You're not asking for anything. You're just having a conversation. So you know, starting there for those smaller partnerships and conversations, that works really well, then you can go back and ask later, or they might offer something.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. You never know. You never know. I would be remiss if I didn't ask this question, is chat GPT helpful in any of this?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Well, we didn't use chat GPT when we developed our grant. That was still a little bit before chat GPT was very well versed. Yeah, I think that there are some benefits, you know, being able to put in, like, if you're brand new to building spreadsheet related stuff, don't really know what you should be including help with definition of terms, that type of thing. I think AI can be a really useful tool to sort of help structure that narrative or pull out aspects of that document. Maybe as far as developing and building I don't think that any of our AI sources are that adept at the nuance of OT especially if you're wanting to build a innovative and new project. I think that AI generative AI is really good with things that it already knows a lot of what you are wanting to do, hopefully and be innovative and creative. Hopefully, AI doesn't have a really great idea looks like. So you're going to have to build that aspect of the narrative for sure. But I think it can help with some of the nuts and bolts, maybe of some of those grant writing resources.    Jamie Hunter     And I think if you. Have that idea and you're like, okay, am I addressing this question to the detail that they're wanting? You could run it through an AR generator, you know, is it more clear? Is this? Can this be more clear and concise? Is this, you know, am I addressing all the components that is in this application and have it be like a second set of eyes to just say, is there anything else that I could expand on? Is that a way that you could use that tool? But again, I think you still need to have those ideas. You have to have the build of it and use it as a supplementary support. It's not going to generate everything that you're going to need?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Yeah, and I review grants. We still have humans reviewing grants, at least at this point. I think it'll be interesting. The next couple of years, are we going to see generative AI doing screenings for those initial grants? So that might be something interesting to pay attention to. Like, are they screening out certain things. If you don't have certain words in that initial application, to my knowledge, that's not something that's happening at this point, but that might be a way of also pulling in generative AI for the future to say, Hey, do I have all the key words and target things that this particular grant might be looking at, so that you are at the top? But when somebody is reviewing a grant, they want to hear your story. They want to hear what's what's really exciting about what you're doing, how it's going to impact your local community, or whoever it is that you're working with, like that's what they want to see. So you have to be able to showcase that.    Jayson Davies     I love that. That's a great I think that's kind of a great wrap up here. I was going to ask you both for one more tip, but I feel like you all have given so many great tips throughout this entire episode. So unless there is one more thing that you kind of have on the tip of your tongue and you really want to share, I wanted to ask if is LinkedIn the best place for someone to find you, potentially, if they have a question, either specifically about the program you're working on, maybe a quick grant question, or maybe they're local to you, just want to you. Just want to support you. Is that the best place for people to find you?    Kaisa Syvaoja     Yeah, this is crazy. You can certainly reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there. Love to connect with anybody and everybody.    Jamie Hunter     Yes, I would say the same. You know, I guess the only other thing that I think about is that, can this be done without grant funding? I think another advocacy piece is thinking about your ot practice and what things you may want to expand in your practice. There is always partnerships. You have local ot programs in your state. Are there ways that you can collaborate to help build some ideas and programming and just being able to expand where we are with school based practice.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely, that is a great wrap up. Kaiza Jamie, thank you so much for coming on this show, sharing so much about your grant that you received, and congratulations on getting this all like you're at the finish line now. Congratulations on that. That is amazing, but also here to support others who might want to do something similar with grant. We really appreciate your time, your energy and, of course, your knowledge.    Kaisa Syvaoja     Thanks for having us.     Jamie Hunter     Thank you, Jayson.    Jayson Davies     Thank you. All right, and that wraps up episode 191 of the OT school house podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in all the way to the end. I want to, of course, extend a heartfelt thank you to Dr Jamie Hunter and Dr Kaiser Savoia for sharing their incredible insights on how ot practitioners like us can use these grants to advocate for mental health within our school sites, as we've learned today, grant writing doesn't have to be super intimidating, and whether you're looking to fund a sensory room or provide professional development or implement A school wide Mental Health Initiative, there are resources available to you to help expand your practice and better serve your students. If today's conversation inspired you to think differently about your ot practice, or want to do more within your ot practice, I encourage you to join us over inside the OT school house collaborative. This is where you'll find additional resources, professional development opportunities and direct mentorship from myself and other school based ot practitioners to implement what you've learned today. Together, we can elevate school based ot practice and make a lasting impact on our students and, of course, our school communities to learn more about that head on over to OTSchoolHouse.com , slash collab and join our growing community of innovative school based ot practitioners, until next time. This is Jayson. Thanks so much for joining us, and remember the small steps that you take today will lead to big changes in your practice tomorrow. I'll see you next time.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed. Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Thanks for listening to the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. A podcast for school-based OT practitioners, by school-based OT practitioners! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Subscribe now! Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 190 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Get ready to blast off into a powerful new way of understanding sensory processing in schools. In this episode, Danielle Pluth and Ruth Isaac—Canadian occupational therapists and creators of the Good Sense OT Rocket Ship —share the innovative visual framework that’s transforming how OTs assess, communicate, and support student participation. The Rocket Ship helps therapists differentiate sensory-based behaviors from other performance factors , guiding you from foundational sensory regulation all the way up through sensory-motor, reflexes, perceptual motor skills, interoception, and cognitive functions at the top of the “rocket.” This structure gives OTPs a clear map for identifying root causes of behavior and choosing targeted, meaningful school-based strategies that go far beyond “wiggle cushions and chewelry.” Whether you’re brand-new to sensory integration or have years of experience, this conversation will deepen your clinical reasoning, strengthen your confidence, and help you clearly communicate sensory needs to teachers, parents, and IEP teams. If you’ve been searching for a practical, visually powerful way to explain sensory processing to your teams and build stronger intervention plans, the Good Sense Rocket Ship may be exactly what you’ve been missing. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Understand the Good Sense Rocketship Framework and its application in addressing sensory-related behaviors in school-based OT practice. Learn strategies to identify and assess sensory processing challenges and their impact on students' functional performance. Explore effective interventions to support regulation, sensory-motor development, and collaboration with educators and parents. Guest(s) Bio Danielle Pluth is an OT in Medicine Hat, Alberta Canada. She graduated from the University of Alberta in 2002. She worked in various areas before starting her business Advance OT where her team provides OT services in local schools, community and their sensory clinic. Danielle has done extensive post graduate education in the area of sensory and OT. In addition, she completed her SIPT certification in 2016. Danielle has created a universal sensory program for teachers and parents that has been used throughout schools in her division since 2008 called Good Sense for Teachers and Parents. Ruth Isaac is an OT who has worked in pediatrics for 20 years. She studied at the University of Manitoba and has been working exclusively in pediatrics since 2005. She has worked with Danielle at Advance OT since 2008. Ruth has also done extensive post graduate education in the area of sensory and OT. In addition she complete her SIPT training in 2012 and completed the University of Southern California's Sensory Integration Certification program (OT610)in 2017. Ruth has created a universal fine motor program for teachers and parents that has also been used throughout schools in her division since 2007 called Fine Fun for Teachers and Parents. In 2021, Danielle and Ruth created Good Sense for OTs to fill the gap to help all OTs feel confident in using a sensory processing lens for OT services in the school and clinic setting. She is passionate about educating as many OTs as possible in this area to help change kid's lives. Quotes ”The first layer was looking at regulation, being out of that just right state. Thinking about how sensory is coming out as an output in motor sort of a way. And it's a foundation as well. And it can also impact regulation. -Ruth Isaac “Often we see behavior being that tip of the iceberg. And we want to have a lens or a way to look at what's going on below the surface.” -Ruth Isaac "The semicircular canals are going to tell me is my head up, is it down, is it spinning around, and that information is going to feed the muscles around my eyes for eye coordination." -Danielle Pluth “Connect the dots and make it super easy for someone to understand, why I'm working on sensory regulation and how that is impacting daily living activities or academic learning and hitting all the other sections in between.” -Jayson Davies Resources 👉 Good Sense Rocketship Framework 👉 Instagram Episode Transcript Expand to view episode transcript Jayson Davies     Hey there school based ot practitioners. This is Jayson, and you're listening to Episode 190 of the OT school house podcast. Thanks so much for clicking play on this episode, and I hope it provides you with precisely the sensory information that you need in this moment today, I'm thrilled to welcome Danielle pluth And Ruth Isaac, the creators of the good sense ot framework, this pair of OT practitioners based in Canada have developed an incredible visual tool called the good sense rocket ship that will make it super easy for you to understand and address all the sensory processing concerns that you may see in your school practice. If you've ever struggled to explain the connection between sensory challenges and classroom behaviors, or if you found yourself handing out fidgets without a clear framework for why you're doing that, this is the episode for you. Danielle and Ruth will break down their comprehensive approach that goes far beyond wiggle cushions and jewelry without explanation to help you confidently assess and address your students sensory needs, you'll learn how to trace behaviors back to their sensory foundations and communicate effectively with teachers and parents using this powerful visual model. Whether you're new to sensory integration or an experienced practitioner, you'll gain practical strategies to elevate your practice immediately. Stay tuned as we blast off with the good sense rocket ship framework.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy, tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Danielle and Ruth, welcome to the OT school house podcast. There's two of you here today, so I'm going to do my best to prompt you. So Danielle, how are you doing this afternoon?    Danielle Pluth     Oh, I'm doing well. Thank you. Yeah, it's beautiful here.    Jayson Davies     So yeah. And Ruth, how about you? How are you doing?     Ruth Isaac     Doing good. I'm excited to be here and chat with you.    Jayson Davies     Yes, and this is a special occasion, because it's happened a few times, but this is one of the times that we are speaking to an occupational therapist combo here that are not in the United States. So why don't you go ahead one of you share a little bit about where you are and kind of the setting that you're in.    Danielle Pluth     Sure, we are in medicine, Hat, Alberta, Canada. We work within we have contracts with the school divisions here, and we also have a clinic, so we see children privately within the clinic and also in the community and in their homes. So our city is about 60,000 people or so, and we're in all the school divisions here.    Ruth Isaac     One of one of our school districts is a lot of driving. I drive two hours to get to one of my schools and two hours to get back. That's the farthest one.    Danielle Pluth     Yeah. So it's fairly large region of southeastern Alberta, wow.    Jayson Davies     So that is a very large area to have to cover really quickly, because I think you are a little familiar with school based ot in the States, at least from you know, just, I know you haven't practiced here, but you've heard about it. If you kind of had to quickly explain to someone just the differences, like, how do you describe it as being similar or different to school based ot where we follow, or in the states where we follow, idea, we have a lot like, we have our own caseload and whatnot. Is it similar to that in Alberta, or is it a little different?    Danielle Pluth     I think so. I mean, we have, they're called ISPs, that we follow like so documents that the teachers will write that have the functional goals and whatnot in there. A lot of our recommendations are in there, along with speech and physio. We have kind of a set amount of time per school division, and then we have a lot of freedom to determine how we do our service delivery with regards to OT and OT assistant. What I've heard from the States, it sounds like you guys are a bit, maybe a bit more restricted with you have to really say how much time you're spending per child per week. Those kinds of things. We don't have those kinds of restrictions, so we can kind of flow a bit more within our service delivery, from Universal to groups to direct one to one. We probably can't do as much direct one to one as we sometimes hear that you can do down in the States. But even that, I don't know for sure, we tend to be more of a consultative model. Our ot assistance would do more of maybe, like direct like treatment groups and stuff like that that we've oversee. I think.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. I think that kind of is a good, good idea. It gives people a good sense of what's going on. So today we're here to talk about the good sense program that you two have developed and put together and are now even providing training for and I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of your webinars a few months ago, and just so excited to have you all here, because I was like, Oh, this is awesome. I want to bring it to everyone here on the OT school house podcast. Yeah. But before we dive into kind of the the nitty gritty of it and talk about. This really cool, good sense rocket ship you have here, I want to ask you, like, what inspired you to develop this program? What was the problem that you saw, and what was the problem that you aim to solve?    Ruth Isaac     Well, we've been working for a little while. It's probably over 20 years ago, and we never really okay, it's hard to admit, but we never really knew exactly like, the theory that we were using. We were just, like, eclectic. We're just doing a little bit of everything. And I think we've all been at that place at 1.0 yeah, where you're trying a little of this, and you're trying a little of that, and you're trying a little of this. And we just realized that we needed more of some structure to help guide and support us as we were doing our treatment and as we worked at mentoring more people in our community here, or our group of therapists.    Danielle Pluth     Yeah, I think we've come a long ways. Like in the early 2000s sensory theory was pretty new in Canada, and it was pretty kind of ooga booga To be honest, like people didn't really so, yeah, it was kind of new, and initially, like, a lot of our referrals were for like, wiggle cushions and fidgets and like things that eventually you're like, wait a minute, I think I can do more as an OT and we really didn't get much training on sensory theory in school. So both Ruth and I went down to the states, and we did all of our SIP training, and Ruth did the OT 610 so all that extra stuff that we brought back here, we started developing universal programming for the schools, because we're like, you know what? You guys can trial legal cushions and fidgets. So we developed a good sense, actually, for teachers, program that is a step by step program to help them implement strategies in the classroom. And then what was happening is our education kind of just really took off, and as we would get new therapists in, they just wouldn't be at the same level that we needed them to be. And what the schools were now expecting us to know, because we are supposed to be the sensory experts, right? So I kind of progressed where, you know, we needed, like, an in between. We can't send everybody away all the time.    Ruth Isaac     To all the different therapy, like, yeah, like, trainings, right? Not everybody    Danielle Pluth     can do all, yeah, we've done so many. I mean, when, when you have like, 15 years, we're worth a post grad education, right? So just needing to pull that together, and we decided to come up with our own sort of training model. And then it just kind of grew and grew where we ended up developing a framework, and that framework now, you know, it's what we use every day when we're working, and it's what we train our staff in. And then we decided, you know, let's try to make an online course, because it looked like it'd be so easy, but, and we just, we're very passionate about sensory, so we wanted to bring that to everyone out there who's interested, right? To have a way to use leaders really feel sensory is really occupational, like, based in an occupational therapist invented it. So we want, we want to own sensory and we want to make sure OTs are trained to be able to run with it right out of university. Because a lot of schools don't teach, even teach the theory, let alone how to then functionally use it out when you're working.    Ruth Isaac     So yeah, and I think that our different areas where we work are looking to us to be the experts, and so we want to be at the table. We want to be having these conversations, and we want to be showing what we can do as occupational therapists. And we don't want to be this, that the other thing and just trying different things. We want to have a structure and a way of approaching how we're providing service.    Jayson Davies     Awesome and that kind of I have two follow ups here, but I'll start with this one. As you mentioned, you in the system that you're in, you work both in a clinic and also from a school perspective, as you were developing good sense, did you find that it catered more to one versus the other? Does it fit for both? Kind of how did that develop?    Danielle Pluth     It fits for both? Yeah, yeah. It's the foundation of how we do OT services here. So we developed the good sense rocket ship framework, and that's specifically looking at the child from a sensory theory, sensory lens. But we are also using it within like a PEO model, where we're still looking at the environment around the child and the tasks themselves. So we can use it in the school, and we can use it in the clinic, in the schools. The other thing about it is, as you use it for your clinical reasoning, for how you're assessing and then coming up with your intervention strategies, you can decide where on the rocket you kind of want to start, and are you going to take more of a bottom up approach or a top down depending on. Environment around the child. So if you're in a more consultative model, you might do more of a top down approach to help children in those areas to optimally function within their let's say, their classroom, whereas if I'm seeing them in the clinic, I might be able to do more of a bottom up approach, because I can go a bit more with actual treatment and intervention to make you know, impact some of their functioning within that that theory as well, if that makes sense. And we also look, even within the school, how much can we do some bottom up as well? I think what it helps the most is to help you to know where are my biggest priorities, and how am I going to intervene? So I know for sure. Am I doing a top down? Am I doing a bottom up? And who around the child is going to do what? So we might have an OT assistant or an educational assistant doing some of the bottom up stuff, and we might be doing more of the top down or vice versa, just depending on who's available. So it helps that whole thought process, no matter where you are, even if you're in the clinic, it might be, what can parents be doing to help support the child as well?    Jayson Davies     Awesome, perfect. And then the other follow up that I had here was because it's really hard these days to talk about sensory without talking behavior, and so I wanted to get kind of your take on as you were developing this, like, how was that conversation in your own mind? Because I'm sure you anticipated people asking you about sensory and behavior. I'm sure you've been asked about sensory behavior and behavior plenty of times. So how did that kind of work its way into the good sense program? And how do you share that with people?    Ruth Isaac     I think that often we see behavior being that tip of the iceberg, right? And we want to have a lens or a way to look at what's going on below the surface. Sometimes, maybe we've seen where people will say, OTs behavior, and then we don't get involved. And when we're like, oh, somebody else has to deal with that. That's not something that we can deal with. And we feel pretty strongly that actually using a sensory frame of reference can be a great way to help navigate and support a child who's having difficulties and having different behaviors. And there might be different reasons as to why you might be seeing those behaviors. If we're thinking about the good sense rocket ship, those behaviors are things that are at the very top right and and we're looking at what else could be going on there that could be impacting.    Danielle Pluth     Yeah, like, if they are over responsive to noise or touch or movement at the bottom of the rocket ship, that could be impacting their behavior, they're going into fight or flight, or they're going into shutdown. You can have kids who have poor postural control in the middle part of the rocket that can impact their breathing and their regulation that way they might have a startle reflex that's impacting like so they're, yeah, I think we, we really feel like it's our job as occupational therapists to own sensory and to use our lens to bring to the table what might be going on for the child as for that piece of the pie, right? There could be other reasons why they're having behaviors other pieces of the pie, but I think it's super important that we bring that full assessment piece there to show you know because, and if they are struggling with those areas, we definitely want to figure out how to help them with those areas. And maybe it's not going to solve everything, but it's going to solve or help that piece of the pie.    Ruth Isaac     Because there's no, there's so many, there's so many reasons that could be going on. That's why that tip of the iceberg.     Danielle Pluth     Yeah, we are also really lucky with the division that we're working in that, you know, like 20 years ago, them seeing, wanting to have a more proactive approach, and being really supportive with us, getting sensory strategies universally in place. And we've seen a huge shift within our division with having universal strategies in the classroom for all kids, having hallway sensory stuff in place for some kids, and then we have sensory rooms for a few kids who need that even extra input. So we've been able to see over the years how much this approach can impact those behaviors overall. So to us, it's just, it's for sure, it's so obvious you absolutely have to Yeah, yeah, awesome. Take a look at that part for every child that we work with.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. And I love, I mean, I remember sitting here and watching the presentation you all, you both gave. And I remember sitting here you talked about evaluation, Danielle, I believe. And I was sitting here like, just thinking about how this is so helpful. Like every ot can just print this out and kind of fill this out as part of their, you know, part of their evaluation, part of their occupational therapy profile, like this can really help you to better understand a student. We're going to dive into the rocket ship here in just a moment, but first we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back all right, and we are back here with Danielle and Ruth and. We're going to dive into the good sense ot rocket ship. But before we do, I want to let you all know that Danielle and Ruth have been very kind and are providing a way for you to get the good sense ot rocket ship PDF. So be sure to check out the show notes. You'll find a link there. You'll head over to their actual their website, where you'll be able to get that resource for yourself. So let's go ahead and dive in to the rocket ship here, and I'll let one of you take the lead here and share with us, kind of where we start.    Ruth Isaac     So if you imagine in your brain, because it's a podcast, if you imagine how a rocket ship looks, it's just a fun visual way to show how things build on top of each other, a little reminder that there are things around a rocket ship, if you imagine being in space, there's other things that could be impacting, like fuel or asteroids or things like that, and that might be like sleep or nutrition or home life and all of those pieces that, of course, are going to impact.    Jayson Davies     I just have to say, really quickly, I'm sorry to cut you off, Ruth, but I love that you just like, work the combo model in here, like that is awesome. I love it.    Ruth Isaac     There we go. But, but, like, the rocket ship itself is looking at the sensory but, of course, there's other things going on around there, right? And so when you're looking at that, Danielle kind of talked about starting at the top or starting at the bottom for the point of now we'll start at the bottom and we'll work our way up.    Danielle Pluth     Okay? And I think we mentioned earlier too. So the good sense rocket ship is a framework to look at the child that you're working at with within their environment, and then the tasks as well.    Ruth Isaac     So excellent. So at the bottom of the rocket ship, that's where we're thinking about sensory regulation. So this is where we're looking at visual, auditory, tactile, vestibular, taste and smell, proprioception, overuse, and how that might impact your ability to be in a just right state.    Danielle Pluth     Yeah, and when we're looking at this. We're looking at how, yeah, how does this area impact this child? And in our course, we go in a lot more detail with regards to looking at, like, what would a profile of this child be, what's the neurology, what's the assessments that you would do, and then what's the interventions and recommendations? But what we like about this is, as you're doing your assessment, you can start kind of plotting on there how this child is impacted from a sensory lens, and we have down the side of it, fight or flight, too fast, just right, calm, freeze, kind of all down there as well.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. Quick question on that actually, really, if I may, obviously, I have it right in front of me, and hopefully everyone's going to your website so they can get it too. You talked about how you have the visual, auditory, vestibular probe, tag, taste and smell here. Do you tend to get this data by talking to the student, talking to the parents, the teacher? Do you tend to use something like the SPM sensory profile? Obviously, you both have extensive experience, and I'm sure you can get a lot just from observation. But what are some of the different ways that you use to get this data?    Danielle Pluth     So yeah, we like to use the sensory processing measure. Sometimes we'll use the sensory profile, and so we'll get a background, basically sensory history from the parents and also the teacher. And what's kind of unique about our good sense rocket ship is we've put on there the areas that we feel can put you into fight or flight or so we have like, over responsive to touch. You can see on our rocket ship we have that higher up as a thing that could send a child into that fight or flight. We don't. What's different about our approach is we don't say you can be over responsive and under responsive to touch. So you're not going to see touch below the just right state on our rocket this might be confusing until people actually look at the rocket ship, but you'll see on there that we have under responsive to vestibular as something that can cause you to be under the just right state. So our approach is a little bit unique that way. And what it does is, when you're then mapping it out, it really helps clarify from a sensory lens what's actually impacting regulation. So you'll never hear us say they scored out, over and under in every single area, and it's all definite difference. We can't figure out how sensory is impacting them at all. You'll never hear us say that, because we can clearly map it out as to what's what they're actually over responsive to, versus under responsive. And we have it that if you're under responsive to touch, we have that higher up in the rocket ship into sensory motor.    Ruth Isaac     So we're jumping up, yeah.    Danielle Pluth     But I think it's a thing to really clarify, like that's something that a lot of OTs we see struggling with, and that our framework will help you to not struggle with, yeah.    Jayson Davies     And so as you move up into that next level, you do have sensory motor and under under sensory motor. You've got vestibular probe, tactile bilateral coordination, ocular motor and postural control listed. So I'll let you all share a little bit.     Ruth Isaac     So there, as you've moved up in the rocket ship that are the good sense rocket ship, excuse me, there is your sensory motor output. We're taking in that sensory information, we're processing it, and then that can impact our output. And there's a difference here, right the first layer was looking at regulation being out of that just right state. Now we're thinking about how sensory is coming out as an output in motor, sort of a way, and it's a foundation as well, and it can also impact regulation. And there's an example that we talked about earlier, is if you have poor postural control, that actually might be impacting your regulation overall. You might look super wiggly and having a hard time focusing, but it might actually be more related to the sensory motor versus the sensory regulation.     Danielle Pluth     Yeah. So helping you to come up with those kinds of hypothesis. And for a long time, I really, I mean, maybe it's obvious to everyone else, I really struggled with how sensory, sensory regulation, sensory motor were related. And now I feel like I've such a clear picture of how they fit.    Jayson Davies     Danielle, you are definitely not alone in that. Trust me, there are many OTs listening right now that totally feel what you just said right now. Like, that is hard. And then you start talking about praxis, and it's like, the same thing, right? Like, Praxis versus executive functioning and stuff like that. Like, yeah, the sensory world is confusing until you get the education.    Danielle Pluth     Yeah, yeah. And I think, and then having that, that framework right to see that, you know, Praxis is higher, even higher up. And you know, and you need to have your intact proprioceptive and vestibular and tactile motor systems to then have good praxis, good motor planning. And so, you know, if you're jumping, you know, if you find out that your child struggling with motor planning, you have to look lower down to see what's going on in that framework before you can address it. Yeah, so then it just becomes way less overwhelming, because you can figure out where to start and what you're looking at.    Jayson Davies     All right, so I just got an idea, because so many people reach out to me and they're like, the teacher thinks they know everything about sensory. The ABA therapist thinks they know everything about sensory. The admin thinks they know everything about sensory. If that's the case, send them the last two minutes of this podcast and let them see if they still know everything about sensory. I'm just gonna    Danielle Pluth     say that right now. Oh yeah, very complex, but yeah, sorry, keep going.     Jayson Davies     Yeah. No, it is complex. You're right, and we're gonna start moving into what I think makes the good sense rocket ship very unique here, because in a lot of sensory courses that I've taken, they talk about regulation, they talk about sensory motor talk about modulation a little bit, but the next four phases of the good sense rocket ship are often not really addressed in sensory courses here. So the next level up on my screen, it's yellow. So if you have the color version, it's yellow. It's sensory reflexes. And I really like that you have built this in there. So I'll let you talk about that.     Ruth Isaac     Yeah. So on this level, now we are looking at the sensory reflexes, and we're looking at some of the commonly seen reflexes in the classroom, right? So the moral, the tonic lab, atnr, stnr, the spinal glont. There's more, but these are the main ones that we see functionally in the classroom. And we just see how there's an impact there on the higher levels of the rocket ship, and these are impacted by the lower parts of the rocket ship. So again, I know that with reflexes, we need to be careful, right? Because we don't want to just address reflexes. We need to have a functional output for it. But if we seeing a reflex, what else is going on below it that could be causing that? Right? All of those reflexes are based on some of the way that we process the sensory motor and potentially some of the sensory regulation as well. So it's building up as we go up the rocket ship.     Danielle Pluth     So yeah, when you're looking at reflexes, we want to make sure our staff are also looking at that underlying sensory motor systems that play into that. And reflexes is kind of one of those controversial areas in the OT world, but we've seen differences when we address them so clinically, we see that it helps children. So that's why we've added it into our into our rocket ship.    Jayson Davies     And I want to go back Ruth that you were talking about, why you put the sensory reflexes there, kind of in the middle of the rocket ship, because I have very little training in reflexes, and it was kind of my perception and the limited experiences that I have that it could potentially be at the bottom of the rocket ship. And I don't know if this is you kind of alluded to, and I would just want to let you kind of reiterate that a little bit, why it's kind of at the middle as opposed to somewhere else.    Danielle Pluth     Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question, because I think, yeah, some people will think that's the first thing to get integrated. But as a baby, as you're developing the vestibular system and the proprioceptive and touch system that that sensory motor level, that's how you are then integrating those reflexes. So they're foundational to the integration of the reflexes, and that's why we have it higher up, because most often, if you do have a reflex that's not integrated, it's because you have a delay underneath in that sensory motor system, in the vestibular or the probe or the tactile. So we want to make sure therapists aren't just jumping right to that reflexes. We want to make sure they're digging deeper to see what's going on underlying.     Ruth Isaac     Exactly, digging deeper.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, I think that's important. Because, like, you kind of said, I think a lot of the trainings, especially if it's not from an OT perspective, a lot of the popular professional development courses out there about reflexes, often call that the base level, and they don't necessarily look deeper.    Danielle Pluth     No, no, and they kind of, like, sell it as like, oh, you test the reflex this way, and then this is the exact exercise you do without you really clinically reasoning through why you're doing what you're doing. So I think it's important to understand that's how we've decided that it fits best, and, and that's Yeah, and we want to make sure that we're addressing those underlying things, yeah.    Ruth Isaac     Yeah. And I think that's then some of those reflexes also can go all the way down and impact regulation. That's where, like, the moral, that startle reflex, right? Like, oh, what was that? And then OT, we're out of that just right state, and we're into a different dysregulated place. So as we're working up the rocket ship, you can see how, as we're going up, things higher can impact all the way down to the bottom, as well as from the bottom, impacting things moving up.    Danielle Pluth     That's one thing we don't have on there. Is kind of arrows coming down. But that is what happens, like when we were talking about if postural control impacts your regulation, you need a little arrow OOP down to regulation, or if that startle reflex down to regulation. So, great point.    Jayson Davies     Great point. Because when we often think about a lot of the theories that we learn, you know, even in elementary school, a lot of things are used in a pyramid, type of MTSS, right? Is an example, level one, level two, level three. But oftentimes it's the top of the pyramid is impacted by the bottom, not vice versa. But the rocket ship goes both ways.    Danielle Pluth     Exactly, even the way we have the too fast, too slow, just right, shut down, you know, down the side of the rocket ship there. We know that that can be circular. It's just, how do you make a model that you can use? That's, you know, we it's, we couldn't make it in a circle, so we didn't know how.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, totally get it all right. So we covered sensory regulation at the base of the rocket, sensory motor at the next level, and then sensory reflexes. What's next?    Ruth Isaac     Now we're up to the perceptual motor, and this is the area that, like most occupational therapists are super familiar with. This is where fine motor fits in. This is where Praxis is in there. There's other pieces in there as well, but those are the pieces that often we know that really well. Again, what could be going on at that level that could be impacting all the way down to the bottom? So if we've got a kid who's really struggling with fine motor skills, for example, that might be causing all sorts of dysregulation, or the opposite way, it could be going all the way up to the way up to the top and impacting the behaviors, right? We're looking at how it's a moving framework, right, right?    Danielle Pluth     And it helps you to be an advocate for your child, to be able to say, like, yes, you're seeing these behaviors up at the top, because they actually, you know, I've had kids in grade seven and eight or whatever who are scoring first percentile on the berry VMI, and nobody realized they had these extreme fine motor delays that were then actually playing into the behaviors they were seeing in the classroom. So I think that's really important when we're able to show that.    Ruth Isaac     As they're moving up and then higher up, that's where we've thrown in, introception, right? The like being aware of hunger and thirst and pain, temperature, your bowel, your bladder and and a lot of our kids, they don't maybe are not as aware of these, like, not like ear quiet, but like quieter sensations within your body, right? And so because everything else below can be so overwhelming, from regulation, from motor reflexes, from perceptual motor, all of those things could be impacting so they're not really as aware of that interception piece. And then, and then you're up at the top, and there we are at the beginning again, with that cognition, right, academics, behaviors, activities of daily living. This is where our referrals come from, right teachers, parents, they're they see and they know that there's issues up there, and they're saying to us, hey, help what's what's going on, and we're able to look at what more could be going on underneath there.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I love how you frame that, like that's where the referrals are coming from, because that's truly as like, we get a referral for handwriting. We don't get a referral for proprioception and bilateral. Motor coordination. Like, yeah. All right. All right. So now that we have this rocket ship framework here, for the good sense rocket ship framework, I want to get a sense for how you actually use it during your evaluation, and maybe we'll go into intervention a little bit, but I'm like envisioning printing this out for every single student that I evaluate, and just marking the heck out of it. And I want to know if that's what you all do, or how do you kind of use it in the evaluation process?    Danielle Pluth     Yes, we have kind of an expanded we basically we have a background observation form that's color we really are into this color coding thing. Our background observation form is color coded to match the rocket, and that's where we put so when I go out to see a child, depending on how much time I have for the child, I mean, in an ideal world, I get a sensory processing measure history done on everybody. I then am going to do my clinical observations based on like earn a Blanchet kind of stuff to help look like the sensory motor pieces. I'm going to do some kind of fine motor screen or assessment. I'm going to talk to the teacher. I might do a classroom observation. And again, all of that is going to depend on the severity, the case load and whatnot, for how in depth I go at each level of the rocket. So basically we have, you know, different assessments that we would do, or different observations at each at each level, and then pulling that together, basically that is where you could mark up the rocket to start seeing, where are you seeing all of the different areas of concern that might be impacting the child's function. And then we do have a color coded initial visit summary to then relay that information to the teachers. And if I will pull out the actual rocket to explain my report to them and show them where my thinking is coming from, and my recommendations, then, as well, are also based on all the areas of the rocket. So whether I'm going to start at the top or the bottom, all of that I outline in my visit summary. So that's how I I use it every single day. So yeah, that's always in the back of the now it's pretty much in the back of my mind. I don't necessarily need the print ot right in front of me, but.    Ruth Isaac     The thing that I like about it as well is that you, once you've marked it up, then you can start to see like, Oh man, I'm doing a lot of circling around one specific area that is going to guide me in my report and in my interventions. And then, if you're at a meeting with a parent, you also have that visual right in front of you. You have a teacher, you have that visual right in front of you. I think we talk about having visuals for kids, but I think we as adults need visuals to help guide us as well, right? Yeah, and then that way it can help to focus you. Where am I going to start my intervention? Sometimes that rocket ship for a kid can be completely like circled every area, almost right. Some kids, you start to see a pattern where you're like, oh, okay, well, I'm just gonna really target a certain area. But yeah, I would use this, this handout a lot, obviously, a little shameless plug for our course, would be to come and learn more about all of those pieces.     Danielle Pluth     But yeah, it's definitely used for my assessment, my clinical reasoning, and for my intervention, the whole process, and then communicating it to everybody, yeah, and it helps us to just feel super confident in knowing why I'm recommending what I'm recommending. I can easily trace it all the way back and show you exactly why do I have that kid on a bungee? I can trace it right back to where I am on the rocket. What the neurology is, what assessments I used, and I can lay it all out for you, which is super helpful.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, that's perfect. I love the idea of visualization. I mean, I don't know, in our conference room at many of our schools, we always had the bell chart, like, just so we could kind of show a parent, like, this is the bell chart for the assessment, and where, where the student is on the assessment, mostly used by the psychologist. But, yeah. All right, well, we're going to take one final break, and when we come back, we'll dive into some intervention strategies with Danielle and Ruth. All right, we are back with Danielle and Ruth, and we're going to dive just a little bit into the idea of using the good sense framework and the rocket ship to help you collaborate and educate others when working with a student. And then we're going to talk about some intervention and advocacy pieces as we wrap up. So the question here is, how do you really use the good sense framework, and I can imagine the visuals being helpful to really help parents to understand or to help teachers understand maybe why behavior is impacting sensory or being impacted by sensory, or maybe even how sensory motor is being impacted by another area.    Danielle Pluth     We like to talk. Um, a lot about and train our staff a lot in we call them little elevator pitches. Basically is, how can you quickly summarize what's going on? So a very quick example might be the vestibular system. So being able to say in a meeting like, you know, little Johnny is over responsive to movement, so it's harder for his movement system to get the input that it needs. And the movement systems in our inner ear, and we have like the semicircular canals are going to tell me, is my head up? Is it down? Is it spinning around? And that information is going to feed the muscles around my eyes for eye coordination. It's going to feed my cerebellum for bilateral coordination, for using both my hands to cut and those kinds of things. And it's going to impact the extensor muscles of my neck for that postural control to keep me upright. And so we'll use little spiels like that to then link it to the top of the rocket ship to show functionally, what they're seeing. So just having little spiels for like, all parts of the rocket ship, and then being able to quickly link it so I feel like I can quickly explain, in a pretty succinct way, of how the different areas are impacting the child so.    Ruth Isaac     And it also helps us to think about, are we doing treatment, or are we doing an accommodation? Right? For example, like, if you've got poor postural control, right, first off, accommodation, make sure those feet are flat on the floor, right? Do they have foot support? Something as simple as that, some different seating options, right? All of these things that we know, but it just helps us to say, okay, that's what we're targeting. Is the postural control of the sensory motor, let's say, and we're doing an accommodation teacher. Here's a quick something I want you to use this. This is why, or maybe we are looking at more of an intervention strategy, right? Could we work at something like just keeping it really simple, getting on the floor, doing some tummy time, where that body is in an extended position? Can they hold that position for a little while.    Danielle Pluth     Or we might give specific exercises that will ask them, you know, for six weeks, can you do these once a day? Because we're targeting this area to help that posture control, so that they can now sit at circle time, you know. So just keep bringing it back to here's where we're targeting. Here's what we're using to target that area, and why the functional impact, and so you just get way more buy in then, because people really appreciate knowing the why and the background, and they're just way more willing and excited to do the recommendations, because it just makes more sense to them.    Jayson Davies     I could totally see myself like, I don't know, I don't know if you have this yet, but I would just like, somehow get this on a whiteboard and carry it around, like I'm a coach on a football team, and just like, Hi teacher, look at this. Is the line. This goes here, and then, just like, connect it for them, and connect the dots, and make it super easy for someone to understand. You know, why I'm working on sensory regulation and how that is impacting daily living activities or academic learning, and hitting all the other sections in between, and kind of showing exactly how it how it works. So question here you've talked a little bit about, and this is more from the theory perspective that we talked so far about how you can go up or down the rocket, vice versa, how one part impacts another part, whether it's top to bottom, bottom to top. When it comes to the intervention side, though, how do you start to decide where to start? Do you start down at the bottom with sensory regulation? Do you start with reflexes? Do you start with interoception? I mean, as I kind of just alluded to, you could draw a line all the way down right and hit each part. But then, how do you move from understanding the difficulties to actually deciding where to start?    Danielle Pluth     I think, like you'll notice on our rocket ship, that regulation piece is the biggest chunk, like even size wise, visually, and so typically, that's where we will usually start. Is that regulation piece, we need to make sure kids are regulated before you can even start accessing the higher level of the rocket. So whether you know and you can look at that different ways, you might be looking at that from a universal level, what needs to happen for that child universally? Are there things in the classroom that we can start implementing that can help them do we need to start implementing, you know, heavy work breaks or things like that, and then looking at, maybe for the child specifically, is there different exercises we need to start working on to help them with those overall systems, depending on, again, how much time you have to work with that child, like, if they are tactically defensive, is, do we have time to actually work on that system, or do we need to put accommodations and strategies in place to help them cope and manage with that system, and just knowing that and being able to communicate that to everyone else around them, like, you know, I'm not going to be able to maybe change this child's tactile system at this like the way that they're processing it. That's why we want to make sure we're accommodating. Working for it.    Ruth Isaac     So yeah, and I think it also depends on where you are working right, what your setting is, what you've got. I think having this background helps you to then be creative in where you're using it. And you know your own setting. You know who you have access to, who your extra tools are, if there are extra people, if there are extra resources, what you have available, but at least you have that structured approach, and you're not just grasping at things. It's taking away that guesswork of like, let's try this thing and let's try that thing, and let's try this thing. It's giving you that organization and confidence to then take it to wherever you are using it.     Danielle Pluth     I'm going to know why I want to try different sensory tools and and in saying that too, you know, we might also need to address the fuel to the rocket initially as well. Like, is this child getting any sleep? Are they getting enough nutrition? Some of those things that might be your biggest red flags at the moment that you've got to address first. So it gives you kind of that systematic you could even number on your rocket which ones are your top priorities that you want to intervene with? First, you know, what, what? And also, kind of looking for your biggest bang for your buck. You know, if I have a kid with a startle reflex and dysregulation and postural control issues, what exercises can I give that's going to target kind of more than one area. Is another thing that you can be looking at too.    Jayson Davies     I am totally looking forward to version two of the rocket ship that has like asteroids on the side of the paper. No, but real question though, there's a lot on the good sense rocket ship, right? There's a lot of different areas that we're going to look at. And I know the two of you at this point, you're no longer, I don't know, maybe you do sometimes, but you're not marking it up, like I've talked about, like we've talked about a little bit today, but in your experience with it, do you ever find that one section doesn't have any difficulty, or is it pretty regular that If you're finding some difficulty with cognitive you're also going to find some difficulty in the other aspects as well.    Danielle Pluth     I think, I think what's fun about it, what I enjoy the most is you're building a profile for each child, and so you might be doing a lot of repetitive assessment type work, but in the end, the mapping out looks different for every child. And I think that's what's kind of neat. It keeps you away from getting like I think in the past, I would just get stuck every kid looked the same, you know, you'd kind of just have whereas, I don't know, for this now, I feel like I'm building a profile that's different for every child. And so I would say I've probably hit every area in some kind of combination for kids that I have worked with.    Ruth Isaac     And it's not cookie cutter, and it's not boring. It's, it's, it's individual, and it's and what's, what's that child's needs, and where do they need support? And where is that just who they are, you know? And what are the things that we need to work on and support?    Danielle Pluth     Yeah, and I think too, like, yes, it, the foundation of it is all sensory. But as you get to the top, we have definitely incorporated other areas of OT and even though the like the self care kind of classroom participation area, we look a lot at like kids play skills and developmentally where they're at with their play skills. So using we bring into it different assessment tools that help us figure out those different areas. And so it just keeps it, yeah, very comprehensive and, like, thorough without it being cumbersome. It's not like we're always assessing every single area, but yeah.    Ruth Isaac     and definitely, today we are doing a very fast recap and stronger chip, we could dive in and spend a lot more time talking about each area.    Danielle Pluth     But I think it, yeah, it starts it gives us that framework, and we run with that, with the majority of our kids, and we talk about like we still, we want to get training from all the OT gurus out there, and that's where we end up adding on the asteroids and all that kind of stuff, right? Because there's other thoughts and stuff out there, and we're always bringing it back to see, how does it fit with our model?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're down to the last two questions here, and I want to go back to, I can't remember. I think it was Danielle who mentioned earlier about, you know, initially having difficulty understanding sensory regulation, sensory motor and and I know you know, both are providing a lot of professional development, both online through this program, but also just, you know, mentorship within the therapist and OTs that you work with. And so I want to ask you, what are maybe one or two of the hang ups that you find that practitioners often get hung up on when it comes to sensory maybe those who haven't gone through the SIP training, maybe those who haven't attended some of the other, you know, big programs, the CLASI or whatnot. What are some of those, those hang ups that you often see?    Danielle Pluth     Well, okay, I have, I guess, two things when it comes to sensory, motor. What has happened is, I'll give exercise. And people think my exercises are to impact regulation, and they'll say, you know, there was no change in him afterwards. And I have to get them to understand that we're working on the underlying motor system, and it will take longer, maybe, to see changes. So helping them to see that my exercises aren't always just for regulation, that sometimes it's for other areas of the rocket. So that's one area, I think, for OTs, what happens is, if they haven't been trained yet in sensory, What scares me is that they then sometimes want to dismiss it as an area, they'll say, oh, you know, everyone thinks everything is sensory, and it's a super key area. And so I do, I don't want people to just dismiss that, because they can then struggle, like we had said earlier, with interpreting the sensory profile, thinking, Oh, it's all definite differences, and not being able to pull it apart and clinically reason it, and then also getting hung up on evidence. So saying, like, oh, you know, somebody wants me to trial a weighted vest or a neoprene vest, or we just don't get hung up. We feel like, yes, definitely we want more research articles for all the sensory tools and all the things that we do. But I don't think we should constantly just be throwing stuff out because we are not a profession that has a super well established research base yet, and so I worry that we, if we just start throwing that stuff out when it can be effective, that we're doing a disservice to the children that we work with. So we very much believe that through having our framework, it gives us a way to properly assess and come up with interventions and then to trial them. And so, you know, so we use weighted vests, we use neoprene vests, we use brushing, we use the astronaut training. We use therapeutic listening. We do all of those things in the schools in a systematic way that has proven to be extremely effective. And I think that it's sad to me when I hear OTs just say, Oh, I'm not using I'm not touching that because, and maybe it's different down in the States, maybe we have more leeway or whatnot, but we have we track it, we document it, and we see impressive outcomes. So.    Ruth Isaac     And we just don't we stop.     Danielle Pluth     Let me say, yeah. And we just really want OTs to experience, I guess what we're experiencing in the schools, we're having a lot of success with a sensory approach. It's, you know, yeah, so I think I might have just gone, I'm not sure if I went way off your question or.    Jayson Davies     No, that was spot on. You gave, you gave several great answers. I really appreciate that. Ruth, did you want to add anything?    Ruth Isaac     Yeah, I think when you were asking about, like, when the confusion, I remember when I first started, there's there's so much terminology in our profession, and there's so many acronyms, and it can be really complex. And I remember something just as simple as somatosensory and thinking that was a whole nother thing, that's just tactile probe, that's all that is, and sometimes just sharing that basic information with people so that they understand, Oh, we're talking about proprioception. We're talking about tactile that's what that is. And then how does that functionally impact? That's the piece that I feel like was just really eye opening, especially when I'm working with new therapists. And I remember myself wondering, what is going on here, how, what is the difference between these things, and how does that impact? And having a bit of that neurology in the background is also super important, so that you understand what's working there and how it's not ooga booga.    Danielle Pluth     It's actually grounded in science Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I was gonna add one more thing on to what you were saying there. Go ahead. I was also just gonna add in there that we've spent a lot of time going through that vocabulary. So anytime we go to a new course, or we hear new terminology, we're constantly trying to figure out, okay, what do you exactly mean by sensory seeking, for example, or sensory craving, or, you know, and distilling that down to what it is, and then figuring out how it fits in with what we're already thinking. Do we need to change what we're thinking? Or is that different than what we're thinking? Or does it already fit into what we are thinking? It's just semantics, right? So we've have spent a lot of time figuring those kinds of things out.     Ruth Isaac     And still working on it. Like, I feel like it's a never ending thing, right? He is, yeah, like, and thank goodness, because otherwise I think we would be bored. Yes, I don't want to be bored with what I do. I want to keep pushing myself. I want to keep thinking about how this impacts a child's function overall. And I want to share that passion which we have with other people, so that they can see that as well.    Danielle Pluth     And that's the thing. Like within our community, we have built a whole program around OTs using sex. Sensory intervention, like with regards to our universal strategies, our direct one to one, our sensory rooms in the schools. And it's been a lot of fun to see impact across our whole division of, you know, 15 schools or whatnot. And so it's, it's neat, and it's nice to have something that you keep coming back to, that you keep, you know, we can keep training our teachers and parents and whatnot in it, and we're continuing to have success.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, perfect. Yeah, no, I think that's another five minute segment that people can send to their admin teachers and people who think that they're sensory experts or even another therapist, like, there's a lot to do with sensory and it requires training. And, yeah, it requires training.    Ruth Isaac     Ongoing, right? You never, I don't think you're ever done, like we're still learning as we continue on.    Danielle Pluth     And I think that that's the thing. Like, if we can have the OTs well trained in sensory, then you can really see that sensory is not just wiggle cushions and jewelry. That kind of brings us full circle, back to the beginning, right? So some people can think, Oh, if I give you a box of sand, I'm doing sensory intervention. Well, that's a sensory strategy, but that's not the basis of sensory theory, right? So, yeah, I think there. There's so much more to it and that that I know psychology has really gone into sensory but we've like, it's that vestibular probe piece too, that we really bring, as occupational therapists to that whole lens as well, that we can really understand.    Jayson Davies     So, yeah, absolutely. Well. Danielle Ruth, thank you so much for being here and sharing your good sense ot rocket ship and all the theory behind it and how you use it in application that's really amazing. Before you leave, I want to give you both the opportunity to kind of share where people can go to learn more about the good sense rocket ship, the theory that you're putting out there, and learn more about you all.    Danielle Pluth     So if they want to go and get a download of our good sense rocket ship, they can go to advance. Ot.ca , back, slash, sensory. Hyphen. Approach.     Ruth Isaac     And we're also on Instagram.    Danielle Pluth     Yes, you can follow us on Instagram at good, underscore sense, underscore OTs as well for our little video educational clips and bloopers.    Jayson Davies     Bloopers are always fun, awesome. We will be sure to link to both of those resources and all the other resources that we mentioned today. I don't think there are too many, but we'll have those two for sure, and any others that that we, you know, can find to send your way, and we'll put those in the show notes, so it makes it super easy for you to find everybody. I have the rocket ship up right in front of me. I am not lying when I say like I would mark the heck up of out of this thing during all my evaluations. And I think that you will find it very helpful too. So be sure to go get it, and you're going to learn a lot from Danielle and Ruth over however long you follow them on Instagram and are part of their atmosphere. So Danielle Ruth, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate having you, and can't wait to see asteroids on the rocket ship.    Danielle Pluth     And thank you so much.     Ruth Isaac     Thanks, Jayson.    Jayson Davies     Of course, I want to give Danielle and Ruth A big thank you for joining me today to share the good sense rocket ship framework with you. And of course, I also want to say thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you found value in understanding how this framework can help identify, assess and address sensory challenges that you come across with your students. Be sure to find the good sense rocket ship PDF in our show notes, and be sure to follow Danielle and Ruth on Instagram at good sense OTs to continue learning from their expertise. And as always, if today's episode left you wanting more practical strategies and support for your school based ot practice. I would love to invite you to join us inside the OT school OTs collaborative. It's where hundreds of school based ot practitioners come together for resources, professional development and direct mentorship from me. Within a group setting, you'll find frameworks like the one that we discussed today, plus tools to help you advocate for sensory, informed practices within your schools, head to OTSchoolHouse.com slash collab to learn more and join our community. Also, as a bonus, as a member of the OT schoolhouse collaborative, you can even earn a CU certificate for listening to this episode and many others within the OT school house Podcast Network until next time. Keep making a difference in your students lives through the power of occupational therapy and just have a good time. Don't forget to play. Don't forget to kind of sit down and just be in the moment with your students. Sometimes the best sensory interventions just come out of being present with the students. Take care and we'll see you next time bye, bye.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OTSchoolHouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.  Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Thanks for listening to the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. A podcast for school-based OT practitioners, by school-based OT practitioners! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Subscribe now! Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

Click on your preferred podcast player link to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts . Welcome to the show notes for Episode 189 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. Dive into groundbreaking research on the transition from caseload to workload models in school-based OT with Stanbridge University MOT students Jalen, Michelle, Jared, and Ari. Their nationwide survey revealed striking results: practitioners using a workload model reported significantly lower burnout scores compared to those using a caseload model and majority strongly agreeing that the workload approach reduces stress levels. The students' research identified key barriers to making this transition—primarily lack of administrative support and scheduling conflicts—while highlighting successful facilitators including peer support and improved collaboration with teachers. Their findings emphasize the importance of data collection for advocacy, suggesting that tracking time spent on indirect services provides compelling evidence when approaching administrators about workload changes. This episode offers practical insights for school-based OTs feeling overwhelmed, with recommendations to start small by tracking weekly time usage and increasing teacher collaboration. Listen now to discover how transitioning to a workload model can transform your practice, reducing burnout while improving service quality and student outcomes. Listen now to learn the following objectives: Listeners will compare the impact of caseload versus workload models on therapist burnout, stress levels, and job satisfaction. Listeners will identify key barriers and facilitators to transitioning from a caseload to workload approach. Listeners will identify practical strategies for initiating a workload approach. Guest(s) Bio Michelle Aquino is a Master of Occupational Therapy student at Stanbridge University in Irvine, with experience as a Behavior Interventionist in a school-based setting. Working with children with diverse needs has sparked her interest in pediatrics. She is passionate about occupational therapy because it allows her to help children build independence and develop essential skills they need to reach their fullest potential in everyday life. After completing the OT program, she plans to specialize in pediatrics in an outpatient or school-based setting.  Quotes “I’m hopeful for a future where school-based OTs are recognized for the true impact of their work.” — Michelle Aquino “Peer support and collaboration make a huge difference for school-based OTs’ satisfaction.” — Jalen Arcadio “Administrative support is the key to successfully transitioning from caseload to workload.” — Ari Aguilos “Tracking time tells a story administration might not see, and it improves student outcomes.” — Jared Sarmiento Resources 👉 Michelle’s Linkedin 👉 Jalen's Linkedin 👉 Ari’s Linkedin 👉 Jared’s Linkedin 👉 OT Schoolhouse Collaborative 👉 Garfinkel & Seruya Research Episode Transcript Expand to view episode transcript Jayson Davies     Hey there, and welcome to episode 189 of the OT school house podcast. I'm your host, Jayson Davies, and today we have a truly unique episode. Over the last year, I've had the incredible pleasure of advising four master students through their thesis research at stanbridge University. Jalen, Michelle, Jared and Ari together, these four developed their research question, conducted their lit review, formed their hypothesis, developed a survey, and completed their data collection and analysis, all about using a caseload and workload approach. In fact, you may have even helped them with a survey response when I sent that out in an email a few months ago. Now, what makes this especially exciting is watching these students transform from virtually knowing nothing about school based occupational therapy to now deeply understanding the challenges of traditional case load approaches in the schools and maybe why we need to move to a workload approach. Now that they're done with this project, they are currently headed off to their level two fieldworks and are on track to join the OT workforce early next year. Congratulations, guys. I know you're listening to this, and couldn't be more proud of you. Now their research that we are discussing today examines, as I mentioned, caseloads and workloads, and this is a topic that every school based ot practitioner is impacted by every single day. So what we're going to talk about is the transition from one to the other, from a caseload to a workload approach, and how that impacts burnout, effectiveness and even student outcomes. So if you've ever felt overwhelmed by your caseload or struggled with documentation time, or even wondered if there is a better way to structure your services. This episode is essential listening. We'll explore what the research shows about therapist burnout rates, quality of intervention, and even the key barriers and facilitators to making this important transition from a caseload to a workload model. I'm so happy that these four have decided to distribute what they've learned through the OT schoolhouse podcast, and it is truly a pleasure to have them join me for this chat. Let's go ahead and get started.    Amazing Narrator     Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jayson Davies. Class is officially in session.    Jayson Davies     Jalen, Jared, Ari, Michelle, welcome to the OT school house podcast. It is a pleasure to have you here. We've all been working together for about nine months, maybe, gosh, close to a year now, but it's all come to this. We are recording a podcast together. We're going to share what your findings are and kind of the research that you went about to determine a little bit about caseloads and workloads, I don't want to get ahead of myself. I'm going to let you all talk about that, but let's get started. Jalen, how you doing today?    Jalen Arcadio     I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. I hope you guys are all doing well. We're in break, but    Michelle Aquino     living life, you know?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And if I may, what made you decide that you wanted to get into occupational therapy?    Jalen Arcadio     I honestly joined for the sole purpose of knowing that you're helping people always, and it's a great way to expand your compassion and like being just passionate for helping others    Jayson Davies     very cool. And Jared, how you doing?    Jared Sarmiento     Doing good, doing good. Very excited to be here. Awesome.    Jayson Davies     And why don't you share a little bit about the program that you're in and the entire group is in and how you're doing?    Jared Sarmiento     Yes, so we're all masters of occupational therapy students at stanbridge University out in Irvine, what's called, we only got about a little, oh, actually, a little over, oh, under a year now, so, but I stepped into our level two field work very excited about us, kind of get, like, our real first hand experience, and, you know, just the maze, you know, it's come down to this point. A lot of schooling this last full year. Very intense, a lot of work. But, you know, kind of excited to see it come into mutation, whatnot. Kind of get that feel what it feels like to be an OT, you know,    Jayson Davies     it'll be here soon. It'll be here very soon. And Ari, welcome to the podcast. What made you decide to pursue occupational therapy?    Ari Aguilos     Hi, yes, thanks for having me. I'm Ari. I think just like Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science is so valuable. And after shadowing a bunch of different health related fields, I just knew that ot was, for me, fantastic.    Jayson Davies     And Michelle, same question to you.     Michelle Aquino     Hi, I'm Michelle. I think the one thing that really helped me learn that occupational is for me was from watching the school based OTs that I was working under while I was a bi at school district. And I really just sparked a career. Capacity in me.    Jayson Davies     Awesome. And now here you are completing what ultimately is a school based occupational therapy type of project. So awesome. Kind of full circle here. So well, let's go ahead and dive into it. We're talking about cases and workloads within this episode. And I'm going to come over to you, Ari, and I want to ask you that, why do you think that this was important? Why was it important for us to look at cases and workloads, and why was this worth looking into in terms of research?    Ari Aguilos     Yes, ultimately, we had a great opportunity to study the practitioners themselves, and I feel like they're especially during our initial review, we couldn't find any or little to none of research on OTs themselves when it comes to work life balance, when it comes to burnout of the actual practitioners. So what we got to do was answer some of those gaps of knowledge, figure out even more things that could be researched and very generalizable to not just school based OTs, which is a very important role nationwide, but for all, for the all, the whole field of OT awesome.    Jayson Davies     And I kind of want to let anyone respond to this one, because Ari did bring something up, is that sometimes you find research related to other areas, but not what you're looking for. And so for any of you, because all of you had to partake in the lit review, was there something that was there a moment where you remember kind of being frustrated because of the lack of research that you were, you know, looking for, and what you were able to find? And kind of like, that's just what did it feel like? But what were just share that experience, I guess, anyone want to dive into    Jared Sarmiento     that definitely, kind of researching the difference between workload versus caseload was very hard. You know, we had a we'd maybe find like, one or two articles, and then we kind of have to, like, see, like, what they were referencing, just to kind of get like, a better gage when determining the difference. The big difference between workload versus caseload definitely saw a lot for like the realm of for like speech therapy, but it was very limited when it came to the field of occupational therapy and kind of like what the main differences are, especially for school based OTs. It was a lot. It was hard, but kind of have to work with what you get, you know, saying absolutely.    Jayson Davies     And just kind of a quick follow up to that, was it difficult to find research specific to school based as opposed to, more generally, about pediatric therapy as a whole?    Ari Aguilos     Yes, we had some leading sources for our, like, initial research, which we had to follow their sources and dig deeper into that, but it was very limited. And like, we basically had to start from like, we had to understand school based practitioners from from, like, as students, we don't know what their life is like, so we had to, essentially, like, understand that first before even developing our research. So I think we had an extra challenge when it came to even beginning to research and finding that there wasn't a lot out    Jayson Davies     there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And as you pointed out, right? You're you're all current occupational therapy students. It's not like you've been in the field. It's not like you've even determined exactly what field within occupational therapy you want to go into. And so I know Michelle mentioned, right? She's worked in a school based setting, not as an OT, but for the rest of you, I don't think you really even had an understanding of school basis, so you kind of had to learn that part before you could even do the literature review process itself. And I know that was a learning process as well. All right. Jared, for listeners who may not be as familiar, briefly explain the difference between a case load model and a workload model and why that matters so much.    Jared Sarmiento     Yeah, so for a caseload model, basically the practitioner, their work measure is measured based on the amount of students that they see overall. So for example, they may have 50 students on a caseload, and that kind of determines, like the schedule. They're basically responsible for seeing that at those 50 students within a certain timeframe, whether the week or the month, and then, whereas, for the workload model, it kind of measures the overall work that the practitioner is doing. In total, this can be both direct and indirect services. So both seeing the students you know, doing interventions with them, maybe even doing assessments. And it's kind of like the things outside of just meeting with the students. So for example, documentation, collab, collaborative meetings with the teachers, maybe even the students, families, IEP meetings. And for the workload model, it kind of distributes their time accordingly, rather than just by the measure of how many kids they see. And it kind of matters. It's very. Strong because, you know, a lot of schools traditionally are utilizing just seeing a practitioners work overall, by the amount of students that they oversee, but what they're not accounting for is the hours and time that practitioners have to put on or just outside of everything, kind of like those indirect services, and it kind of leads to a lot of burnout inconsistent, inconsistent types or service deliveries, and ultimately unrealistic expectations.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and I think that kind of like summarizes the lit review. You guys broke down the lit review into a few different themes. And I think that kind of is the overarching themes from the lit review. So once you kind of had a little bit of background within the realm of school based ot looking at the research, kind of what's already out there. Jaylen, I want to come to you, because once you have that information, what was the way to move forward, what was the main purpose of the study, and what were you trying to or hoping to discover about school based ot practitioners within a workload approach.    Jalen Arcadio     So yeah, like what Jared was saying, we wanted to expand on the school based OTs and how they were experiencing a workload model. But with that, we had to do a survey with Google, Google Sheets. We conducted a state like a nationwide survey to see the transition from caseload to a workload model, and we just wanted to discover and understand their experience and real world impact, like a burnout and work life balance interprofessional collaboration And just the quality that the students were receiving from the OTs, awesome.    Jayson Davies     And then there was also a second kind of theme that we wanted to discover too. And we split that survey up a little bit, but I want to give you that opportunity to kind of like to address the second part of the research. What was that second part that we really wanted to understand when it came to therapists who maybe had made the transition from a case of Joe workload approach,    Jalen Arcadio     we wanted to see, like, how effective it really was. So we wanted to see what types of experiences they were dealing with in terms of, like advocating for this specific case our workload model and how they wanted to be a front line for the students, because at the end of the day, they weren't getting the support from their peers, and it from the survey that we got. It was mostly just their ot peers who were also just supporting them.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and we'll get more into all the details, because ot peers were important, a few other players I know we'll be addressing in just a little bit. Ari, I'd love to give you a chance to kind of dive a little bit more into how we designed the research, how we how we built that Google form up to get the data that we wanted. Go ahead. Yeah.    Ari Aguilos     So for the Google Sheets survey, we knew that Google Sheets is really accessible, so we knew we automatically just wanted to do Google Sheets now we would do email snowballing, but for the actual content of the survey, we had developed aims such as, like, if they have experienced the caseload, what's their experience with a work, or if they experience a workload, and what's their experience with it? And then the second part was, were they there at their site when they transitioned from a caseload to a workload approach, and what was that experience like? So with that like, we got to do, like a qualitative like we did, Likert scale questions mostly, and then open ended questions, basically aiming to explore those themes. Yeah.    Jayson Davies     And really briefly, can you just share what the criteria was to be a participant, or the criteria to not be a participant. Was, you don't need to read a verbatim but just in general,    Ari Aguilos     yes, essentially, our inclusion criteria was you had to be a school based occupational therapist currently working, and you had to have some experience with the workload model. And opposite to that, the exclusion criteria is if you were retired, s, B, OT,    Jayson Davies     All right, awesome. So we understand we use a Google survey. We had some electric questions, we had some open responses, and then we had school based ot practitioners, non retired who had some workload experience. Now, Google Surveys are great in the sense that they give you these nice clean graphs for the questions that create nice, clean graphs, you know, the yes or no questions, the Likert scale, but when you have open ended questions, that gets a little complicated. So as you all were planning to have these open ended questions, and knowing that we were going to aim for, you know, 100 a few 100 different responses. Is, what was the plan for actually analyzing that data?    Ari Aguilos     I can take that question, so when it came to the open ended questions, and knowing that we would have to sift through a lot of responses, we basically, as a group, wanted to use artificial intelligence AI to do the to use it as an organizational tool to do the initial coding phase and to basically speed up the process of doing the thematic analysis and coding. And it really allowed us to organize the themes faster, kind of, yeah, can I leave it there?    Jayson Davies     You can continue on. So what were the benefits of AI, and how did you use it as a tool to support you?    Ari Aguilos     Well, the benefits of AI is that it was it's really simple to use. I feel like past research tools that we've used in practice, like deduce it was very convoluted. Takes a lot of time versus the versus the model that we used. It was able to be replicated. It's able to be like the output was way faster for us as a group to what's the word I'm looking for, essentially, like    Jayson Davies     to sift through and then determine if it's accurate. Yes. Okay, and you mentioned using AI. What specifically did you use AI? Because some people might listen to this and say, Oh, you just went on to Gemini, or you just went on to chat GBT and and dropped your spreadsheet into there and got some responses. Was it that simple? Or did you do some research into how to use AI to do this?    Ari Aguilos     Yes, we definitely did some research on how to use AI as a tool so that it didn't replace us as researchers. We wanted to essentially figure out, how would it replace the coding phase, just the coding phase. So that way, once we get all our responses, we basically looked for we did like our own research, and looked for like what researchers are currently using AI to do in their research, and we basically replicated what they did. So then that means that they use a specific, a specific tool that can be accessed afterwards. It means that you can double, you can double check, like if the responses are true to what the AI is outputting. It's essentially like, again, not replacing the researchers, but using it as a tool for us, just speeding up the process. And, yeah, we found a few articles that, like Cambridge was playing around with, like, certain AI models, and that's we use that as a guideline, essentially in our research,    Jayson Davies     awesome, and obviously it helps save time with that theme development. This will be an open question for anyone, did the AI at all make things more difficult? Did you get ever get frustrated with the AI at all? Or was it pretty straightforward?    Michelle Aquino     I feel that overall, it was a pretty straightforward process. I feel like it it got us to really think about what to really focus on and what to eliminate.    Jayson Davies     Okay, and was it able to provide you? Obviously, it provided themes, but was it able to help you better understand the, I guess, to a degree, the voice of the therapist? Did it just provide you? Hey, these are the overarching themes, or did it help to provide you additional information to support your research project?    Ari Aguilos     I would say the original quotes from the responses are always like the best and painted the best picture of what they are experiencing. And AI, honestly, just put it into it helped us put it into other words, but it necessarily didn't capture like what they originally said. So that was a limitation. I would say that AI, we would, we would always look out for    Jayson Davies     awesome Ari. I do want to give you one more thing to kind of discuss, and that is the second half of the survey. A little bit. What was that? How did we filter people and how to what was the purpose of the second half of the survey?    Ari Aguilos     The second half of the survey was to get the experience of transitioning to a workload model, because it's an emerging model, not of not a lot of school based occupation yoga therapists have experienced it. So we wanted to see the ones that have experienced it. What facilitators led to that change. So was it administration support? Was it team collaboration? And through a series of Likert scale questions and open ended questions, we were able to get more insight into that experience, just that, like transitioning part or if they were there. Four after the transition of going from a caseload to a workload approach.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and Jared, I want to come to you really quickly, because we had this actually became something of a we got a little confused at times during writing this thesis about the number of people that we actually had partake in our project, and we were hoping to get somewhere around 300 because of this, like 1% number of school based ot practitioners that we think are represented, but we ended up having two people, 200 I believe it was kind of click over to the survey, and then significantly less actually take the survey. So I want to give you a moment to kind of address that, yeah.    Jared Sarmiento     So kind of like you said, So we initially, you know, we're aiming for 300 hoping, like that was going to be our set number. When we got 200 responses, we're like, okay, like this is pointing in a good direction. And then once we excluded those who said that they had no experience with the workload approach, it only brought it down to like, 114 and then by that time, we're just like, Oh, man. Like, so it kind of showed us like, wow. Like, there's really not a lot of school based therapists out there who really have true experience with the workload approach. And then even just when it went down to have you made that transition, it cut the number in half again. So I think it was only like, what it was only was, only between 75 to 80. So it kind of left like little room. I mean, it helped understand a good perspective. But, you know, we want, we were hoping that we would have a big, big number, so we understood, like, you know, what is working for people to make that effective transition from a case load to a workload approach. So at that point we're kind of like, man, like, it was very eye opening, I would say, very humbling, you know, that way. And it kind of gave us more of that purpose to, like, really produce a really good paper so we could help future school based OTs for the future and whatnot.    Jayson Davies     And based upon that big gap, you know, the 200 104 200 114 that can continue on, and then even the 75 or so that went on to the second half of the survey, based upon that, have, have any of you given any thought to like, if we redid it, would we do it a little bit differently? Or do you feel like we got what we're aiming for?    Jared Sarmiento     Um, personally, I feel like at the end of the day, we kind of got what we were aiming for. I mean, yeah, we would like to obviously see more get, kind of get more perspectives, but that kind of just attributes and shows like how emerging this model is and how there has to be further on research to really, kind of like, understand and helping making the making, help people make that successful transition. You know, it kind of just adds to, like, what we talk about, the literature and the background. It's just, it's very new, but, you know, hoping that it could be the start for kind of, like a big movement, for people to really make that effective change and whatnot.    Jayson Davies     Perfectly Wrapped up. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and we when we come back, we're going to discuss the key findings of the research, as well as how we can translate this research into practice. So stay tuned. All right, we are back, and we are going to start things off with Michelle right now and Michelle, what were some of the biggest takeaways or themes that started to emerge from both the qualitative and quantitative data?    Michelle Aquino     Hi, yes. So for the biggest takeaways and themes that we've noticed throughout our data was there were a lot of barriers when it came to transitioning from a caseload to a workload. A lot of the staff and administration had a lot of trouble trying to change into the workload model. They're pretty resistant with how they wanted to change. They were so used to the caseload model that they didn't really see how a workload model could improve their their overall satisfaction.    Jayson Davies     Okay, so difficulty transitioning from caseload to workload. What were some of the others?    Michelle Aquino     Another other findings was a lot of the therapists noticed that they had a better satisfaction when it came to transitioning to a workload. It they felt a lot more balanced. They felt like they could increase more quality of care. And it was also like very satisfactory towards the clients as well.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, I remember seeing the chart that you all put together when you came back for one of our one of our sessions, and it was like we had asked, I think it was a four point Likert scale, maybe five point Likert scale. And those who felt effective, basically on a caseload model, were like, at a two, two and a half. And those who felt effective on a workload model was closer to four. I mean, that's a pretty significant jump of just feeling effective like, you know, it sucks to work in a job and not feel like you're effective like, just no one likes that feeling. So that's a really cool insight, that just simply switching from a caseload to a workload model can make someone feel more effective. What about collaboration? Do we have any results related to like being able to work alongside teacher, peers and others?    Michelle Aquino     We did have some, some results on that as well for collaboration, from transitioning from a caseload to workload, the collaboration was a lot more improved. It felt like it was better for the OTs to feel like they had time to actually work with the students rather than just doing it and like it was. It didn't really matter what they did, they just like it felt a lot more like they had time to actually focus on the child itself.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha, Jared, we also wanted to look a little bit about burnout and stress. How did the workload approach impact burnout and stress compared to a traditional caseload model? Yeah.    Jared Sarmiento     So we kind of first started off by asking the and the question to the practitioner, like, what type of service delivery model are you using currently in this point in time? And then we followed up with the Likert scale question of how much burnout they feel overall. A score of one meant that they felt little to no burnout, while a max score of five reported reports feelings of high burnout. And you know, based on the 114 participants, those who are currently using a case load model reported an average score of four out of five on the burnout scale, while those who are using a workload service delivery model, or from the past reported an average score of 2.1 so you kind of see like that really big difference in how, how a workload model can lead to less burnout, less job satisfaction overall. And then we also kind of did a follow up question of comparing stress levels between using a workload versus a case load model. Score of one would mean that the practitioner is disagreeing the workload model doesn't play a factor into stress, while score of five reports that they agree highly that the workload model reduces stress, and at least 60% of the practitioners who answer that question reported a score of four or five indicating that they strongly agree that A workload model definitely plays a major factor in reducing stress levels for them.    Jayson Davies     Absolutely, all right. And Jalen, coming to you with this question, Michelle spoke a little bit to the idea that it was hard to transition from a caseload to a workload model. But what were some of the specific barriers that we found when asking therapists about the difficulties shifting?    Jalen Arcadio     The common barriers we really face were like that we were seeing were lack of administrative support, the scheduling conflicts, team collaboration, and I feel like that that's what separated a lot of the workload model to the caseload, was the amount of support from their peers, like I said earlier today. And it's just one of those where if that district or school doesn't see the vision, then it's it's hard to kind of manage and like, go through.     Jayson Davies     Yeah, one question I was really happy that you all added to the survey was that we didn't just look at the barriers, but we also asked them about the facilitators. Like, what was it that actually made it easier to transition from a caseload to a workload approach? And Jaylen, if you want to start in, if anyone wants to add, what were some of the what were some of the comments that ot practitioners who had succeeded moving to a workload approach, what were, what were their thoughts of what helped them?    Jalen Arcadio     What helped them that I was like seeing and from reading, from the surveys, was the amount of peer support that that's what I was reading. They were saying a bunch of things like, Oh yeah, I tried pushing for it, but some of my peers was seeing like that type of idea, so that they were trying to help push that back too. It was just like the upper administrative that just doesn't see it. And that's what kind of like led them to either staying to the caseload and not transitioning.     Jayson Davies     So it really took the OT practitioners to work as a team all get on board before the administrators would get on board to a degree. Does that sound about right?     Jalen Arcadio     Yeah, and it's also like quality, like if the students aren't getting the. Same treatment anymore are the same quality because their OTs are dealing with scheduling conflicts, or they're just too busy prioritizing one student and they have to go to the next one and have that cut short. It's just poor quality at that point, and it's leading to the rest of the barriers, like burnout and all that.    Jayson Davies     Was, and I don't know the answer to this one, but was there any responses that anyone recalls where it was actually everyone thought something was broken in relationship to the impact that therapists were having on students that ultimately led to administration and the OT team deciding, hey, we need to change something because OTs not working. Maybe if we use a workload approach, services will be more impactful and more effective. Does anyone recall saying that?    Ari Aguilos     Yeah, I can answer that. So when we asked them what was successful in transitioning, about 20% 23% said that it was administrative support that essentially supported their transition. So like with that, that means that OTs were like initiated, but the administration helped support that change, and from there, they also rated that their perceived client satisfaction improved, or like their perceived like outcomes improved.    Jayson Davies     So yeah, no, I completely hear that. And that's like, what's awesome that we're able to say that there is improvement beyond or once you move to the workload approach, I guess kind of the question is, and I don't know if there was actually data, and this isn't something that we've talked about in one of our meetings before, but I don't know that we had any particular maybe we can go back and look at the data another time, but I don't know if we had, like, Just even one occupational therapist or one participant say, we took data and we found out that our OT services weren't effective, and so we knew that there needed to be a change and like because ultimately, that's what I would love to see. I would love to see an OT department at a school look internally and say, hey, you know what, only 20% or 25% of our kids are meeting their goals, something's got to change. We need to improve ourselves and make a decision based upon that, how they want to improve, because ultimately, things don't typically change unless there is a reason to change. And we've seen with the Surya and Garfinkel research in the past that ot practitioners tend to prefer the case or the workload model versus the caseload model. Our data is basically showing that the same type of things right and that a workload model can be more efficient and less burnout, less stressful than a caseload model. But I feel like administrators really to get on board. And I don't know if any of you heard how OTs got their administrators on board, but I feel like to get administrators on board, they really need something to be they need to see something broken, data to say something broken in order to make that transition. I don't know if anyone has comments based upon what I was just saying.    Ari Aguilos     Other than that, we agree that there's a lot of systemic change that needs to be made.    Jayson Davies     Was that was that addressed? Was systemic change a term used in our survey responses, or something similar?     Ari Aguilos     It was something similar. It was what we found like in our lit review, but that wasn't the focus of the survey.    Jayson Davies     Yeah. Okay, we'll move on here. All right, so we've got our key results right. We know that we need support. We know that we need to work as a team. We know that ot practitioners feel the benefits of using a workload model as opposed to a caseload model. But we also know from that gap, you know, 200 people who wanted to take the survey, versus only 114 who had the workload experience to actually take the survey. That that this large gap of people that aren't using a workload model. So Michelle for school based ot practitioners listening right now and they feel overwhelmed by their caseload, what's one small step that they can take toward transitioning to that workload approach?     Michelle Aquino     Yes, so I feel like my for my recommendation by starting small, such as, like, tracking how you're spending your week, trying to make time to collaborate with the teachers making that time into your schedule, I feel like that's a step that could could help you transition to a workload model. Just by that small step of like, trying to track your time and how you're using your time can really help a lot.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely, as we were just kind of talking about, you've got to have some sort of data to show your administrator that things aren't worth. In, and one thing to track is your time. Some ot practitioners, very few. We track individual student goals, but we don't track our ability support our to support our entire, our entire client caseload. You know, we're not looking at, you know, I have 50 kids, and 85% of them met their goals. That sounds pretty good. But maybe that's another thing that we can look at, is overall goal attainment scaling for our entire program, not just, not just an individual student by student basis. And Ari, what role we talked a little bit about administrators, but what role did administrators play in successful transitions? And how can ot practitioners advocate more effectively to their leadership, to adopt this approach.     Ari Aguilos     So it seemed that administrative support was like one of the leading reasons why there was a successful transition. I would say what that means for those that haven't experienced the workload approach. I feel like, unfortunately, it's up to the school based ot to like, have that open communication, have that if you're able to express your needs, express like, like you said, the data that the system that they're currently using isn't effective towards the students. Ultimately, you want to advocate for the student and their outcomes. So when it comes to speaking to administration, you want to have that information, have that information forward approach when it comes to advocating for yourself and the student.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And Jared, how can workload data, like time studies, documentation of indirect services, things like that, how can they help us to make the case for better staffing and for student outcomes?    Jared Sarmiento     Yes, I can say it's definitely, you know, tracking, workload data tracking, it could definitely be like a power tool, like we said, to like, advocate for themselves and kind of like what they need in order to be successful as a practitioner. You know, by tracking their time and trying to gage of like, how long their indirect services take, it definitely tells a story that the administrative side might not be able to see. You know, if the practitioner goes to the administration and goes, I'm overwhelmed, that's going to be different than them telling them, than the practitioner telling them, oh, I spend 12 hours a week in meetings. I spend 10 hours a week in documentation. Maybe I spend three hours a week also in maybe driving back and forth between, you know, different students or whatnot. You know, overall, that tells a very different narrative, and it kind of kind of leaves room for the administration to kind of get that different perspective, like, Okay, this is what the practitioner needs in order to be successful. Maybe that could be more staff and overall, like that can lead to just better student outcomes, you know?    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, absolutely. As we start to wrap up here, I'm going to ask each of you two questions. I want to I want to hear from, from each of you. The first is looking back as researchers. What's one thing that this study taught each of you about the future of school based OT and what gives you hope for the profession moving forward? I'll go ahead and throw this over to Jared.    Jared Sarmiento     I would say this project Well, overall, it took it taught me a lot, or kind of just taught me, like, the basis of, like, what school based ot really is, because I've heard about occupational therapists being in schools, but I never understood, like, you know, is it them doing their own one on one sessions? Are they in the classroom? So it kind of gave me a better sense of, like, what their goal is, especially in terms of making them successful for their academic career. And I think that biggest thing, like say, like, I'm hopeful for the future school based OTs, kind of like them being recognized, of the impact that they're making for these students to know, I think that's like the biggest thing that's kind of undervalued, and more, the more people I told about my topic or our topic of our thesis, and they went, wow. They're like, Yeah, you know. And there's some people I even met. They're like, you know, I worked with the their a school based ot when I was in school, and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been successful. And I was like, wow. Like, kind of just to understand how big, kind of, like we said that, how big of an impact that they can truly make in terms of student success, you know, their ability, also maybe even their confidence.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah. It's, it's kind of funny you say that because, you know, not everyone goes bragging that they got school based occupational therapy services or school based speech services or anything like that, but we do have an impact on on a substantial amount of the population. Absolutely. Michelle, what about you? What's one thing that this study kind of taught you, especially since you have a little bit of experience within the school realm, what did it teach you about school based? OT, in the future of school based.    Michelle Aquino     for this research, I feel like it taught me a lot. Lot about the differences between how to approach your workload in a more balanced way. Before this, I had no idea that a caseload versus a workload was a thing. I was I was really confused. I remember when I was working with the school based OTs. I did remember them talking about how they would feel so burnt out about having to drive from one school to another. And I feel like for the future of OTs and school based, I feel like there's a more balanced approach uphold and it will be a lot easier to to work under.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, absolutely. And Jaylen, what about you? What's, what's one thing that you know you learned throughout this research about school based occupational therapy?    Jalen Arcadio     To be honest, though, I I didn't have any clue on school based ot to get this whole thing started, like I, I was a coach for a basketball team in high school, and I thought that's those are the extracurriculars, besides teachers and like coaches for sports. But I didn't really understand that there was a whole section for OTs in schools, so that was eye opening for me, and that I learned a lot because I didn't really understand the whole concept until this research.     Jayson Davies     Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, you don't know what you don't know. You don't even know who all is on campus. And a lot of us, we all go through public school about eight, no, not quite 18 years of it, 16, no, not even that. 13 years at least. And we don't even know. Wow, I cannot do math in my head right now. So, yeah, you know you don't know what you don't know. All right, what about you? What's one thing that this study really taught you about school based OT, and maybe the future of school based OT?    Ari Aguilos     I feel like what it taught me is OT. School Based OT is very much in demand in schools, but it's also undervalued a lot of kids, special needs, kids that I've worked with, I see that they would get a lot of value from OT, but even the teachers like they don't necessarily know what OT is. So it makes me hopeful to know that there is a great number of great number of people nationwide that care about school based OTs and that there's a lot of research that can be developed and further looked into, just for everyone in the school system.    Jayson Davies     I felt like that would have been a perfect way to end this podcast, but I have one more question for you all, and that is here. I love that answer, by the way, all right, but if you had unlimited resources available to you now, you just completed this research, you've got information from this research, and you had unlimited resources, time, energy, money, maybe, you know, let's just call it like you're going to go get your PhD in OT, and you're just like, driven by this study and you want to continue this on, what would you want to follow this study up with for another study? What would you want to look into that maybe we weren't able to look into? Or what? What would you want to look into now, knowing what you know about caseloads and workloads, it doesn't have to be a survey. It can be a survey. But maybe you're going into the classrooms. Maybe you're having direct interviews with people. What would you want to do?    Ari Aguilos     I feel like if we had unlimited resources, the ultimate question that we would want to give OTs was, how much is this really costing them, and how much it's really costing administration, as we talk a lot about being information driven, being data driven when it comes to transitioning to from a caseload to a workload, and that, like, ultimately, if we give them the right numbers of saying, like, this is how much it's costing this how much it could save you, I feel like that's a big question that would take a lot of time and money and effort to answer.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, definitely something that the OT practitioners, we often either ignore or don't want to ask, but it's definitely something that administrators, principals, and even at the district level, they're always thinking about money, and so giving them a sense of if it's beneficial financially, could could do wonders. Yeah, Jared, go ahead.    Jared Sarmiento     Oh, yeah. I mean, my answer was pretty much the same. I felt like that was a very common theme that we recognized within our research was, you know, like we said, the hardest, the biggest barrier, was administrative support. But on the other side, for people who had that successful transition, was the facilitator, was the administrative support. So kind of want to understand, like, from the administration side, like, what may prevent you from making that effective transition for the practitioner, you know, like, what's the constraints? Because at the end of the day, there's stuff from a ot side that we don't understand, you know, for them. So it's also, and that's why I talk about kind of like, it has to be a collab. Generation between OT and the administration to kind of find a way that they can like gage and like me in the middle, you know, all right,    Jayson Davies     Michelle, I'm going to come to you in just a second.     Michelle Aquino     I'm going to think back on Jared as well. I feel like there needs to be a lot more research on administrative support. I feel like we didn't really get to see that much while we were collecting data. No, not data itself, but more art research articles on on that topic. So I feel like that would be really important.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, and that was something that I know you all had to do. We talked a little bit about the difficulty finding literature at the beginning, but I know that something I had to tell you all very much upfront was you might have to get outside of the OT literature, and I know you all had to kind of go out into education literature, and you had to go out into like, speech therapy literature to see kind of what they're doing. So yeah, it would be fun to kind of get more insights from the administrators, as I think it was Jared alluded to, like the biggest category for success and the biggest category for failure was administrative support, one way or the other. But what, what constitutes as administrator support for one person might be different for another person. So what? What does administrative support actually look like? All right? And Jaylen, why don't you wrap us up with what, what study you would like to look into with all the information that you now have about our study?    Jalen Arcadio     I'm gonna kind of swerve off to the same section that they've been going off, but I kind of want to see the use of AI in all of this. I kind of want to see the growth of AI being actually used the right way. And this is a great start. If we had unlimited resources, it'd be a great start to try and implement AI into the transition and see how we can show them that it's useful. Because in our research tool, we used it and it was, we used it like properly, and it was a great it shortened a lot of stress and, like, time. So that that was one thing I kind of want to dig deeper on. If there is a tool for all this.    Jayson Davies     Yeah, yeah, and and OT practitioners want a tool that is specific to school based ot from Ai, we've seen that. We've heard that from school based ot practitioners as well, and it's interesting because there's a fear and there's a love for AI, there's a fear for AI, there's ethical concerns related to AI, and we all want to use AI to make our lives easier, but you know, as you mentioned, we need to figure out the right way to do it, and we also need to do it in a way that actually saves us time, not creates more kind of wasteful time spent on trying to use AI when actually it would have been just quicker to write the note on our own, like the way that we usually do it. So, yeah, studying AI and school based ot would be a really, really good one as well. Personally, I would love to kind of dive further into that, that impact on students. You know, I would love to be able to look at maybe a historical review and find 10 therapists to use the caseload model last year and see if their students met their goals, and then two years ahead, if they use a workload approach, or different 10 therapists who are using a workload workload approach and see if their students are meeting their goals. And I don't have the know how to make that possible, but it would be a lot of fun to somehow figure that out, to be able to hopefully maybe show that using a case or using a workload model is not just easier potentially for the therapist, but also more effective for the students that they serve. So yeah, all right. Well, I want to thank you all so much for being here. Jared, Ari, Jaylen, Michelle, thank you all for spending the last nine months or so with me and then this hour or so on the OT school house podcast. Really appreciate it. Congratulations again on wrapping up, and hopefully right around the time this episode is coming out, we get to find out if you'll get to present your information in Anaheim at a ot a best of luck.     Jared Sarmiento     Stay tuned. Thank you. Thank you.     Jalen Arcadio     Thank you.     Michelle Aquino     Thank you so much.    Jayson Davies     And that wraps up episode 189 of the OT school house podcast. I want to extend my sincere thanks to Jalen, Michelle, Jared and Ari for sharing their incredible research on caseload versus workload models, as I mentioned earlier, watching these students grow from having little knowledge of school based ot to conducting meaningful research has been truly rewarding. Their insights into how this transition can help us to reduce burnout, improve service quality and enhance collaboration are truly valuable for our field, and I want to thank them for taking this kind of passion project of mine on Be sure to check out the show notes at OTSchoolHouse.com . Slash episode. 189 where you can view their research poster and dive deeper into their findings. Also, if you're feeling inspired to explore a workload approach in your practice, remember that small steps like tracking your time can make a big difference, and you don't have to make this journey alone. For continued support resources and professional development on topics just like this one, I invite you to join us in the OT squash collaborative. There you'll find a community of school based ot practitioners, as well as our comprehensive caseload to workload workshop designed specifically to support ot practitioners like you make this transition. Additional resources on workload models are also inside of the collaborative, and we would love to have you join, and we would love to support you in your transition from a caseload to a workload model. Head over to OTs schoolhouse.com/collab to learn more about that community and more about the caseload. Course, one more time. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode of the OT schoolhouse podcast.    Amazing Narrator     Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OTs schoolhouse.com . Until next time class is dismissed. Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device. Thanks for listening to the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. A podcast for school-based OT practitioners, by school-based OT practitioners! Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs. Subscribe now! Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here to view more episodes of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast

The community-based learning community for school-based OTPs looking to make an impact! Start feeling Confident in your school-based OT role. The SBOT Collaborative (The Collab) gives you access to practical resources, a supportive community, and AOTA-approved CEUs so you can confidently apply evidence-based practices in your schools. You may be the only OT at your School, but in The Collab, you have a community to lean on! Join 300+ school-based OTPs who are turning professional development into real impact. Explore Membership Options See what’s inside ↓ All The Support You Need - ALL IN ONE PLACE - Save hours every week with ready-to-use tools Explore 100+ ready-to-use resources for school-based OTPs, including referral tools, observation forms, treatment ideas, handouts, and IEP supports. Stop guessing. Get answers that move you forward Get practical support through collaborative learning that helps transform “good ideas” into “real change” for your students & OT program. Learn only what applies to school-based OT Join monthly AOTA-approved sessions and access a growing library of AOTA-approved CEU courses to learn from experts with real SBOT experience. Connect with experienced OTPs solving the same problems you face Join hundreds of OTs & OTAs who understand school-based practice challenges. Share, get feedback, and feel connected in your work. View Membership Options → Join 316 other school-based OTPs Learn, Implement, & Create real changes in your schools. As busy professionals, we often attend a workshop, feel inspired, and then… nothing changes. Caseloads grow, systems get in the way, and our best intentions go nowhere because there’s no time, no support, and no clear path to implementation. In the School-Based OT Collaborative, we’re changing that. We don’t just help you learn best practices. We help you apply them confidently, consistently, and in ways that make a real difference for your students, teachers, and schools. - What Collab Members Are Saying - “I initially joined the OT Schoolhouse Collaborative two years ago for access to relevant CEU courses. What I found was a community of OTs willing to troubleshoot tough cases, share resources, keep me updated on current research and relevant topics, and so much more. I use the resources in the Collaborative far more than I expected, and the value goes way beyond continuing education. ” — Brooke, School-Based OT Here’s how the Collaborative helps you turn learning into action: ✔ Live Collaborative Hours (Group Mentorship) Real-time guidance on your most pressing cases, systems challenges, and school-based OT questions—so you always know your next step. ✔ A library of AOTA-approved professional development CEUs designed specifically for school-based OTPs, not generic PD you’ll never use. ✔ Tools and templates that save time and improve outcomes Evaluations, intervention tools, IEP resources, communication templates, and more—updated and expanded throughout the year. ✔ A community that supports implementation, not just learning You’re no longer the only OT on an island. Connect with colleagues who understand your setting and share solutions that actually work. ✔ Advanced tools to elevate your practice Access the Goal Bank, curated research, AI-powered tools, and the Caseload-to-Workload course to improve your efficiency and advocacy. No more guessing. No more feeling alone. No more sitting on PD notes you’ll never use. The Collaborative gives you the guidance, community, tools, and time-saving support to actually implement what you learn so you can make a meaningful difference for the students and teachers who rely on you. Join The Collaborative Today Join 316 other school-based OTPs Learn from Real OTPs with School-Based Experience Learn with Evidence-Based, School-Based OT Professional Development Grow your knowledge with AOTA-approved courses created specifically for school-based occupational therapy practitioners. From sensory processing to handwriting, evaluations to MTSS, you’ll learn strategies that align with real school environments, not just generic CEUs that don’t apply to your daily work. Our courses are designed to build your confidence, deepen your understanding, and prepare you for meaningful change, all at your own pace. Start with the foundational A-Z School-Based OT Course, or dive directly into 60-90 minute, action-oriented courses from experts and everyday school-based OT practitioners who understand how to support you in your day-to-day struggles. View the entire (and growing) library of courses accessible with your membership This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: January 21, 2026 This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: December 17, 2025 This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: November 19, 2025 Support That Helps You Move Forward With Clarity No more guessing or feeling like the only OTP on an island. Through live Collaboration Hours and Q&A opportunities, you can bring your real cases, questions, and challenges to a supportive community of OTPs who truly understand your work. Get practical guidance and receive the kind of clarity and confidence that only comes from direct mentorship and shared expertise. Get Support with Eveything You Didn't Learn in OT School Inside the school-based OT Collaborative, we support one another with the most difficult questions, like: I have a Tri coming up. Do I need to assess all previous concerns, or only the recent concerns? How do I effectively provide consults? Is this sensory, behavior, or both??? What assessment tools should I order? What is my role as an OT in Middle/High School? These are all real questions we address as a community inside the Collaborative. As a member, you can ask your most pressing questions and get detailed responses from the OT Schoolhouse team and other experienced OT practitioners. Join The Collaborative Today Join 316 other school-based OTPs Ready-to-Use Resources You Can Apply Immediately Professional development is only helpful if it translates into real practice. That’s why both membership tiers include access to practical, ready-to-use resources. So you’re not starting from scratch after every course. Essentials Members Essentials members receive resources directly connected to CEU learning, so what you learn can be applied right away. You’ll get access to: Resources tied to AOTA-approved CEU courses All tools and materials included with the A-Z School-Based OT Course Practical handouts, templates, and examples designed to support course implementation A growing collection of resources added alongside future CEU offerings This tier is ideal if your primary goal is to stay current with evidence-based practice and apply what you learn from CEUs with confidence. Collaborative Members Collaborative members receive full access to the entire OT Schoolhouse library, designed to support every part of school-based OT practice. You’ll have access to: All downloadable templates, tools, and checklists The complete OT Schoolhouse Goal Bank Intervention planning and documentation supports Curated research summaries and evidence resources AI-powered tools to save time and streamline your workflow This tier is designed for OTPs who want ongoing, comprehensive support—not just learning, but full implementation across their OT program. Choose Your Membership Join 300+ other school-based OTPs Purchase Options - Collab Find the Membership that’s Right for You Whether you’re just getting started in school-based OT or looking for CEUs, mentorship, and implementation support, the Collaborative has a membership tier built for your needs. Purchase Options - course Essentials CEUs, core resources, and community for school-based OTPs $249 / year Perfect for OTPs looking to keep up with evidence through school-based specific CEUs and core resources Join Essentials Professional Development: The A–Z School-Based OT Course ($399 value) (9.5 hours of CEUs) Access to past and future live-online and recorded AOTA-Approved CEUs ($1500+ value) Earn 50+ hours worth of CEUs Mentorship: Access to the "OTP Lounge" forum to ask experienced OTPs for support without judgement Resources: Access resources directly tied to accessible CEU courses Not included in Essentials: Live Mentorship Collaboration Hours The Back to School Conference The OT Schoolhouse Goal Bank The Caseload-to-Workload Course Custom-trained AI tools to save you time & energy Our Library of over 100 ready-to-use school-based OT resources most popular Collaborative Full Access to ALL Resources, CEUs, Mentorship, & Back to School Conference $499 / year Designed for OTPs seeking for support implementing the most recent evidence and best practices Join The Collaborative Professional Development: The A–Z School-Based OT Course ($399 value) (9.5 hours of CEUs) Access to Live-online and recorded AOTA-Approved CEUs ($1500+ value) The Back to School Conference ($419 value) The Caseload-to-Workload Course ($299 value) Earn Professional development by listening to the OT Schoolhouse Podcast (ultimate time saver) Mentorship: The "OTP Lounge" to ask experienced OTPs for support without judgement Live-on-Zoom Q&A sessions (Collab Hours) with Jayson and the OTS Team Non-CEU events and discussions (eg. Journal club calls, assessment reviews, etc) Opportunities for 1:1 mentorship calls with Jayson and the OTS Team Resources: Access ALL downloadable templates, tools, & checklists ($299+ value) The OT Schoolhouse Goal & Treatment Bank ($99 value) Curated evidence abstracts and links Access to AI tools to save you time Start simple. Grow when you’re ready. Many school-based OTPs join Essentials for CEUs and core resources, then upgrade to the Collaborative when they want mentorship, advanced tools, the Back to School Conference, and deeper support. Members often tell us the Collaborative is where everything clicks and they finally feel supported as a school-based OT. Purchasing for a District or Therapy Team? We work with districts, counties, and therapy teams to support multiple school-based OTPs. Group pricing and purchase orders are available for both membership tiers. 👉 Click here to learn how Your Community Managers Supporting you to achieve your school-based OT goals, whether you are an experieinced therapist or just getting started in the schools. Jayson Davies, MA, OTR/L Jayson is the host of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast and has been emersed in school-based OT for over a decade. He is a husband, father, and dog dad who loves to spend time with his family. Jayson loves school-based OT because he believes that all students deserve to have access to education no matter their abilities. Jayson aspires to be a school district administrator and have a larger impact on staff development and student success. Favorite OT Model: P-E-O Location: Southern California Pets: TJ, a black lab/staffie Favorite aspect of SBOT Jayson loves seeing teachers have success with students. He believes that it is important for both the student and the teacher, that they succeed together. This builds vital rapport among both individuals. Love of Community As a new therapist, Jayson was fortunate to work in a district where the OTs met monthly. But that didn't happen in his second job. Jayson appreciates the ideas and growth that come as a result of OTs gathering. Interesting fact about Jayson Jayson lacks pain sensation on the left side of his face as a suspected result of trauma to the Trigeminal nerve when he was younger. He attributes this to one of the reasons he wanted to become an OT. Favorite OT Model: Kawa Model Location: Ch icago, Illi nois Favorite Activities: Dancing, outdoor activities, traveling, and reading Chandler Sarkozie Chandler is a student, sister, daughter, and friend. She is currently an occupational therapy student completing Level II fieldwork. She loves children and has worked with them most of her adult life. One of her favorite jobs prior to graduate school was working at a non-profit school for Autism that utilized the DIR/Floortime Model. Chandler aspires to one day develop schools and curriculums in underdeveloped and underserved areas of the United States and other countries. She would incorporate her occupational therapy background, mental health, and additional interprofessional studies to enhance effectively collaborate with all staff and families, which will help improve the outcomes of the students. Interesting facts about Chandler Chandler has been a vegetarian since she was five years old and became vegan a couple of years ago. She has played the violin since she was seven and was a part of her school orchestra for eight years. She has also traveled to over 20 countries and over 20 states. Important FAQs That's a lot of information. Still, you may have questions. Here are some important ones to know about as you consider joining. Is there a cost to joining OTS Collaborative? Yes. The OTS Collab is a paid membership. The annual membership, at $399 per year, offers the best rate. You can also subscribe at a $120 quarterly rate. Members can cancel their subscriptions at any time inside the community or by clicking here . Do I have to participate in all the live events? How much time does this community require? You can spend as much (or as little) time as you'd like in the community. All events are optional and recorded in case you'd like to watch them at a later time. We host three 1-hour live events each month on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. One of the three events is a live AOTA-approved professional development course. Some members attend each of the three live events and post or comment in the community a few times a week. Other members attend some of the events and occasionally post in the community. You get to choose what works best for you. What platform is used for OTS Collab? We did a ton of research on various membership platforms before making our choice. Ultimately, we chose Circle. Think of Circle as a cross between Facebook Groups and LinkedIn, but without the need to have a profile out in the open. Courses and other events are held on Zoom. Does OT Schoolhouse Collaborative include access to the Back to School Conference? It does not. While the OT Schoolhouse Collaborative includes a great amount of support, it does not include admission to the annual Back to School Conference. However, as an OT Schoolhouse Collaborative member, you will be able to save and get the best available price for the Back to School Conference. Once a member, check out the "Start Here" space for more details. Will professional development be AOTA-approved? All live and recorded professional development courses are AOTA-approved. Podcast Courses are the exception. They will not be approved for AOTA credit, but you can still earn a certificate of completion. As a reminder, NBCOT and most states do not require courses to be approved by AOTA. Be sure to check your state guidelines. Can I earn professional development from the podcast without being an OTS Collab member? Yes, you can. However, we feel that the community aspect within OTS Collab helps therapists to incorporate the knowledge they learn into practical use and student outcomes. Can I register via purchase order? Absolutely. We accept purchase orders for annual membership plans. Click here to learn how. What is the refund policy? We do not offer refunds for OTS Collab. However, you may cancel your subscription at any time. Do you have Community Guidelines? Absolutely, we do. You can read them here. Still have questions? Contact us here. OTS Collaborative Community + Professional Development + Mentorship JOIN NOW

A virtual conference for School-Based OTs focusing on supporting all students! - August 2025 Conference Login Register now & get our "AI in SBOT" course for FREE! BACK TO SCHOOL CONFERENCE Professional development & more to kick off the 2025-26 school year. August 23 -24, 2025 Attend live-online or watch on-demand ATTEND THE CONFERENCE Groups & Purchase orders Two days of live & recorded courses Internationally recognized speakers with a passion for SBOT 12 hours of CEUs specific to SBOT Conference Theme OT for One, OT for All In six sessions, we'll address how our ability to support students makes us the perfect providers to support individuals, groups, & entire classrooms NEURO-DIVERSE AFFIRMING TREATMENT SCREEN + TREAT VISION DIFFICULTIES MULTI-TIERED SYSTEM OF SUPPORTS HANDWRITING BEST-PRACTICES INTEROCEPTION IN SCHOOLS AND MORE! Why OTPs love the B2S Conference "This is the 1st conference that provided 100% relevant topics for every presentation. This conference is worth every cent." - Bev Carrasco, school-based OT - Secure your registration today! $419 Your B2S Registration Includes Access to all SIX online B2S Conference Sessions Replay access to all sessions until November 30, 2025 Access to the supportive B2S Community Opportunities to win one of many OT Giveaways Use code EARLYBIRD50 to save $50 Pricing SECURE YOUR SPOT HERE Conference Schedule Times listed in the Pacific Time Zone The OT Schoolhouse is proud to be an AOTA-Approved Provider of Professional Development Presenters & Sessions Interoception, Our Eighth Sense: The Science of How We Uniquely Feel Kelly Mahler OTD, OTR/L The Interoception Curricullum Respecting the Evidence: Handwriting & Advocacy for 2025 Margaret (Peggy) Morris OTD, OTR/L, BCP Experienced school-based OT practitioner & Educator What's Energy Got to Do with It? Supporting Regulation in Affirming and Accessible Ways Amy Laurent PhD, OTR/L Autism Level UP Jacquelyn Fede PhD Autism Level UP Empowering Futures: Promoting Self-Determination & Preparing Students for Life Jan Hollenbeck OT, OTD, OTR, FAOTA Partnership for Advancement of School Service-Providers (PASS) Self-Regulation and Interoception in MTSS Alex Thompson B.A, CYC, Min Kin, B.ECE, MOT Power For All Adventure Therapy The OTP's Role in School-based Supporting Functional Vision Difficulties Jaime Spencer MS, OTR/L Miss Jaime, OT Register now to secure the lowest conference attendance rate! SECURE YOUR SPOT Great Value! This conference is designed for you as a school-based OT and every session has been researched, vetted, and hand-selected by Jayson to be relevant for school-based OT practitioners looking to support students in the least restrictive environment. Each presenter has over a decade of experience and demonstrates the ethical decision-making you expect from the OT Schoolhouse! On top of a curated schedule of sessions, you will have the opportunity to earn 12 hours of professional development in just one weekend! "I love this conference." "I love this conference. I think all school-based therapists should attend because all the information is relevant to our daily practice. Every lesson has big takeaways. It is worth every dollar!" - Audrey White, OTR/L - Previous B2S Conference Attendee $419 Your B2S Registration Includes Access to all SIX online B2S Conference Sessions Replay access to all sessions until November 30, 2025 Access to the supportive B2S Community Opportunities to win one of many OT Giveaways Use code EARLYBIRD50 to save $50 SECURE YOUR SPOT HERE Pricing Session Information Interoception, Our Eighth Sense: The Science of How We Uniquely Feel Interoception is a crucial sensory system that allows us to perceive internal body signals, helping us identify and manage our feelings, such as anxiety or hunger. This course will explore the latest research on interoception, its impact on neurodivergent students or those who have experienced trauma, and its relevance in the context of post-pandemic recovery. Participants will learn evidence-based strategies to enhance interoceptive awareness in three key areas: body, emotion, and action. Self Regulation and Interoception in MTSS This interactive and experiential workshop will help you re-imagine the delivery of programs to address self-regulation and interoception in the MTSS framework. Using strategies from nature-based research, we'll address how OT practitioners can use nature to impact self-regulation in the classroom What's Energy Got to Do with It? Supporting Regulation in Affirming and Accessible Ways This workshop will introduce regulation supports developed by Autism Level UP! Participants will have opportunities to apply the tools and strategies presented with opportunities to consider the tools for children with regulatory challenges that they teach or with whom they work, live and/or play. Modifications for the supports will be discussed for individuals at a variety of developmental levels (e.g., students who are not yet communicating using words, those who are emerging language learners, and those who are conversational). Empowering Futures: Promoting Self-Determination and Preparing Students for Life Occupational therapy practitioners play a vital role in preparing students with disabilities for meaningful, independent lives. Empowering Futures is designed to equip school-based OTPs with the knowledge and tools to promote self-determination, support post-secondary transition planning, and engage key stakeholders—students, families, and educational teams. Grounded in IDEA’s purpose and best practices, this course emphasizes early, intentional, and inclusive approaches to building self-awareness, advocacy, and life skills from early childhood through age 22 and beyond. Participants will explore strategies for embedding life-readiness goals into everyday school experiences. Respecting the Evidence: Handwriting & Advocacy for 2025 Current evidence strongly supports the notion that occupation-based approaches are the most effective for improving handwriting skills. It is essential to reflect on both the evidence and our current practices, as this reflection will guide us in creating an impactful script to share this important shift with others. Together we can close the gap in handwriting proficiency! The time for action is now. The OTP's Role in School-based Supporting Functional Vision Difficulties This presentation will explore the critical role of school-based occupational therapists in identifying and supporting students with functional vision difficulties. Participants will learn how to integrate vision support strategies within Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) to promote student success across all levels of intervention. Register now to ensure access to all 6 growth-focused sessions! SECURE YOUR SPOT Conference Objectives Participants will: Describe how occupational therapy supports diverse learners’ engagement and participation in individual and classroom educational settings. Identify evidence-based strategies to enhance self-regulation, interoception, and functional skills that improve student occupational performance. Explain collaborative and inclusive approaches to promote self-determination, life readiness, and vision support within a multi-tiered system of support. View All Session Objectives Here "What a great conference" "What a great conference on expanding our collaborative practices in our school settings with all of our teams. I will definitely be using all of the tools, and strategies learned here with my students, teams, and schools! Thank you to Jayson and all of the incredible speakers who presented and for their time, talents, and expertise!" - Previous B2S Conferenc e Attendee - ATTEND THE CONFERENCE Audience & Education Level The OT Schoolhouse Back To School Conference is intended for current school-based occupational therapy practitioners. The conference consists of introductory and intermediate-level courses. No prerequisite courses are required, but one should have a general understanding of OT in the schools. 2025 Conference Theme OT for One, OT for ALL At this year's Back to School Conference, we're highlighting the role of Occupational Therapy in enhancing learning for both individuals and groups. Since 1976, OT practitioners have leaned heavily on individual services. But in today's world of education, we must be able to support individuals, groups, and entire classroom populations through the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework. By collaborating with educators, we can create an inclusive environment that addresses the diverse needs of students both on and off our caseload. Get practical insights on effective handwriting techniques and early screening methods that help identify student needs. Together, we can provide targeted support that empowers every learner to thrive. Join us in creating an educational environment where all students succeed! This conference is your opportunity to discover strategies that make a lasting impact. Session Handouts & Replays For each session, handouts will be made available to download and print prior to the start of the conference . Participants will be able to download and print the slide and supplemental materials in the conference Portal one week before the conference. Replays of each session will be available for four months. As a registered conference attendee, you will have access to the conference handouts, session video replays, and course community until November 30, 2025. Community Engagement What's a conference without the networking and sharing of ideas? In addition to lively, interactive presentations, there will be designated times for live Q+A sessions with the presenters. Likewise, we will have an online space dedicated to discussions related to the content of our guest speakers. You'll also have the opportunity to engage with other like-minded OTPs. Join me and hundreds of other School-Based OTPs advancing our clinical skills This conference is designed for you as a school-based OT practitioner. Every speaker and presentation has been researched, vetted, and hand-selected to be relevant to the school-based OT practitioner who wants to help diverse learners access the least restrictive environment. Each presenter has years of experience and has demonstrated the ethical decision-making you'd expect from the OT Schoolhouse! At the OT Schoolhouse, we understand the intricacies of school-based OT and know the therapists and topics you want to learn more about. Register now to secure your spot! REGISTER NOW Important Dates July 16 Last day for Early Bird Pricing July 16th is the last day to save $50 using code EARLYBIRD50 Register now! Aug 23 Conference Kick Off! Join us live in the Back to School Conference community to learn and grow together! Don't Miss Out! NOV 30 Replays Available Until November 30 Get access to the replays until November 30. That is a full 3 months to watch (or rewatch) all six sessions. Register now! Conference Attendee Disclaimer/Agreement By registering for or attending any event or activity associated with the OT Schoolhouse: Back To School Conference, I agree to the following: Professional Development/Information Disclaimer The Back to School Conference is a virtual event for professional development, networking, and OT Schoolhouse business purposes. The material presented is not intended to represent the only or the best methods appropriate for the occupational therapy and/or medical condition or professional development issues being discussed but rather is intended to present the opinions of the presenters, which may be helpful to other health care professionals at arriving at their own conclusions and consequent application. In order to earn a certificate of completion for each session, attendees will be required to watch speaker-led sessions and pass a proficiency quiz for each session with a score of 75% or greater. Financial and Non-financial Disclaimers Jayson Davies owns Schoolhouse Education, LLC, the parent company of the OT Schoolhouse. Speakers at the Back to School Conference are paid for their professional presentation. Speakers may discuss other programs with which they are affiliated and earn a commission and/or other compensation. Speakers may be affiliates for the Back to School Conference and may earn a commission when learners register for the Back to School Conference. Public Relations Agreement Registration and attendance at, or participation in, Back To School Conference meetings and other activities constitutes an agreement by the registrant for Schoolhouse Education, LLC’s use and distribution (both now and in the future) of the registrant or attendee’s image, voice, and survey responses in photographs, videotapes, electronic/print reproductions, and audiotapes of such events and activities. Waiver of Liability Agreement I release the Back to School Conference, Schoolhouse Education, LLC, OT School House, and its staff, presenters, and any other individuals or entities associated with the Back To School Conference from any and all liability connected with my participation, as well as from any liability related to changes to the schedule, events or activities. I acknowledge and agree that I am participating on my own choice and assume all risk in connection thereof and that in the event that a need for emergency medical service arises, I authorize and consent to such services being provided at my own expense. Attendees participating in this professional development education program do so with full knowledge that they waive any claim they may have against the Back to School Conference, Schoolhouse Education, LLC, and OT Schoolhouse and its staff or representatives for reliance on any information presented during these educational activities. Refund Policy If Schoolhouse Education, LLC receives notice of cancellation before the start of the conference, a refund, less $50 per person administrative fee, will be issued. Refunds will not be processed until after the conference. Request a refund. Cancelation Policy In the event that Schoolhouse Education, LLC cancels the event for any reason, participants will be offered the choice of a full refund or, when applicable, a credit toward the rescheduled event. Purchase Order & Group Registration Schoolhouse Education, LLC welcomes Purchase Orders (POs) and Group orders for the Back to School Conference. You may submit a purchase order here. A W-9 can also be found on the purchase order submission page. Interested in Sponsoring the Back To School Conference? Email us! Past Sessions & Speakers The Intersection Between Sensory, Trauma, and Neurology Dr. Varleisha Lyons Providing Sensory Supports Across All Educational Settings: From Least to Most Restrictive Dr. Danielle Delorenzo, MS, OTR/L, RYT-200 My Bui-Lewis, MS, OTR/L, AT, RYT-200 ADL + IADL = A Big Deal Deborah Schwind, DHSc, OTR/L, BCP, SCSS, FAOTA School Sensory Rooms: A Guide for Teachers and Therapists Adam Griffin, OTR AKA @Adam_the_OT Trying Differently: ADHD Informed Classroom Support and Strategies Lori Flynn, MS, OTR/L Using AOTA EBP and Knowledge Translation Resources in the School Systems Susan Cahill, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA Re-Framing Behavior: How Understanding Felt Safety, Regulation, and a Child’s Sensory Needs Can Help OTs Move Educators From “Managing” Behavior to Improving It Greg Santucci, MS, OTR Harnessing our Strengths: How Occupational Therapy Improves Post-school Outcomes for Youth with Disabilities Theresa Carlson Carroll, OTD, OTR/L, CLA And More!

Find courses specific to school-based OT practitioners Courses Included with an OTS Collaborative Membership The OT Schoolhouse Collaborative is our premium membership community where school-based OT practitioners learn and grow together. Members of OTS Collab receive complimentary access to the following live and recorded courses and other monthly programming events designed to help you support your students more effectively. Learn more about OTS Collaborative Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: January 21, 2026 Learn More This course focuses on practical tools for intervention to improve transition related outcomes for students on your caseload. The course will highlight the role of occupational therapy in delivering interventions related to self-determination, pre-vocational training, and exposure to employment. Additionally, the course will identify ways to engage with key stakeholders including parents and teachers to assist in positive transition services for middle school and high school students. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: December 17, 2025 Learn More This course explores the evolving landscape of school-aged mental health in a post-COVID world and the expanding role of occupational therapy in supporting students’ emotional, behavioral, and functional participation. Drawing from Dr. Monica Keen’s clinical experience and her doctoral capstone research on interprofessional mental health collaboration, this session examines current mental-health trends, trauma-informed care, behavior changes following the pandemic, and evidence-aligned OT strategies for school settings. Participants will learn practical, occupation-based approaches for addressing emotional regulation, engagement, and school participation within a tiered model of support. The course concludes with collaborative discussion and actionable steps for strengthening OT’s role in school-based mental health. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: November 19, 2025 Learn More This course equips school-based occupational therapy practitioners with a practical, ready-to-use framework to stay organized, efficient, and confident throughout the academic year. Participants will gain access to structured checklists for onboarding, daily operations, and year-end transitions, as well as clear guidelines for referrals and discharge planning. Designed specifically for the school setting, the course empowers OTs to streamline documentation, collaborate effectively with teams, and deliver services that are occupation-based and educationally relevant. By taking this course, practitioners will feel more prepared, supported, and aligned with best practices in school-based OT. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hours in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: October 16, 2025 Learn More This session offers an in-depth exploration of the Sensory Pyramid of Learning, breaking down each tier to examine how foundational sensory and motor skills influence student behavior. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how challenges at different levels of the pyramid can manifest in the classroom, affecting attention, emotional regulation, and overall academic performance. Practical strategies for identifying and addressing these challenges will be discussed, empowering educators to create more supportive and effective learning environments. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: September 18, 2025 Learn More Everyday Ethics in School-Based OT: Navigating Challenges with Clarity & Confidence equips school-based occupational therapists with the tools to confidently address real-world ethical dilemmas that arise in educational settings. Through case studies, decision-making frameworks, and updated guidance from AOTA, FOTA, and state-level regulations, participants will strengthen their ability to apply ethical principles to complex situations involving service delivery, documentation, advocacy, and the use of emerging tools like AI. This course enhances professional judgment, reduces uncertainty when facing ethical pressures, and promotes alignment with best practices and legal requirements. Ultimately, attendees will leave with actionable strategies to advocate for ethical change within their districts while maintaining student-centered, legally compliant, and neurodiversity-affirming care. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: September 4, 2025 Learn More Building on the foundational assessment principles from Part 1, this course explores the continuum of assistive technology (AT) tools available to support student participation and access in the school environment. Participants will examine a range of AT solutions, from no-tech adaptations to high-tech computer-based tools, and learn how to match these interventions to student needs. The session will also address the occupational therapist’s role in AT implementation, including collaboration, training, and progress monitoring. Through interactive discussions and case studies, attendees will gain practical strategies for integrating AT into daily routines and educational goals. By the end of the course, therapists will be prepared to effectively support students in utilizing AT for greater independence and academic success. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: August 28, 2025 Learn More This course provides school-based occupational therapy professionals with the knowledge and skills to assess and consider assistive technology (AT) solutions for students with diverse needs. Participants will explore the assessment process, including identifying student abilities, environmental factors, and task demands to determine appropriate AT supports. The course will cover best practices in collaboration with educators, families, and other team members to ensure successful AT integration. Case studies and hands-on activities will enhance practical application, empowering therapists to make informed decisions that promote student participation and independence. By the end of the course, attendees will be equipped with effective strategies for AT assessment and implementation within the school setting. Price Free for members of the OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hours in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: July 16, 2025 Learn More By taking this course, occupational therapy practitioners will be able to analyze national K-3rd grade academic standards and complete a crosswalk with required sensorimotor abilities for students to meet these demands. Furthermore, OT's will leave this course being able to assess and provide interventions embedded within the MTSS format to support student success through addressing foundation sensory perceptual and motor skills whether it be for a classroom, group or individual need. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hours in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: June 25, 2025 Learn More This course will focus on the EMPOWER model, a neurodiversity-focused occupational therapy framework designed to support school-based practice. Participants will learn how to apply the model to better understand and address the lived experiences of neurodivergent students. The session will cover strategies for conducting meaningful assessments, applying models of disablement within school settings, and identifying interventions that are neurodiversity-affirming. By using the EMPOWER model, school-based OTs will gain tools to promote neurodivergent well-being, advocate for anti-ableist practices, and empower students to thrive in an educational environment. This approach encourages practitioners to reflect on their practices and amplify the voices of neurodivergent students, helping them navigate and succeed in a world that can often be disabling. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: May 15, 2025 Learn More Social and emotional development supports a child's occupational engagement in all settings. Occupational therapy practitioners' holistic approach to prevention and positive mental health promotion is ideal for bolstering each core competency of social-emotional learning as defined by CASEL. This presentation will highlight how pediatric occupational therapy practitioners can use evidence-based interventions in each stage of childhood to promote social and emotional development while utilizing a public health, trauma-responsive, and relational (rather than behavioral) approach. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: February 27, 2025 Learn More With increasing workloads, occupational therapy practitioners must utilize existing resources in new ways to support all learners. Balancing the expectations of school-based practice, OTPs often miss recent research and practice trends. Using an OT lens, student support capacity can be enhanced through collaboration and coaching between OTPs and educators through knowledge translation (KT). This presentation will identify ways for OTPs to apply at least one KT strategy within their own schools through the MTSS process. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: January 22, 2025 Learn More As we continue to decrease children’s time and space to move and play outdoors, we are seeing a simultaneous rise in the number of children that are presenting with sensory and motor deficits. At the same time, classroom teachers are observing more and more children having trouble with attention, falling out of their seats in school, increased clumsiness, and even aggressiveness with games like tag on the playground. So, how can we reverse this alarming trend of sensory and motor issues in children? How can we ensure that children are fully engaging their body, mind, and all of their senses? Using the same philosophy that lies at the heart of her popular TimberNook program—that nature is the ultimate sensory experience, and that psychological and physical health improves for children when they spend time outside on a regular basis—Angela Hanscom offers several strategies to help children thrive in outdoor environments using a therapeutic approach to nature play. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: December 19, 2024 Learn More This professional development course explores new insights into autism through the lens of the "intense world" theory. Participants will engage with contemporary perspectives on autism, including challenges related to sensory overload, emotional intensity, and the societal pressures of masking. The course focuses on supporting neurodiverse individuals in educational and social contexts, emphasizing authentic self-expression and meaningful participation. Through interactive discussions, participants will gain practical tools to enhance their ability to support autistic clients while fostering inclusive environments. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: November 12, 2024 Learn More This course will guide occupational therapy Practitioners in assessing fine motor skills by focusing on five often-overlooked areas that provide critical insights into a student's needs and strengths. Participants will learn how to incorporate these key areas into evaluations and reports to better inform intervention strategies. Practical techniques for gathering and applying this information will be shared, empowering OTPs to enhance their assessments. The one-hour presentation offers actionable steps to improve understanding and support of students in school settings. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: October 23, 2024 Learn More Join us as Jayson Davies explores how AI tools can enhance assessment, intervention, and documentation processes to empower OT practitioners to increase student independence and save time. Also, discover innovative use cases for Artificial Intelligence in school-based OT. Tune in to stay ahead of the curve and use this innovative technology in your OT practice! Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: October 15, 2024 Learn More Join us for an engaging panel discussion featuring occupational therapy professionals Kelsey Kornaus, and Jayson Davies as they share their top strategies for a successful start to the school year. Whether you’re a veteran therapist or new to the school environment, this session is designed to equip you with practical tips and insider knowledge to navigate the unique challenges of school-based practice. In this session, they will dive deep into essential topics, including effective caseload management, building strong collaborative relationships with educators and Parents. You'll also gain insights into organizing your time, handling the unexpected, and more! Don’t miss this opportunity to kickstart your school year with confidence and a clear plan. Get ready to leave with actionable strategies that will set you up for success for this school year! Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 2 hour in length. (0.2 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: August 21, 2024 Learn More Sensory integrative processing is foundational to how we learn about our bodies, engage with the environment, interact with others, make meaning out of activities, produce motor responses, and participate in learning. It also has direct links with our regulation and influences our behavior. Yet, deciphering sensory integrative processing-- and the 8 sensory systems that includes-- can be quite challenging. What does sensory integrative processing actually involve? Why is it so vital for behavior responses, emotional regulation, and learning? How can you better understand and influence the sensory integrative processing needs of students, and yourself, to provide occupational therapy services? In our time together we will explore these questions and many more so you will be better equipped to recognize nuances of sensory differences, how a student's emotional regulation holds the key to understanding sensory differences, provide accommodations and adaptations for students with various sensory needs, and utilize another tool by which to view behavior! Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 2 hour in length. (0.2 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: July 24, 2024 Learn More Sensory integrative processing is foundational to how we learn about our bodies, engage with the environment, interact with others, make meaning out of activities, produce motor responses, and participate in learning. It also has direct links with our regulation and influences our behavior. Yet, deciphering sensory integrative processing-- and the 8 sensory systems that includes-- can be quite challenging. What does sensory integrative processing actually involve? Why is it so vital for behavior responses, emotional regulation, and learning? How can you better understand and influence the sensory integrative processing needs of students, and yourself, to provide occupational therapy services? In our time together we will explore these questions and many more so you will be better equipped to recognize nuances of sensory differences, how a student's emotional regulation holds the key to understanding sensory differences, provide accommodations and adaptations for students with various sensory needs, and utilize another tool by which to view behavior! Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 2 hour in length. (0.2 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: June 26, 2024 Learn More As an occupational therapy Practitioner (OTP), understanding sensory processing is crucial in assessing and addressing the diverse needs of individuals. In part 1 of this course, we will discuss the eight sensory systems, including the classic five (vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell) as well as the less-known vestibular, proprioceptive, and interoceptive systems. Participants will learn how sensory information is processed in the areas of modulation, discrimination, and integration, influencing individuals' responses and behaviors. OTPs will gain skills in identifying sensory processing challenges and implementing effective interventions tailored to each individual's sensory profile. By the end of the course, participants will be equipped with a comprehensive understanding of sensory processing and its impact on occupational performance across the lifespan. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: May 15, 2024 Learn More Non-academic times of the school day, can be significant contributors to student mental and physical health. Conditions that promote positive mental health include participation in enjoyable activities within caring environments that foster positive emotions (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2018). When students participate in and enjoy healthy recess and after-school leisure activities, have good friends, and perceive school personnel to be supportive, they feel more connected to school which, in turn, enhances academic performance. The aims of this session are to provide detailed information about how to implement the Refreshing Recess (RR) programs emphasizing inclusive participation, friendship promotion, mealtime conversations, healthy eating, and active play; and describe a tiered approach to Making Leisure Matter during after-school times. OTPs will be able to use the Every Moment Counts website to implement Refreshing Recess and promote leisure participation within a tiered model. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: April 17, 2024 Learn More This course describes concepts and strategies from the Size Matters Handwriting Program, a proven curriculum-based approach to teaching handwriting. Proficient writing skills are fundamental for every student, constituting a vital life skill. Writing offers enduring advantages to children, allowing them to showcase their understanding in academic settings, equipping them for prosperous careers ahead, and granting them the ability to articulate their thoughts, emotions, perspectives, and concepts with confidence. Fun ideas will be presented for many subjects to promote peer mentorship, self- monitoring and self-advocacy, as well as functional, legible printing across the curriculum. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: March 18, 2024 Learn More This course offers a deep dive into occupational therapy interventions for teens and young adults in school settings, focusing on executive function difficulties. Participants will learn about identifying and assessing executive function challenges, and the practical application of evidence-based strategies tailored to this age group. Emphasis is placed on collaborative approaches that integrate school, home, and community resources to support students' executive skills. Through a blend of theoretical understanding and case studies, the course equips practitioners with the tools to foster independence, academic success, and smoother transitions to adulthood for students with executive function deficits. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: February 20, 2024 Learn More Sensory modulation, defined as the ability to respond appropriately to sensory information and remain at an appropriate level of alertness, is critical for academic and social success. Research shows that modulation is a skill that can be taught. When viewed within a larger educational framework, sensory modulation is seen as a component of emotional regulation and social-emotional learning. This webinar covers the evidence supporting instruction in sensory modulation, basic concepts and terminology to be used in this instruction, and a specific curriculum available to ensure success in this endeavor. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: January 17, 2024 Learn More Join us for an interactive webinar focused on enhancing writing skills and progress monitoring for students of all backgrounds and abilities. Writing is an essential skill, and every student should be empowered to express their thoughts and ideas effectively. We'll touch upon the Universal Design for Learning concept and introduce various methods of writing. Dive into inclusive strategies for diverse classroom settings and explore efficient progress monitoring. Equip yourself with tools to boost effective communication and writing in students; have pen and paper ready for interactive segments. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: December 13, 2023 Learn More In this 1-hour course, you will learn the five key aspects of a valuable and efficient, top-down, school-based OT evaluation. We will discuss the exact steps you can follow from the point you receive the referral to the point that you are ready to present your findings. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: November 14, 2023 Learn More Do your pediatric clients depend on others to get through their school day? Are they reliant on prizes or adults to be motivated to accomplish tasks? Learned helplessness is a big problem for many children and there is a better way! This course will offer concrete strategies that can be included in current therapy interventions to help clients grow up into self-determined adults. In addition to getting them engaged and motivated, higher levels of self-determination are correlated with positive school, employment and independent living outcomes. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: October 10, 2023 Learn More Occupational Therapy Practitioners possess strongholds of sensory processing and underlying neurological processes, They understand constructs from contemporary neuroscience, illuminating the essential role of the vestibular system for neural networking that supports learning and communication. Learners of this course will receive theoretical foundations as well as evidence from contemporary neuroscience so that they will expand their understanding of how the interventions support the mechanism of change - neuroplasticity, which results from the vestibular activation in an otherwise underperforming vestibular system. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1.5 hour in length. (0.15 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: September 21, 2023 Learn More Effectively navigating the RTI process will allow support for students, teachers and families as well as impact the appropriateness of related service referrals. Increase your knowledge of the RTI process through the history, federal and state law, and tiered components. Learn to incorporate specific, increasing intensity of instruction with evidence-based interventions to match a students needs within each tier. These supports may increase a student's success within the general education curriculum and the need for referrals to a specialized instructional service. Incorporating successful strategies for communication and advocacy with leadership, time management, and resources for therapeutic interventions may break down barriers. The result is a win-win for the administration, therapist, teacher, and student. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: August 16, 2023 Learn More Dr. Gibbs provides an overview of Trauma Informed Care and introduces the ACTION from Trauma Approach. The approach maps out neurological connections to further enhance understanding of the underlying mechanisms influencing behavior following exposure to trauma. Price Free for members of OTS Collaborative Duration This course is 1 hour in length. (0.1 AOTA CEUs) Live (recorded) on: July 20, 2023 Learn More At this point, virtually everyone has heard that mindfulness is a tool for mental health, and you may have even tried meditation or yoga for yourself. Mindfulness practices are increasingly being introduced into educational programs, and for good reason because the research is mounting for the positive impact on children and the professionals that serve them. In this introductory course, you will learn about the evidence for using mindfulness for children, teachers, and children in particular. You will learn about the brain science that links mindfulness and executive function. Lastly, you will walk away with some practices that you can bring to the classroom that will be as good for you as they are for the students you serve. Learn more

Join us as Jayson Davies, MA, OTR/L, shares how AI tools can support school-based OT assessments, interventions, and documentation processes. By using AI to reduce the hours we spend on paperwork, we increase the amount of time we spend with our students. We'll cover current and evolving research, ethical considerations, and practical use cases for AI in school-based OT. Also, discover innovative use cases for Artificial Intelligence in school-based OT through an interactive demonstration. Stay ahead of the curve and use this innovative technology in your OT practice!