OTS 55: Back To School Plans During a Pandemic - Part 2
- Jayson Davies
- Aug 16, 2020
- 47 min read
Updated: 6 hours ago
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On this special event episode of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, Jayson welcomes to the show occupational therapists, Jaime Spencer, OTR/L, and Billy Hatridge, OTR/L In this episode, Jayson, Jaime, and Billy discuss what the looming return to the 2020-21 school may look like in our districts and how we are planning for them. We discuss how evaluations, treatments and IEP meetings will all be very different, even from how they were at the end of the 2020 school year. We also spend some time advocating for our profession and a workload model in schools.
Above, you can watch the full, unedited Facebook video or you can listen to the audio only version on the OT School House podcast using the player at the top of the page or where ever you listen to podcasts.
Links to Show References:
Visit Jaime's website at MissJaimeOT.com
Check out Billy's website at TheOTDad.com
A-Z School-based OT Course - An original OT Schoolhouse Course created and taught by Jayson on almost every aspect of School-Based OT. USe promo code "backtoschool" for 10% off!
Also referenced in this episode:
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.
Have any questions or comments regarding our podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
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Episode Transcript
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Jayson Davies
Hey everyone, and welcome to episode 55 of the OT school house podcast. My name is Jason Davies, and I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. This is an exciting time for a school based OTs. We are getting back to work. I actually went to work about a week and a half ago. Is when I got started back. And you know, this is just an exciting time. We we get to go to target, and we get to find cool erasers and whatever new cool gadgets they have in that little used to be called the dollar spot. Not anymore. Now it's more like the $3 spot. But anyways, you know, this is an exciting time for us. We get to get back to work. We get to find out what our caseload looks like, what our workload looks like. We get to see what classrooms, what teachers we're working with, and even more importantly, today, we get to find out if we're working from our home or from our room on campus, and that's exactly why we are here today. This is the second part of our two part series in back to school during a pandemic with occupational therapists from around the country, and today we have on two very special occupational therapists. Actually, they're both veterans of the OT school house podcast. We have Miss Jamie Spencer from Miss Jamie OT, and we also have Billy hattridge from the OT dad. So both of them have been on the podcast before. You'll probably recognize their voices once they get going. You might even follow them on Instagram or Facebook or wherever you might follow other occupational therapists. All right, so real quick before we dive in to today's lesson with Jamie and Billy, I just wanted to really quickly and briefly let you all know that the recorded version of the A to Z school based ot course is now available at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash a to the number 2z and this course is going to be great. Whether you are a brand new school based OT or an experienced school based occupational therapist. This is going to be fantastic. We are going to talk about everything from RTI to the referral process, the evaluation process of a student, how to determine what goals should be included, what services, the amount of services to include. I'm going to give you a little flow chart to figure that out. We're going to go through all of that, and then after that, we're going to go through the intervention plan, how to put together an intervention plan for success so that you can help that student make progress. And of course, you can't do that without having your your data tracking and progress reports and all that good stuff. So we're going to go through all of that eventually culminating in an efficient and a ethical graduation of services from occupational therapy for a student. This is like we're chronologically following a student through the entire ot process. On top of that, you're going to receive more than 25 editable handouts and resources, such as my evaluation template, that you're free to use and manipulate as you need. And then finally, the best part of the course is that it continues on. There is no end to this course. Yes, it's eight hours of content, but after that, or even even during that, I'm going to be holding Live Office Hours on Thursdays that you are more than welcome to attend. In fact, I would love for you to attend these office hours on Thursdays. This is your time to ask questions. Since this is not a live course, I'm going to be holding these Live Office Hours on Thursdays to answer any questions that may be really about anything ot related, whether it's about coming back during a pandemic, or how to exit a student when they have below average scores on the bot. That's what this course is for. That's what those Live Office Hours are for. So if you're interested in joining me or just learning more about this course, head on over to OT schoolhouse.com forward slash a the number 2z or you can just head on over to OT schoolhouse.com and click on the professional development tab at the top, and you'll be directed to learn more about this course right there. All right, so I hope to see you potentially over there. But either way, let's get into today's content with Jamie and Billy. This is the second part of our two part series in back to school plans during a pandemic. So let's Cue the intro music, and then we will dive right into it. See you in just a second.
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
Hey everyone, and welcome back. This is going to be a great episode. This is the second part in our back to school during a pandemic series that we're doing here at the OT school house podcast. And I want to say a special thank you so much for being here to Jamie Spencer of Miss Jaime OT and, of course, Billy hatridge of the OT Dad. Thank you so much for coming on. And let's go ahead and get started. Let's say Miss Jaime. How are you doiang this morning?
Jaime Spencer
I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Jayson Davies
Doing fantastic. And Jamie, how about you go ahead and tell us where you practice occupational therapy. And, yeah, just start with that.
Jaime Spencer
So I'm a school based occupational therapist in Long Island, New York.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. And when are you guys heading back to school?
Jaime Spencer
Well, it's the board just approved that our students aren't going to come back until September 8, so they postponed it a little bit. But the teachers, I'm not sure the exact date, to be honest, because I've been avoiding thinking about it. But we're going back a little bit earlier in order to do some training in we're going to Google. We're going to be using Google classrooms across the district, so they're bringing us back a little earlier to, you know, just ensure everything's good with COVID, and make sure that we all have the proper training and all that.
Jayson Davies
Awesome, perfect. And Billy, what about you? Tell us, sir, remind us where you're located. And just a little quick update on the district, we're going to go more into details, but just a quick update.
Billy Hatridge
Yes, I'm here in southwest Arkansas, in our OT team, we cover nine school districts throughout five counties, and so we've got a lot of variety there. And for the state, we're all looking at coming back on the 24th of August. So that's, you know, in just a couple of weeks, but that's going to be kind of staggered. But yeah, that's what we're looking as far as the timeline, the 24th.
Jayson Davies
Great. Well, this is going to be interesting for those of you who were listening to the previous episode that we did about back to school plans during a pandemic we had on Olivia and Kate Dakota, and Olivia was going back more in the distance learning model, and Kate wasn't quite sure her district hadn't given her many updates on what was going on at that point, but they were thinking maybe hybrid. I'm excited today, because I've already talked a little bit to Billy and Jamie, and it sounds like they might be going full time back. So if this is you out there an occupational therapist that is going back to the schools full time, this is the place to be right now. So whether you're watching live right now, or listening to the podcast, you are in the right place to be. So let's go ahead and get started. Billy, what were your initial reactions when you found out what the district's plans were?
Billy Hatridge
Mixed. You know, I'm eager to get back into the school and eager to get it back to work. You know, our kids have gone almost six months now without any kind of therapy. A lot of our kids anyways, we here with our clinic the way that we have two satellite clinics, and so we've been able to see some kids via outpatient during the summer, and that's helped. But it's just about getting back to these kids who have been in such a desperate need for for the service that we provide. So I'm just eager to get back into it and to stop kind of kicking the can down the road, and just figure this stuff out.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely And what about you, Jamie, what were your initial reactions when you kind of heard what was all going on?
Jaime Spencer
Well, I actually was on the committees, the reopening committees for my school district. So my school district has been really working hard to try to make sure that all the bases are covered. And we had three separate plans, you know, depending on what was going on and also for what will happen in the future. So we came up with a going back full time plan, a hybrid plan, and then a, you know, 100% remote plan. So I thought that was great, because, I mean, the parents want to go back and school teachers administrators want to go back, but if it's not safe, we can't. So I thought it was good to have that mix. My district, the elementary school, kindergarten to sixth grade are going to be going back full time, but then seventh and eighth and high school will be alternating remote and, you know, in person, and then every single child has the option to be remote 100%
Jayson Davies
Wow. Okay, so I'm just gonna start with some information from my district. They initially gave students or parents the option to either do a hybrid model, so half, you know, like two cohorts coming in two days a week, or something like that. And then a distance learning model, they found that about 75% preferred the hybrid, and about 25% wanted to go the distance learning route. What do you think that means as far as special education? And do you think that we might have more students on Special Education coming back more that are on special education, staying in the distance learning model. Jamie, it sounds like your kids might have some options. So what do you think about as far as special education and the distance learning model?
Jaime Spencer
I think in general, that most of our special ed kids are going to come back. I think the parents, first of all, feel upset that they are not special ed teachers and that their child might not be getting, you know, the full benefit of being with their teacher in person. And you know, we know the special ed teachers have bent over backwards, doing everything they can provide the proper education via teletherapy, but it's not the same as having that structure. And I. Most parents are going to be sending their kids back so that the children you know, we know our children with special needs very often, they really more than the average kid. They need structure. They need multi sensory strategies. So that's hard to provide via teletherapy, absolutely.
Jayson Davies
All right, so I want to ask, kind of going back to before. So let's talk about last school year from March until May. What did that look like for you guys? Billy, you want to go ahead and start with that?
Billy Hatridge
Yeah. So we think March the 13th was when that Friday the 13th is when everything you know, the hell mouth opened up, so to speak. But they made the announcement that, hey, we're going to be out the next week, and then the following week was spring break, and that's going to give us two weeks. We'll come back to normal. You know, we're just kind of taking a two week spring break. And then about halfway through spring break, they said, Okay, this is going to, let's kick this can down the road. Let's make open up, I think may 6 was the day, or somewhere in there, that they're going to come back. And when that decision was made, the schools who had kind of more or less just sat back and said, We're going to come back and everything's gonna be fine, we're now scrambling to figure out how to provide services. So our company, since we go to rural schools, we've already done teletherapy for speech for many years in some of our districts that we were kind of primed to kind of jump in and start doing that, and really, we only had about a 20% return rate as far as our kids who signed up for teletherapy. But that was more or less what we did was the teletherapy for the kids who, you know, had access to the internet, had access to a computer or a smartphone and but that was, again, a very small percentage of of our overall caseload.
Jayson Davies
Wow. Okay, and that, I think that's pretty similar to me. I was sending out some materials to kids. I never really heard back from them, whether or not they were doing that. I made a video for them, and then if they did it with their parent, great. But I didn't hear back from many. I probably did have about 20% or so that I was seen live for therapy. What about you, Jamie? How did the end of last school year workout for you.
Jaime Spencer
It was, I think, particularly crazy for me, because I had just come back from maternity leave, so I was just getting back into the swing of real life, you know. And then I was, I think, I was in the building for maybe five weeks, and meanwhile, so for my school district, I'm the only district employed therapist, so I don't go to every single building. I couldn't possibly I see kids in one building, and then the other three days, I do a lot of I do all the evaluations for the district. I do assistive technology, and I'm involved in the general ed curriculum, you know, doing handwriting trainings, and we just started a new handwriting program this year. So I was really busy with the teachers with that, and then all of a sudden, everything was remote. So I did when I came back from my maternity leave, my administrator said, You know what, your kids have been seeing this other therapist all year. We're not going to take, you know, take those kids and give them to you now, because they've already been making progress with her. So I didn't students on my caseload, so my year was looking really different anyway. And then to try to then go to teletherapy. Well, not teletherapy, because I didn't have direct students, but, you know, evaluations and all that other stuff, my district kind of just put everything on hold, so I didn't have any of that to do via teletherapy. I was just communicating with the teachers and keeping in touch with everybody to see if there's anything I can do to help. I was in touch with my assistive technology students and things like that, but it wasn't what it normally would have been if I had been having a regular year.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, were you doing any evaluations at all?
Jaime Spencer
I didn't do any over teletherapy. I had one that I did the day before everything shut down. I wrote it up and I sent it in and that and I but we didn't have a meeting about it, because the rest of that child's evaluations weren't completed. So everything's just been on hold. I am actually, I let my district know. I said, if you need me to do evaluations over the summer, now that the school is kind of opening, and, you know, a lot of the administrative staff are in the buildings and working, so I said, if you want and do some valuations over the summer, to get caught up. Because I can't imagine how many evals have been put off, because we do a lot, almost at least one a week. You know, I'm going in next week to do an evaluation in person.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, Okay? Yeah, and we'll get into the evaluation a little bit more in a minute. It sounds like you said you were using Google platform for some of your things, or were you using Zoom before.
Jaime Spencer
We were we were using zoom, but now we're switching to Google.
Jayson Davies
Okay, and our district is doing the same exact thing. Not gonna lie, I was a little frustrated when I found out we weren't going to be able to use Zoom. But Billy, I think you have mentioned that your your company has an actual program for telehealth. Is that? Right?
Billy Hatridge
Yeah. They did for the speech what happened was that was the reason that platform for our speech therapist, but when we needed it for everybody, and we're looking at the cost analysis, we went with Zoom, which kind of what Jamie says. A lot of our school districts now are moving towards Google, and so I think we're on the same boat. I never actually spent, I don't think, a minute on the platform they're using for speed. We basically rolled zoom out company wide, just kind of make sure that everybody could get into it really quickly. The Zoom was really easy to pick up and run with.
Jayson Davies
So, yeah, I'm gonna miss zoom. I mean, we're on zoom right now. It's so simple to share your screen. You can give the child access to click on on your screen, as long as they're not on a Chromebook. That that was a difficult, some some difficulty with Zoom was that our district was giving out Chromebooks to kids, and apparently Chromebooks aren't as friendly with Zoom. You can't use all the futures, but I guess Google will have to want to see what happens. It sounds like we're all in the same boat there. So best of luck to everyone.
Jaime Spencer
I was actually really happy to hear that my district was going to Google. I've been begging to go to Google, just as our whole system we've been using, you know, Microsoft. So we've been using note and the one note cloud and OneDrive, and it's just really glitchy. It's been glitchy in my district, and I found a lot of the teachers weren't using it. They were using their old fashioned like shared drive on their computer, and they like, Oh, is it in there? And I'm like, No, it's in the cloud. But I think, like this, teletherapy and tele education has forced a lot of people to just embrace the technology. So I feel like going forward, it's just going to be a lot easier for me, particularly because I am in so many buildings, and I try to do out of things through technology. But if the teachers don't know how to use it, or they're not using it, then it's not as effective. So I think, personally, I'm psyched.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely. I love Google. It's just the Google meets. I tried it a few times, and it's just the way that I was using it. It it was limited in what you could do. As far as for teletherapy, that was my only concern with it. But hopefully, it sounds like they've already made a lot of upgrades to it, and like I said, I'm going to a training on Monday with, like our tech trainers, so hopefully they'll have some good tips, and maybe I can share a few different add ons throughout the week that might make it easier for people. But now let's move a little bit forward. How are you planning for the school year? Jamie, I'll let you start with this one.
Jaime Spencer
Yeah. Um, I'm not really making any major changes. I want to go in and see what things look like. Um, I I'm the only district employed person, so I don't really know who's going to be the other ot in my building, who's going to be the PT, what is their schedule going to be like? Because I think we're going to have to be in the room on different days. When I was in the reopening committees, we talked about also the cleaning in between sessions. Are we going to have to change our schedules? You know, to give allow more time in between. I mean, I don't know if you're in the same boat, Jayson, but it's like, you know, you see your child for 30 minutes, and the last five minutes you're working on skipping on the way back to class so that for the next child. And it's, I just trying to imagine adding in the cleaning and making sure that any toy that they touched is now sterilized and everything. I think that's going to be kind of the tricky part, but I haven't really done anything to prepare for it. I'm feeling like when I go in and I see what it looks like, and I look at my caseload, and I want to really work with the speech therapist too, to see what they're doing. I usually copy, you know, their schedule or whatever, however they're making it work.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely make sure you get the speech schedule before you start scheduling your kids. I feel like they have so many kids, you kind of work around them a little. Yes, yes. What about you? Billy, how are things maybe changing in your planning scheme for this upcoming year?
Billy Hatridge
So for the OTs that is supervised, it's going to be kind of the same. They're going back into the school buildings that they work in. They're working, in some cases, they had and Mark, you know, give or take your kids working in some teletherapy here and there. But the big issues is, like, what Jamie said, is trying to figure out how to squeeze in those disinfectant times throughout the day, and we're going to try to really make sure that we're not using our own therapy materials as much and use the kids stuff, because the kids going to be handling it in and trying to make sure that we don't have a much cross contamination as possible. For myself, I supervise for OTs across five districts. Now, these are small, rural districts, so typical school year, I'm driving 500 550 miles a week. I'm not gonna be driving a whole lot this year. There's gonna be a lot more stuff like this being able to zoom in. In In fact, this was the one of the easiest in review seasons I've ever had, because I sat right here at my desk and just zoomed in to meeting after meeting. And I wasn't driving all over Timbuktu to make these conferences. And so it's a big thing for me, and I talked with my supervisors about this a little bit, but making sure that I'm not traveling between districts. So with these smaller districts, we're often in 234, different school buildings throughout the day. It's myself especially and trying to make sure that if I go to this elementary school, I'm really only there that day to where, if there's an issue, I'm not cross contaminating multiple districts across counties, and that's going to be the biggest issue. It was quite common for me to drive through two or three counties in a day, you know, and just sign some notes, go into a conference, test a kid, and let that be that this year it's going to be a lot more doing everything I can from home or through distance or at the office, and Skyping in, not stopping in, but zooming in Google, meet then however we're doing it. And doing supervision that way, doing note reviews that way, and just really trying to take advantage of keeping myself out as much school buildings as possible, since I do work in so many different districts.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, it's funny how Skype used to be the best platform, and now no one's using Skype. I haven't even heard of zoom, Google and Microsoft Teams is like the three go to platforms now. All right, I'm going to read this question. I don't know if you, either of you will have much input, but I want to read this. And if you do, please just chime in. Angie asks, Has anyone considered having a virtual OT and an in person ot team? If it's like hybrid learning in order to eliminate scheduling nightmare of having both you guys have any input on that one?
Billy Hatridge
Yeah, we've discussed that a little bit. Because the question is, what happens when we go into quarantine, you know, if we get exposed, if we if we get a test positive, what happens to that therapist? Do we cover for them? Do we send another person to that school to just pick up the ball and run with it? Or do they now, since they're home and stuck home, take all the teletherapy sessions so that, you know, we can utilize their downtime, and a lot of that's just going to be trying to figure it out as we go see what works what doesn't work. But we have kind of looked at that a little bit. We have a few OTs who do part time work for us, so there's some ideas there about, you know, allowing them to take the teletherapy since they are home, and have more availability. But we'll kind of see when we get in, have our numbers.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. Jamie, did you want to say anything?
Jaime Spencer
Yeah, I don't have a team. I'm just me. So the rest of the students in my district who get occupational therapy are seen by contract therapists. So there's kind of a divide. I'm not in charge of them. They, they're they just get their caseload. And the way it was from, you know, March to June was that they were kind of scrambling a little bit to figure out. Some parents wanted to use Zoom. Some parents just wanted activities sent home. And so the therapists were, you know, I think this therapist had to work harder than ever before to get all these different wishes, and, you know, to provide all these things to go home. So I think it's going to be the same way. If we have to go back into quarantine, I'll I'll have my students, and then they'll have their students. So
Jayson Davies
Jamie, you mentioned how your role was already very different last year, because you were taking on some assistive technology, maybe a little bit more of a leadership role. It looked like are you keeping that same role or because of what's going on? Are you going to be seeing more kids this year? No.
Jaime Spencer
So my role was only different because I was on maternity leave, so I didn't have students General. My role is three days a week I do district wide stuff like leadership type things, and two days a week I see kids Gotcha. Well, that's my norm, and that's what I'm going back to. All right.
Jayson Davies
All right. This is a question that I really want to know the answer to, and this is from Colleen. She asks, Are you doing push in to the are you going to push into multiple classes? Or do you plan to go from one class to another class? Oftentimes, both of you have already talked about having multiple school sites. Are you going to be able to go from one school site in a classroom to another school site and walk into that classroom in the same day? Jamie, do you want to talk about that?
Jaime Spencer
Yeah. So for me, in my district, we do push in as a whole class in all of the special education kindergartens, so I will continue to be doing that in my building. I only see students for ot sessions in one building, I do go to all of the other buildings to talk to the kindergarten teachers about the handwriting program and first grade, and then do all of the assistive technology and all of the regular ot evaluations. So I am definitely going to try to limit my, you know, like Billy said, cross contamination, of going to too many buildings. But I think with this technology, like I'm very comfortable with technology, I want to consult with teachers via technology, and I always need to be in that building, you know, so if the teacher has questions for me or wants to talk to me, I'm hoping that there'll be a little bit more of consultation over technology to eliminate that in between buildings and in between classes situation.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, it's definitely a big change with all this technology and we have progressed, I think. Estimating, like technology has progressed 20 years and six months. I mean, it's amazing. What about you, Billy? It sounds like you might be staying home, but what about the OTs? Jason? Gonna be gone? We've already received
Billy Hatridge
some emails from our school saying, hey, you've lost your therapy room because, you know, we're making smaller class sizes. So those other kids have to go somewhere. And I get it. You know, we have an entire old music hall in one of our districts that we just use, and so we're this little corner and the rest of the classroom is empty. So that's a really underutilized space for somebody who's there maybe two or three days a week, and those schools will probably be doing a lot more, either push in or out in the hall, unfortunately, but that's going to be good, because then we don't have this contaminated therapy space where we're putting these kids in one amphitheater at the other, especially when they're from different grades or different buildings there on campus. So the question, the debate we just had, this debate yesterday, is, is it more beneficial to push in to where our students aren't going into the same room, but then if we're positive, or if we're carrying something, we're exposing 34567, classrooms in a day, and all the kids. And how do we justify that when little Bobby gets sick, but little Bobby doesn't get OT and it's just because I was sitting next to him when I was working with my client. And it's there's not really a right answer, but we're going to be conscious of that every time we go to a kid. There's no one size fits all rule to this thing, so it's just about best judgment in that time. You know, is there room for you to go and work with that kid without risking other kids who aren't even on our caseload? Is now a good time to take them into that private room? It depends on the kid, depends on the activity. So, yeah, I don't know about the push in per se, but it's not going to look like what we were doing in March, for sure, right?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I want to kind of ask a similar question, what about small groups? Are you guys still going to be able to do small groups? Or do you even typically do small groups?
Jaime Spencer
I do a good amount of small groups, and my district spoke about ordering like dividers to put in between the kids, which I thought a good idea. You know, most of the kids that I see in a group are in the same class anyway, but I know that my my district, is trying to keep the classrooms with all the desks six feet apart. So, you know, I am going to be doing group sessions, but it's going to be, you know, a little tricky.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, it's been fun on Instagram, seeing all the creative ideas that therapists and teachers are coming up with, with how to keep desks six feet apart, keep shields up in front of their faces, so whatever their spitting isn't going anywhere, but at the same time, keep it conducive to learning, right? It's tricky. What about you, Billy? Small groups.
Billy Hatridge
We hardly ever do small groups. We're lucky enough that with the team the size that it is, we're always able to see kids one on one, with the exception of an activity that needs a group, or we're doing a cooking group with our high schoolers, those kinds of things. But I do want to touch on a point that I think both of you all have made, that all school OTs really need to understand is that the environment is going to be so much different for our students, and we as ot practitioners are the best about trying to figure out how to adapt the environment for success and for being able so that's an area that I think, I don't think a lot of OTs are quite ready for yet, but when we go back into the schools, we're going to be real cognizant of making sure they're laid out the way they need to be for all the students in the classroom, not just ours, because we're doing some wild stuff, and it's really creative in what we're doing, but We're going to have to be aware that sometimes it's not always, you know, conducive for the learning styles of our students or for their students. And we, out of all the professions, have been saying this a lot. There's no better profession to get things back to normal than ot that's what we do, right? Whether it's stroke rehab or it's special education, we are always trying to get back to function. We're always trying to get back to making things run as smoothly as possible. And so we kind of need to break away from that caseload model where it's like, these are my 20 kids, and this is the 20 hours that I work, and that's more or less what I do with my week, and start volunteering more. We're contract therapists, so a lot of times we fall into that trap of, I don't get paid to do that. So you know, y'all are on your own. That's not what we need to be doing right now. We really need to be using our services the best capacity that we can with our teachers are going to be struggling with more mental health and anxiety than usual. They're not going to know what to do. We're really good with those kinds of things, so it's not even our kids. It's the students, the teachers, the administrators that we work with and being really good at advocating the entirety of our profession, that we're not just the fine motor handwriting people, that we can do so much more that's been underutilized for years for ot but that we can really have a chance to shine here and come into the classrooms and help them set up classrooms in a meaningful way, help the teachers combat anxiety, help our students understand Mindfulness and all kinds of things that are outside of what we typically just hone in on as school based OTs.
Jaime Spencer
I just want to add, I totally agree. I just did a whole video about that Billy, about the scope of practice, of occupational therapy, and how very often we're only seen as, you know, handwriting teachers. But I think. It's, it's a hard thing to say that we need to volunteer more. I mean, I'm employed by the district, so it's different. But when I look at my contract therapist, they're already doing so much that they're not getting paid for. I think it more falls on the administration to I think it falls on us to advocate with administration about our scope of practice and that they need to utilize us for these things, not expect us to do it for free, but understand that this is part of our skills, and we would love to use them to help you. If you would add that to our work responsibility, I think that's the big key piece, because I every ot that I know works really hard. And the contract therapist, they're writing reports from home, they're making phone calls. They don't eat lunch, you know, and I think it's not right. You don't hear about teachers doing that, you know, teachers have unions that support them, and everybody knows what teachers do. But when it comes to us, we're very often underutilized. But I think a big piece of it goes back to that advocacy and US educating administrators. Use us. Please let us know before you order furniture, right, so that our kindergarten kids are not sitting in sixth grade desks. But you know, people don't realize that there's more to it than just opening the catalog and picking kindergarten furniture. My district did that, and I had like a pack, because the kindergarten furniture was not appropriate for kindergarten. It was way too big. And you know, it's those things that administrators, when you really have a good, cohesive relationship with them, you can educate them about that. But because so many OTs are not employees, they're not around long enough to that kind of relationship with their administration, right?
Billy Hatridge
That's true. I don't know about how things are in New York or California, but we're still really pushing on state level to move towards the workload model for therapists. We're still very much in the caseload model. You know, you've got 30 hours of treatment, so you're going to be working 30 hours a week. And that's not exactly how that how that works, but I think that, like you said, we're using volunteer not to kind of give our service away for free, but to advocate for what we can do. Because unfortunately, if all we do is what we're getting paid to do, they'll never pay us to do more, because they don't see the value and the other things we just say we can do, whereas if we're able to work those in, they're able to see that value. That's one of the better ways to kind of advocate to the creators that we can do more than just handwriting fears and.
Jaime Spencer
But I think on the On another note, like to play the devil's advocate. If we always do those little things extra for why would they ever pay us to do them? Either? I think we need to hit it from the top and say, Pay us and employ us and use us for these things, and it should be a workload approach, because half of one day a week should be about training the staff, or, what about self regulation, or, you know, I mean, I think that, I think that administrators like OT is not their number one concern or priority, and so it needs to be something that's coming at them from the top.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. So I just want to share with you. You guys can't see the comments, but we have some comments. People are really appreciating what you're talking about. Olivia says, This is our time to shine. Miriam says, I agree with what both of you are saying. Tara says the same thing. I agree 100% good point. Says Miriam. I agree. Jamie says, Megan. So everyone is loving all what you had to say. This is kind of an RTI realm. And so go ahead, Jamie, looks like you have something to say about RTI. Well, I mean, we're kind of talking about RTI right now. This is tier one RTI. This is that base level education for teachers that will help every single student in the school, right?
Jaime Spencer
Yes. And, you know, with the new regulations and everything and how occupational therapy, we're now considered an S, i, s, p, we're supposed to be part of the whole team. We're supposed to be at the table, and very often, and especially in New York and Long Island. And I mean, people know I'm always like, on my soapbox about this, the districts don't hire therapists, and I'm so very blessed to be hired, but I'm so angry for the other therapists that they're not hired because, number one, I don't think that they can do the their best job, and they can't collaborate like they should if they were A team employee and a team member who's been there for years. You know, I have, I love the teachers that I work with, and I've learned so much from them, but over the years, you know, you need to kind of relationship. Or this year, we're dealing with this kind of student, and we learn from each other how to deal with that kind of problem. And the next year, we have another thing happening. And you know when you're when you're not an employee and you're not, you know, a member of the team, then you're not number one going to be as invested, and I don't blame them, but also you're not going to have the opportunity to show what you know and to shine you know. You just don't you.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely You're right. I find that I don't know out here in California, I think this is nationwide. OTs, we tend to be hired under the special education umbrella. And likewise, when we bill, we earn money for special education, and we can't bill for RTI, we that's just not what Medicare Medi Cal allows for billing. It's all for individual, small group direct services. And I think that plays a role into it, because the district does get reimbursed for what we do, and they don't get reimbursed for RtI that we might do, or trainings that we might do. And so I think that is a larger picture that has to be addressed that sometimes we don't think of. We just want to, yeah, we want to help. And so, like Jamie was saying, we offer to help, and then we're doing help, and no one knows that we're doing help. But, yeah, there's so many different sides that you have to come at it from, because there's so much going on there.
Jaime Spencer
And I think you know, administrators were once teachers, but teachers have never been administrators for the most part. So I do think that administrators do the very best that they can to look at the whole picture, and sometimes, as people who are not administrators, we might not know about their 25 other concerns that they're trying to deal with. We have our thing that we are you know, want them to pay attention to. But in my district, one thing, I mean, I feel like my administrators are pretty open minded, and I've gone to them with a lot of, you know, big ideas that they let me put into play. But one thing that we did for a while, maybe five years, was we had contract therapists pushing in to our self contained classrooms twice a week for a half an hour. And the thought behind it was that we could reduce the number of pull outs, and we could reduce the number of children who were getting occupational therapy on their IEP by providing it as a class service, which would be educating the teacher about, you know, what to look for and what to do, as well as working with all the kids. And in my building, I, you know, I'm not patting myself on the back, but in my building, that went wonderful. And I spent two days a week actually pushing in. I was in self contained kindergarten, then I went to self contained first grade, then I went to self contained third grade. And my whole day was planning, and it was a lot, because I had to plan five different sessions, different like lessons, but the teachers were very different. Some teachers I kind of pushed in with whatever they were teaching. Most of the teachers wanted me to come in with something and show them things. So in my building, we all, you know, made it work and did the best that we could for the kids, and it went great. But in the other buildings where it was contract therapists, they weren't getting paid to do the prep for these sessions, and it was, it was kind of put to them as you're going to push into that class and help in whatever way you can. You know, the teacher is not going to just stop what she's doing. So the OT can sit there. You know, it ended up in a lot of instances that the OT was trying to just sitting in the back of the room during a science lesson, like, how many times can you say this child needs this kind of pencil grip? Or, why don't we change this child's paper? It's not it what? It just wasn't working when they weren't employees. And I think again, it goes back to that collaboration, but we did have that as an RTI, you know, measure in place, and it was so great, but we didn't stick with it because it wasn't working in any of the other buildings.
Jayson Davies
All right, it's so easy to talk about RTI with the two of you, because I know both, all three of us are such advocates for all children, not just the children on our caseload. But I want to get us back to the virtual topic, and that is going ahead forward with virtual evaluations. What is the plan? Jamie, it sounds like you've thought about this a little bit. What? What are you thinking?
Jaime Spencer
So I'm the only one who does the evaluations in my district, and I was on the the RE evaluation reopening committee. There are certain tests that are easy to do via teletherapy, but there are a lot that are not. So my plan is when I go back in September to make sure that I bring my VMI forms and all the tests that I can use home with me, so that if I'm doing evaluations from home, I can mail the parent the VMI forms, but I did, you know, speak to my administrators and really advocate that our Occupational Therapy evaluations are going to look different, and we have to stop only looking at scores, because the scores, you know, these standardized tests, aren't standardized now. And you know, very often I'll do like, a visual motor assessment and then a visual perceptual assessment. But if I'm doing a visual perceptual assessment, you know, through the camera, through the lens, or even if I end it and put it on a Google slide, if we could do it, but it's not going to be the same. So I, I kind of said, we need to look at what. Going on in the classroom, what does the parents say they're having difficulty with and how can we help in terms of that? You know, in general, I think most administrators, they're used to looking at the test scores, but it's got to get away from that. If we're doing it via teletherapy.
Jayson Davies
I think everyone would like to know Jamie, if you can list a few that you are planning to use, you said the VMI, but there are there other assessments that you're planning that are pretty simple,
Jaime Spencer
yes. So I actually have a free webinar that I put together with two teletherapy experts who've been doing it for 10 to, I don't know, 20 years. That's over on my website, Miss Jamie ot.com and they taught me a lot. I interviewed them because I wanted to provide something for OTs that are, you know, kind of thrust into this world. But they said that the VMI was a good one. I like that because it's standardized from two to, you know, forever. And you you would have to mail the forms to the parent and, you know, make sure the parent knows, do not open it or do anything until we're on Zoom. And then you can provide the instructions over the camera and make sure that the child is not tilting the paper or erasing and all that other things, and then the parent would have to send it back to you so you're still scoring the actual paper, and the child is still working on the actual paper, so it is standardized in terms of the visual perceptual you know, the scores won't be standardized because we're not giving it in a standardized manner. But I don't think it would be so crazy to maybe scan the the pages of, let's say, the MVP TR or the MVP t3 and do it on Google slide and ask the student. The problem with that is, you know, you have your kids who have letter reversals, so they might say B, but they mean D. And in real life, they can point to the second one, and I know they meant B. On the computer, if that's not really happening,
Jayson Davies
you can't they're really pointing at Yeah, yeah.
Jaime Spencer
So I also think some informal measures, like the handwriting without tears, the screener handwriting proficiency, I think easy one and a good one that we can send the parent the link. They could print it out and have the child do it and send it back to us. You know, getting an informal handwriting sample is is good that certain subtests of the B OT, we could probably do, you know that the visual motor portion and the cutting portion, as long as the parent doesn't open it until we're, you know, on the camera with them, and we can still watch that's hard.
Jayson Davies
Part is you might have to mail them a red pencil, though, yeah,
Jaime Spencer
I, you know what? I, I I didn't think of that, and the scissors too, scissors too. But then then I find too. Sometimes the scissors that come with the B ot aren't, don't fit my kid. Oh yeah, I don't. I use different scissors because I want, I do to use scissors that fit, yeah,
Jayson Davies
all right. Billy red pencil, I guess they probably have something that'll work. Maybe it's green, it's all right, Billy, I'm gonna come to you, but I just want to say that, you know, that's something that we're thinking about too. I think most of our evaluations, the psychologist is going to be scheduling with the parent to bring the kid in, even though we're completely virtual teaching and virtual services. I think that kids are going to be allowed to come in for the evaluation, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be in class for an observation. I mean, we're gonna have to zoom into the teacher's Google room or whatever and do an observation. And, you know, like right now, all you can see is this little box. And so that's all I'm gonna be able to see of the student, potentially, during a classroom observation. So we're actually trying to come up with a blurb that just talks about how you know this standardized observation, or this option, not standardized observation, this test, this evaluation, was conducted via teletherapy, and therefore, I don't even know what we're going to write, but something about how this is different from the regular school environment. So, Billy, what about you? What is your plans for for evaluations? I know you are hand you are Handwriting Without Tears, certified. Are you going to be using the Print tool? Or what are you going to be using?
Billy Hatridge
Not really right now. We're just kind of employing the stop gap measures or just trying to get them tested. You know, we can look at the handwriting, we can look at some of the more specific things when we have the ability to do so and do for this formal assessment, we're very fortunate with our service model, because we have two satellite clinics that are both within an hour, 30 minutes of all of our schools. And so even when all this started back in March, parents are able to bring their kids into the clinic for a one on one sterilized environment to get tested. We had several schools making that recommendation, and so as of right now, in talking with our Las administrators, it's looking like they're going to be the kid is virtual. They're going to be sending them either to school or to one of our clinics, depending on which one's closer to the family or which one the family would be. Her and doing everything in person, as far as those, those formal evaluations. Now, you know, there will be the chance we have several who are staying home. There are several kids I know right now that aren't coming back to school in person, but these are children who would be able to participate in any kind of standardized assessment. Anyways, we're gonna be looking at manual muscle testing, range of motion, those kinds of things that it's going to be more or less walking the parent through and me kind of observing and trying to take the best guess. The truth is, with standardized testing, hardly any of my tests are standardized, because our kids aren't standardized. You know, almost every evaluation I write, I have to make some comment in there about their attention span or about their their physical capacity, right? We all us as OTs, we're all familiar with that idea that the standardized assessment don't really paint the picture, and our kids can't always participate the way that's laid out in the Administrative manual. This isn't any different. It is different, but we're used to having those blurbs in the bottom of our assessment saying, you know, it's different because of, you know, they have one arm, they're not able to sit there have these issues. So it's all about making sure everything's documented, documented properly. But as far as our team goes, it's looking like 99% will be in person.
Jayson Davies
And real quick. Jamie, I know you kind of talked a little bit about potentially bringing students in, but also virtual. Do you think you'll be doing virtual assessments now, or do you think they'll mostly be in person?
Jaime Spencer
I think if we go back to being in quarantine, then I think I can do them via teletherapy. I never have I'm definitely willing to learn and to try, because we're going back in the beginning of the year, I'll be prepared. I'll have the things that I need, and I'll bring them home with me. When school closed, it was just like, I mean, I like, I said, was on maternity leave, so I'm sleep deprived and back to work and a little crazy. I wasn't even watching the news. I'm like, what's going on? And so I didn't have anything with me, but my bag that I had that day, and prepared, but I think going forward, I will be, and I my administrators, they understand. And you know, I think that they would be, I think that they would rather have me do it over teletherapy than put it off longer,
Jayson Davies
absolutely.
Billy Hatridge
And I will say Jayson just as of right now, I do know that Arkansas Medicaid does not pay for teletherapy assessments. The re looking at that, but as of right now, there's no reimbursement in place for teletherapy evaluation. That's been the review. We haven't done any teletherapy. That might change when school gets back in and we start seeing that need, but as of right now, it's still kind of on the got to get it in person. So
Jayson Davies
I have a question follow up to that, then, how does as a contracted company, how does that affect your company, versus, because it's actually the district that's you're billing for, right, right?
Billy Hatridge
And that's been the issue we've only some of our schools have only been billing insurance or Medicaid for a few years now. So prior to that, it was just kind of the school. Of the school rule, the school rule, you know, however you want to do it, since we're paying out of our budget with the implementation of Medicaid reimbursement, it has definitely changed a lot of what we do in the schools, because now they're being more cognizant of what what those Medicaid requirements are, and making sure that things are reimbursable. Our LEAs are great. A lot of times they say, Hey, even if it's not covered, we're just going to beat the cost. Beat the cost. And you it's just got to get done, whether you know it'll be reimbursable or not. And so our, all of our administrators, are really, really great about working with the therapy team and about helping us through these hurdles. So you know, we'll, we'll kind of see, when we get back into it, how much of a need there is for virtual assessments. As of right now, I'm not seeing a real big need, but, you know, two weeks into it, if everything goes back to virtual, things might be a lot different. So
Jayson Davies
all right, in the comments, we have some questions about sensory processing. Type of evaluations, SPM, I think I might have saw the sensory profile. Are you? Do you guys use the SPM or the sensory profile?
Billy Hatridge
Yes, I use both. And those are questionnaires, and so, you know, there'll be easier to send out and kind of collect back. However, it's really important when you do those assessments, that you make note that this is during a pandemic, because that sensory processing is going to be a lot different now than it's ever been, not just because of self, you know, social distancing or the mask, but just because of the anxiety level that our our kids with sensory processing issues, are dealing with in the home and in that environment. So I've already had several that I've done, and I've had to make that comment of, you know, heightened stress, height and anxiety in the home due to, due to what's going on.
Jayson Davies
All right, I'm going to challenge you, both of you, once more, if you were having to do virtual assessments and you were going to use the SPM or the sense, well, actually the sensory profile, yeah, they both have home forms and school forms. Would you be asking the teacher to fill out the teacher school form or the parent to fill out the home form or both? What would you choose? Yeah.
Jaime Spencer
So I think I would choose the home form or both. I don't use my school district doesn't use sensory testing as part of our standardized testing. Years ago, we had an administrator that felt like we don't provide sensory integration therapy, so we shouldn't be using that assessment. What we do is sensory strategies. So that is something that we could put in, you know, our narrative. But in a case like this, with everything that's so crazy, and our kids with sensory issues really are struggling, I think sometimes it's appropriate, it really depends.
Billy Hatridge
So for me, it would depend on the but I'd be sending everything home. I'll try to get home forms as much as possible. Now, we get a 50% return rate and stuff we send home usually, so, you know, but it depends on the teacher. If the teacher has never seen this kid in person, then no, I'm probably not going to ask them to fill out a sensory questionnaire. But if this is, say, a self contained special education class, and this teacher has been working with this kid for years, then I even if they haven't seen them the last six months, I have a good idea that they're going to be a lot more aware of where the sensory processing issues are. And then again, with my documentation and the way I write up that report, make sure I denote that this is after six months of not seeing the get in person or whatever that may be,
Jayson Davies
absolutely no, definitely. I think that's spot on. We should definitely be using whatever tool our evaluation process is kind of leaning toward, and what is the school environment anymore? I mean, where are kids, and even if they are at school right now? I mean, even their home life has got to be a mess. I mean, my home life is a mess right now, and I'm a pretty, I mean, in a pretty good place, and it's still crazy. And so, yeah, that's it's going to be hard to determine what assessments to use, how to make the most of it, how to get it done. And like Jamie was saying, We're backlogged. I think everyone's backlogged a little bit. And now we're trying to figure out how to, I mean, the 60 day timeline, 45 day timeline, whatever it is in your state, is out the window right now. So right now our district is saying, focus on the new evaluations that are starting the 60 day timeline, and then try and get to the old ones, because they're already past due. Hopefully you can get to those, especially if they're tries, if their initials, we want to get those done as soon as possible. But some of the tries, maybe it's like, it's somewhat of a formality in a way, because, you know, we're not planning on changing services to a huge extent, but still got to get it done somehow. All right, I have, I think we're going to wrap this up with a kind of two questions. Kind of go hand in hand, PPE and cleaning everything. What is the plan? What is your district's plan? We talked a little bit about putting up dividers, maybe. But what are your personal plans? How are you going to make sure that things are clean in between sessions and all that good stuff?
Jaime Spencer
So my district, my district did hire, hire or buy Plexiglas for in between sessions. They've ordered face shields for all of the speech therapists. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure if I asked for a face shield, I could have one. I also bought a couple of masks that say ot on them. You know, got to promote. I think I'm going to be crazy with my Clorox wipes and just be I think what Billy said before about having the students use their own materials. I don't think my district talked about that unless I just missed, didn't, you know, didn't catch, but I think that's brilliant. So rather than have the kids using my scissors and my crayons and everything, they can bring their supply box with them when they OT and, you know, things like hand, you know, therapy putty. I'll be giving each kid their own therapy putty, that maybe I'll have a Ziploc bag for each child with the things that they use, so that that eliminates a little bit of the, you know, cleaning. But I think for the most part, I'm going to have to take the last couple of minutes of each session and just clean, clean, clean. Yeah. So
Billy Hatridge
with our team, our school districts have told us, basically, it's what your company has to do. And then our company has said, Well, it kind of depends on each school district and what they want their practitioners to do. So we're kind of in this mid zone, but ultimately it's going to be the face shield, it's going to be the mask, it's going to be gloves, making sure that we use as much of the students materials as possible, since it's already on them, and you don't have to worry about sanitizing it when they go back necessarily. I mean, you want to, but if they're going to keep using it as soon as they get back into the classroom, it's not as big of an issue as when you have a new kid coming in. He's got same stuff. I have a tackle box that I work out of. I'm probably just going to have some of those testing manipulatives that I've got to have, and not really bringing anything else into the schools with me, other than a laptop or a pen, and really trying to just minimize how much stuff I'm carrying with me, even my backpack. I go into a classroom, I sit it down on the floor, then I pick it up, put on my back to the next building. You know it's. Is another point of contact that you have to be aware of. So it's a lot of just using the students materials. It's a lot of doing more of their school based activities. So if they're working on an assignment, bring it with them. Bring as much of the stuff they're working on in school as possible. Since that's going back with them to the classroom, it's gonna look a lot different. Our sensory stuff is kind of getting locked up, you know, sand trays, big things, the therapy, the swings, ball pit, that kind of stuff is going to be a no go, which is unfortunate. We're going to have to be creative. And how we address that, I've been really pushing for my OTs to do a lot more mindfulness activities, a lot more breathing techniques, a lot more things where they can sit. We don't have to touch. We don't have to get in close proximity. Heavy work, those kinds of things, we can go out. I've got a 30 pound kettlebell that I use a lot in therapy for my for my kids, with ADD and ADHD, and that's something super easy to clean. It's just one big chunk of metal and that might find its way into the therapy room. But ultimately, it's about using as much of the student stuff as possible and to help the cross contamination, and
Jayson Davies
you can get a workout at lunchtime. I love it, Billy, good job. All right. I know I said that was the last question, but Nicole had a great question, and I just want to, we'll finish up with that. The question for Billy and Jamie is, what about progress monitoring? How are you going to how have you already done progress monitoring at the end of last school year? What did you put into those progress updates? And I think for you guys, it'll be mostly similar, because you'll be able to see the students, but if you can talk about how you did it at the end of the year, and then if it'll be any different as you move forward,
Billy Hatridge
yes, I'll jump in when we did, like, our interviews and in the year stuff, I basically had two, two scores. The first was what they had in March last time we saw them in person, were able to address it directly as it was written. And then kind of a, more or less a big air quotes here, but hypothesis of where they're falling in now based on our teletherapy sessions based on our communication with parents. You know, typically in pediatrics, we don't usually see a big change in our progress in a few weeks like you do in adult rehab, so it's usually pretty close to where they were in March, coming back in in August, we're basically starting back at zero. I've told my team we're basically taking back up, regardless of whether they've been coming for teletherapy or in person sessions during the summer, when school starts. We're back at March 13. Is the mindset I want everybody to have, and we're just going to try to pick up where we left off, and if they made progress over the time frame, great, but let's just expect to be back where we were. And the truth is, we're probably gonna have a lot of kids who regress during this time, and just making sure that in that documentation, once again, that you're that you're noting why that was whether the kid got tele therapy, whether the kid went home, whether the kid was receiving services elsewhere, what their participation was like with AMI packets, anything that you sent home, was it, like you said, I sent, I think, 32 out. I never heard back from any of them. And so, you know, I can't say what that progress was like. They have to go back to what it was March, yeah. And
Jayson Davies
what about you, Jamie, how was your progress reporting?
Jaime Spencer
I didn't have any progress reporting because I didn't have students. Oh, that's right. But I think going forward, I agree, it's going to be a fresh start. So my students that I have been working with in my building I haven't seen in a year, so I would be coming in as a fresh look anyway. And I did find out from my district that I'm going to be working with the kindergarten to third grade this year, and then the other therapist will be doing third to fifth grade. So I mean, I think I'm going to work really hard to make sure I get a baseline on every single area I can. If we do go back into quarantine, I'll have that information. Yeah, now I'll
Billy Hatridge
tell you too. I'll probably get a big resounding no from all the other OTs, but I wouldn't mind reevaluating everybody, to be honest, just to kind of figure out, because so much has happened in the last six months. Now, granted, I don't have the time to do it, but in a paradise setting, you know, just be able to reevaluate everybody. Because none of these kids are going to be where they were in Bart. None of them are going to be where you expect them to be. And we're going to have to be really aware those first several weeks of therapy that we're doing a lot of just those informal assessment that we're not jumping in and working on goals that we're just trying to get, like the baseline of all of these skills that we had been addressing and new skills, mask wearing, hand washing, you know, hygiene anxiety, there's a lot of room for us to grow out. We're going to have a lot more issues than we've ever seen, and we're just going to have to make sure that we're assessing those properly, and that every session, there's some amount of that assessment coming into it, so that we kind of get a better idea of where our kids are.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and it's interesting, we had our official welcome back meeting yesterday with special education, and it's very interesting about how they are, what the mindset is, as far as how they are. Looking at IEPs and what the plan is, and our district, we are going to be virtual starting the school year. And as of last year, IEPs that happened from March to May, and then now going forward, they are telling us to write these IEPs as though a kid is going to be in school tomorrow. And that is not the case. I mean, that's hard to determine what we're going to put on an IEP for a for a school day when the kids not on campus. So I don't know it's going to be interesting this year. Everything from IEPs to treatment to progress monitoring, everything's going to be different. And, you know, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and we'll see where we get so I want to thank both of you so much for coming on. I actually want to give you both a quick second. I'm going to let Jamie go ahead and start. You mentioned your website earlier, but I'm going to give you a second to kind of go ahead and just just promote yourself for a second. Okay,
Jaime Spencer
so my website is Miss Jamie. Ot.com, J, a, i, m, e, and I've got a bunch of resources on there right now. I have a lot of videos on my Facebook page. I've been really focusing a lot on vision and vision within the scope of practice of school. OT, and as I said, I do have a free webinar about teletherapy. So if you're looking for more resources and more information about teletherapy, that's on my website as well. Yes,
Jayson Davies
and her emails are fantastic. She just did a great video yesterday with Robert Constantine on vision. It was fantastic. Julie. Go ahead. What about you? Share a little bit about your website? Yeah.
Billy Hatridge
So I'm the OT dad. OT dad.com, ot dad and all the social medias. And you know, I'll be honest. I was when all this started, I was like, I'm gonna have all this time to plug into my website, to plug into all these things and do all these resources. And really and truly, my priority was my three year old. And so I've spent so much more time just at home with family and really trying to focus on that since I have been in such a work mode the last several years. So it's not as robust of a resource as Miss Jamie stuff. I definitely recommend you check her out first if you're looking for those kinds of things. But no, there are good resources there, there as well, you know. And it's a lot more kind of insight on my end. But yeah, that's the okay to add on all the platform,
Jayson Davies
absolutely. All right, everyone. Well, thank you so much. Please give Billy and Jamie a thumbs up a heart. Show them your appreciation for being here. And you know what? We will see you all next time, maybe we'll have to do this again. People are enjoying it, so we'll see you all later. Have a great rest of your Saturday.
Jaime Spencer
All right. Thanks for having us, Jason.
Jayson Davies
All right. And there you have it. That was my conversation with Jamie Spencer from Miss Jamie ot.com and Billy hattridge from the OT dad.com both amazing occupational therapists, both doing great things in their respective areas. And I just want to say thank you so much again to them for coming on and taking the time to do this. I realized that one thing that I forgot to add at the top of the show was that this was actually a Facebook live video, and so that's why it might the sound quality might have been slightly lower, and you heard me saying that maybe someone was saying that they loved it, or something like that, or as asking people to give a thumbs up. That's because this was originally on a Facebook video. And so with that, I want to encourage you to head on over to facebook.com, forward slash ot school house, just like my page. That's where I do some of these live videos that I do them, and then you are there live. You can ask a question, and I'll just, I'll just answer the question there, or I'll ask whoever is a participant on our video to do to answer the question. So it works out great. I do those from time to time, and people have been loving it, so I might keep doing it. But anyways, again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Listening to every single episode. Can't say thank you enough. One last time@otschoolhouse.com that's where you'll find that A to Z school based. Ot course that I talked about a little bit at the top of the show. But yeah, everything is everything is housed at ot schoolhouse.com so check it out, and we'll see you next time on the podcast. All right, take care. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OT schoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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