Episode 106: Goal Writing in School-based OT
- Jayson Davies
- Jul 31, 2022
- 49 min read
Updated: Nov 14, 2024
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 106 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
As OTP’s we know that goal writing can get a bit difficult at times. Understanding each component of a goal will ultimately lead to better goal writing. Taking the time to write goals is a huge part of helping the students and other people involved see what progress has been made.
Today we are speaking with Sarah Beaulieu, MOT, OTR/L. and Emily Deller, MOT, OTR/L. They are speaking in-depth about their experience with goal writing in their districts and how it can differ in different districts and states. If you struggle with writing goals in a school-based setting, their goal writing workshop can help with mastering SMART, client-centered goals that are easy to measure.
Tune in to learn the following objectives:
Listeners will learn about SMART goals
Listeners will learn the key components to writing a great goal
Listeners will learn how goals differ in a school-based setting and a pediatric clinic setting
Listeners will learn more about the long-term and short-term goals in the school-based setting
Listeners will learn more about changing and updating goals in a school-based setting
Listeners will learn how to write more collaborative goals
Guest Bio
Emily Deller, MOT, OTR/L
Emily Deller, MOT, OTR/L is passionate about sharing her knowledge with OTs and healthcare professionals, her ‘OT brain’ is rarely off. She graduated from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia with her Master's in Occupational therapy in 2016 with honors and the Occupational Therapy Faculty Award. She is currently a pediatric Occupational Therapist for the Delaware Autism Program and Delaware School for the Deaf. She has provided occupational therapy services in homes, schools, and to the pediatric population in her community. She also is an adjunct professor at Wesley College in Delaware.
Sarah Beaulieu, MOT, OTR/L is a school-based occupational therapist going into her 5th school year working with early elementary students. She began her OT journey in the outpatient clinic setting, where she found her passion for pediatrics. Sarah is the owner of Sarah Bee OT LLC, where she creates high-quality therapy resources and educational content for OT practitioners across all pediatric settings.
Notable Quotes
"The main idea of writing school-based OT goals are for accessing your education" -Emily D.
"Goal writing, especially for school-based is not something that’s always well taught in OT programs, so it is difficult to know whether or not you're writing good goals, high-quality goals." -Sarah B
“So, legally goals are required to show what skills we are addressing in order to provide those direct services in a public school environment” - Emily D
“I like to think of RTI as writing more goals for a classroom, as opposed to an IEP as goals for an individual student” -Jayson D
“A stranger should be able to read your goal and know exactly how to implement that goal, they should really have a clear understanding of what you're trying to target and how you're going to measure that goal” - Sarah B
“We know a lot of times the skills that are presented at home are different than in school” - Emily D
“More goals don't always mean more progress” - Emily D
“Making sure that you have a plan on how you're both going to, contribute to working towards that goal, what unique skills you're going to be bringing to the table in order to help them achieve that goal” -Sarah B
Resources
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the full episode transcript.
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 for another amazing episode of the OT school house podcast. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Jayson Davies. I'm a school based occupational therapist in Southern California and wherever you are today. I'm just excited that you're here right now listening to this podcast. Why? Because that means that you're a school based ot practitioner that wants to be a better school based ot practitioner, not just for yourself, but for the students that you serve, the teachers you work with, and the parents that you have the pleasure, I know sometimes it doesn't seem like a pleasure, but the pleasure of having IEP meetings with and helping them to support their child. So today we are here to talk about goals. Speaking of IEPs, right, we are talking about goals, and I am bringing on to a very special guest to help us talk about goals. If you're an occupational therapist like myself or an occupational therapy assistant, and you've helped your occupational therapist trying to get my words right here to help them create goals, or maybe you even create most of the goals yourselves. Then like me, you have probably found yourself making some very interesting goals. Sometimes, you know, you make great goals. Other times, you look back on a goal that you created a year ago and you're just like, What was I thinking? Right? Well, today, we are going to advance on that, and we're going to talk about what makes a good goal within school based occupational therapy, you know, within school based OT, I like to say we are very niche within niche, yes, niche within the world of pediatric occupational therapy and goals within school based ot are different from clinic based goals. So today, we are going to talk to Emily Deller and Sarah bullyer about how to create school based occupational therapy goals that actually matter. Goals not only allow us to measure progress, but they also kind of drive our services and the accommodations that we recommend. So they absolutely are important when we are developing our goals within an IEP. So without any further ado, let me go ahead and welcome to the show Emily Deller and Sarah bullyer. You might better know them as Emily Marie OT and Sarah B ot on Instagram. Hello. Welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. How are you doing today Sarah?
Sarah Beaulieu
I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having us on.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, so excited. And you said us because today we have two very special guests. We also have Emily, how are you doing today Emily?
Emily Deller
I'm doing great. Thanks.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. Well, you know to start off, why don't we start with a little fun question of how you both found your way to being a school OT, Emily, would you like to start us off on this one?
Emily Deller
Sure, I honestly never thought that I would end up in the schools. Straight out of OT school. I worked in outpatient peds, and that was kind of my dream, starting out of OT school, and figured out pretty quickly that that wasn't for me. A co worker just mentioned that her old job was looking for an OTR, so I jumped at the chance to start something new, and I fell in love.
Jayson Davies
That's awesome. Yeah, you know, we never know where we're going to end up. I thought that by now in my career, I'd be owning like a pediatric clinic, and definitely don't own a pediatric clinic, but have the OT school house. So yeah, you know, we end up right where we belong. So absolutely great way to find a school based OT and what about you Sarah?
Sarah Beaulieu
so I started in outpatient pediatrics as well. That was my first gig, and several months into that job, I got my foot in the door with a local school district covering a maternity leave. I came back later that summer to cover their es y program. And then, funny enough, they added on a full time position in that district the following school year. So I applied and interviewed and ended up being full time there ever since.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. And you know, so this is interesting, because I've always wondered this. I always thought I would go into a pediatric job before school based OT, but you both did, and I'm wondering, how do you feel that having a pediatric clinic based position, did that impact you as a school based OT, once you got there, anyone want to jump off with that one?
Emily Deller
Yeah, sure. I definitely think it made a positive difference because of the support that I had with other therapists around me, there was a lot more intervention learning and kind of like the beginning ropes of being an OT and in pediatrics that I got from working outpatient, whereas in the schools, you tend to be more isolated, and you don't necessarily see the wealth of interventions in areas that we can address.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and Sarah, you want to add anything else?
Sarah Beaulieu
I kind of had the opposite experience, because in my pediatric with the clinic setting, I was very much on my own. Oftentimes I might be the only therapist there at the clinic, so that really kind of taught me how to be more confident in my skill set and work independently, and have that confidence to be able to relay what I know to the parents. But once I came into the school setting, it was a totally different world. Being able to be around all those other professionals was really awesome. Getting to work alongside other therapists, speech therapists, PTs, so I really enjoyed that change in the school setting.
Jayson Davies
That's so interesting, I know, because I have often told therapists that it might be a good idea to start in a pediatric clinic, because I have seen what Emily has seen. I have seen pediatric clinics where you are treating right next to a therapist, and maybe you're not like working with that therapist directly, but all that rubs off onto you. You see what they're doing with a kid, and you get ideas and and you're right. Or at least in my experience, Emily, like you don't have that in the school based OT, you're often on your own. You have three schools, and they are your three schools, or whatever it is, and you don't have someone and and you might meet with them once a month to have an OT meeting, but you don't get that. But it's interesting to hear you can have the opposite effect. Sarah, were you at like, a very small clinic? Or why do you think that that was.
Sarah Beaulieu
Yeah, it was a really small clinic. It was mostly contracted therapists. You know, most of them were working part time. It was a second job. They're working per diem or contracting out to different preschools. So a lot of people just coming and going and not as much of that 40 hour work week where you're working throughout the day with other therapists.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, all right. Well, you know, it's always nice to hear differing stories, because, you know, everyone out there, they're trying to figure out what, which way they want to go. So it's great to hear two different things. I assume that you guys were both going to say the same thing on that, that it started off, you know, a lot of community within the pediatric clinic, and then you went to schools and but that's great to hear Sarah that, you know, it's not always the same route. So thank you. All right, so today we are here to talk about goals. So let's dive into it. First of all, let's set the scene. Why is talking about goal writing important for school based OTs?
Emily Deller
So goal writing is really an inevitable part of documentation for an OT regardless of your setting, right? So it's how we track progress over time. It shows our skill there and need to be working with a student or a client. So what we found is that school based ot goals are really uniquely written, and they're not frequently addressed in OT school curriculums or not done in an extended period of time. So we're here to really share what we've learned over years of experience and feedback from others in our profession, as well as just our experiences in a bunch of different settings.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. And Sarah, I want to let you continue on. But I also, as I'm thinking, how are they slightly different from a pediatric setting too, or a clinic setting, I should say,
Emily Deller
yeah. So it depends really on the areas that you can write goals for. So the main idea of writing school based ot goals are for accessing your education. So we need to make sure that what we're addressing is really improving and enhancing the students participation throughout the school day and in those in that educational curriculum, whereas pediatrics and outpatient you can really work on whatever the caregiver concern is or whatever you see is most fundamental at that time.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. And Sarah, would you like to add anything?
Sarah Beaulieu
Yeah. So as Emily mentioned, you know, ot goal writing, especially for school based, is not something that's always well taught in OT program, so it's difficult to know whether or not you're writing good goals, high quality goals. So going back to your point, why it's important to talk about this is that it's something that has to be developed over time. It's really is a unique skill set that documentation and goal writing. So talking it out with other experienced therapists can be really helpful in helping to grow that skill set, especially if you don't have good mentorship where you're currently at. So that's why we're here today, is to kind of share what we've learned over the years and hopefully help some newer therapists or therapists that are looking to improve their goal writing in their practice.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. Thank you so much. And you know, one thing that I've realized is that schools districts, they're very different, and so before we actually continue on, I want to give you both a second to actually share kind of what type of district are you in? Are you in a rural, small district? Are you in a entire county? Are you in a urban, large district? Where are you both currently practicing? So people know when they're listening to this kind of where you're coming from. How about I will I will say, go ahead.
Emily Deller
Yeah. So I have a unique position. So I'm within a school district in Delaware. However it is, I believe it's the only. Publicly funded autism program, specific autism program, in this in the US. So I work in two specialty programs and autism program and a school for the deaf. So the goals and the programs and kind of the laws that we follow may be a little bit different and a little bit more unique than a typical, just public school environment.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Okay, and what about you Sarah?
Sarah Beaulieu
I have somewhat of a unique position as well, and that I'm in a single school. I don't have to travel to multiple schools. I feel very lucky for that position. I do work in a rural school district. I, for those of you who don't know, I'm in Maine, so we have a smaller school district, and I'm just in a single school, working with kids in K through three public school.
Jayson Davies
K through three, that's it.
Sarah Beaulieu
We have a very large school. I think we have 12 different kindergarten classrooms in our school building, so it's quite large.
Jayson Davies
And you said this is kind of in a rural area, right?
Sarah Beaulieu
Yes.
Jayson Davies
Okay, so how far away do kids, some of the kids have to travel to get to their school sites.
Sarah Beaulieu
It could be up to like a 30-45, minute bus ride. It depends.
Jayson Davies
Wow. Okay, so they're coming in from a little distance away. Okay, very cool. All right, back to our regularly scheduled goal writing this for anyone who has sat in more than like five IEPs, ARDS, whatever we want to call them across the United States. This might sound like a little bit of a loaded question, but I would love to hear your response, and that is, why are goals important for IEPs?
Emily Deller
So when it comes down to it, it really is the legal process, and that's why they're required. So legally, goals are required to show what skills we are addressing in order to provide those direct services in a public school environment. And that public school environment is important because in private school environments that can be different, they really also help us focus on what we were working towards so that we can establish a clear plan of care and how we want to get there. So when it comes to IEP documentation, goals show the need areas that the student has, and it is really the skills that they need to improve to again, best access their education.
Jayson Davies
Got it, great. And what about 504 plans, or maybe RTI programs? Do you guys also write goals for those types of programs, or what's your experience with that?
Sarah Beaulieu
So what we found that most common answer is no, most OTs are not writing goals for five oh fours or RTA programs. But of course, it depends. Everywhere you go, typically with 504 plans, you're really focused on providing those appropriate accommodations. So you wouldn't be writing any goals for that. Of course, there's rare occasions where you might be providing short term direct services on a 504 I know some OTs have many students on a 504 again, that varies by state, but in my experience, we don't write goals for students who are accessing services on a 504 plan. When it comes to RTI, you know, similarly, you're really focused on providing general accommodations, strategies or interventions that aren't student specific, so you wouldn't be tracking individual student progress for that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I completely agree, especially with RTI. You know, I like to provide practitioners with this advice. I like to think of RTI as writing more goals for a classroom, as opposed to an IEP as goals for an individual student. So I might create a quote, unquote goal for their classroom, for all the students in that classroom, but yeah, typically, we're not writing too many goals for individual students of course.
Sarah Beaulieu
I think that's a great way to really keep your RTI programming focused on what you want to achieve, but also keeping it broader for the whole class. Yeah, another thing that's come up too is the debacle of whether or not you're writing goals for ot console. I don't know about you, but in my district, we do have to write goals for ot consult, and in polling our audiences, the majority do not. So do you guys have to write goals for consult?
Jayson Davies
It has changed over the years. I have bought this a lot in my school districts. Personally, I am one to like I am one to speak up when it comes to, you know, meeting with my directors and whatnot. And we've gone back and forth with this. You know, I've worked in three different districts, and it keeps going back and forth as to whether or not we need a goal, my preference, I guess you would call it, is that, no, it should not be an OT goal. It should be a teacher goal, and we are consulting with the teacher to help the teacher help the student make that goal. That's my opinion. However, sometimes I'm one to ask for forgiveness as opposed to permission, so I might not always do exactly what my director wants. So you know it is what it is, but I do know that throughout the United States it does change, and you already touched upon this once, like the reason that one district might do it and another district might not comes down oftentimes. The legality and what their state is saying, because maybe the state has been sued for not having a goal on a consult, and it's unfortunate that that tends to be a reasoning. But yeah, I don't know. Do you want to add anything about that?
Emily Deller
I've definitely had my share of experiences with that and the legality we questioned and things like that. But yeah, I completely agree, in terms of the consult, where working more collaboratively in other goals on the IEP can be more beneficial than just writing an OT goal as a console.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Beaulieu
I agree with the No. I'm on the no consult Goal team as well. For me, it I feel that when I have to write a goal for consultation, it really kind of boxes me into what I'm consulting about, and having to track and measure where, oftentimes the kid that we have on consult may have a variety of different needs, and it's fluid throughout the school year. There may be different needs that are coming up throughout the year, not just tied to one specific area. So if I had the choice, I would also say no goals for ot consult to give us more flexibility in what we're addressing if we are in a district that's writing separate ot discipline specific goals.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, you know what? Sorry, this is completely off the cuff. But have you ever had to have a tough conversation with someone above you, or maybe someone within the IEP team about this. How come ot should not be writing a goal for a studentConsult? Have you ever had that conversation with someone?
Emily Deller
I have in terms of pushing what they call a written expression goal? So a lot of times I find that the schools and the programs I'm working when in don't necessarily have handwriting programs, but they're assuming that the OT will teach handwriting, so that's where I come in, and we'll put my foot down and have in terms of talking to case managers about this skill has not been taught, so I'm not teaching, and I'm here to provide remediation on that. And I think that's one good like advocacy step too, in terms of getting away from handwriting therapists.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely I agree. And I do think that OTs need to push back just a little bit. You know, we need to know what we are personally great at, and what we can do and what we can support a student. But we also need to know in the opposite side what we shouldn't be doing, what we are not able to do. And, you know, it's hard to say, give a student ot when they haven't had that initial training on handwriting first for just to go with the handwriting example. And in that sense, it might be better off to provide that consult to a teacher how they can support the students, especially, you know, at the younger grade levels, before going down the remediation route and creating your own specific ot goals. So yeah, all right, Emily, you touched upon this a little bit earlier when we talked about goals within and outside of the public schools, or within within or outside schools, I should say. But is there a quote, unquote lane that we should stay within as a school based ot when it comes to goal writing?
Sarah Beaulieu
So we'd like to say no, that there's no lane that we should stay in so long as we're practicing within our scope, right? But logistically, we can't possibly cover every single area in our scope for every single student. We can address anything within our scope, from ADLs to executive functioning. We definitely do not have to stick to just fine motor being fine motor therapist, which we're often known for. But what's great about working within a team is that there's often other skilled professionals that can address any common areas of overlap. So for example, while we are skilled in addressing social skills and emotional regulation, there might be a speech therapist who's working on social pragmatics, or a counselor or social worker who's taking on that emotional regulation piece. So while we can pursue anything within our scope, it might not always be the best use of our skill set. If there's other professionals that can kind of take on some of that role, and of course, we can still also work collaboratively with them to share our experience when it comes to those areas too.
Jayson Davies
I love that answer, Tara, that that's great. Like, just because we can do it doesn't mean we are the best at doing it. So I really, I really like that. Emily, did you want to add anything to to that quote, unquote lane of of goal writing?
Emily Deller
Sure. Yeah. So we really do encourage OTs to think outside of that fine motor, that handwriting box that we had just talked about, because we are so much more than that and have so much more value. But there is the reality of it that we do need to work within what the special education coordinator or the case manager approves in the IEP. So if you are feeling quote, unquote, boxed in, you can work to expand your role as an OT over time. So maybe you are just doing fine motor goals now, but really advocate and address for the other important areas with those higher ups in the school district or within your own team, so that you can start to work on some of those in the future.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. So you know, I've been a school based ot for several years now. I know both of you have as well, and I'm sure you just like, I have created many great goals. Goals, and also maybe some not so great goals, right? You look at it a year later and you're like, wow, what was I thinking? But we all need, like, a system to help us remember what makes a great goal. There's a lot of acronyms for goal writing. You have smart goals. Some people subscribe to the dumb goals, D, U, M, B, goals. Do you use any particular acronym, do you smart or do you something else?
Sarah Beaulieu
Sure. So when we're teaching about goal writing, we specifically speak to smart goals, which, for listeners who may not know, stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. And we use that smart goal framework to make sure that we're really including all of the information necessary in order to make that goal client centered and measurable. So the way that we write the goal, word for word, can depend on the district, the program that we're using, the electronic documentation system, or IEP program. So it may not look exactly like that soap note format that we were taught in OT school or smart smart goal format, but as long as we're keeping that framework in mind, we can be confident that we're including everything we need in order to make that goal high quality and measurable.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, and I know you both actually collaborate together to to actually provide a training for therapists on goal writing, specifically in the schools. And so I really want to hear your answer to to this. So we're going to expand upon it a little bit. So I want to know what do you both consider some of those key components? You mentioned the S, M, A, R, T, wording, but what are the key components to a solid goal?
Emily Deller
So there's really three different areas that we focus on, the first being client centered. So is it important to the student? Is it needed to improve access to their education? Are you addressing the students strengths and their individual way of learning? That's something that's very key to making a goal that is going to be attainable but also be motivating for the student. The second one is being functional. So in schools focusing on accessing the educational curriculum, and now that also means that your educational curriculum could be life skills, space, it's whatever that student is accessing. It's not just looking at math, science, spelling, ela, it can really expand to what is that individual curriculum for that student, but also making it functional in terms of working on occupation based skills. So this also brings up the difference between outpatient peds and school based so we are looking more at what is the skill, what is that end goal, rather than looking at the component parts. So instead of a in hand manipulation goal, we're going to put that towards a functional task and that be our measure. And then the third that's really a key component for a solid goal is being measurable, and it's can you take data on the goal so that you're actually getting the information that you want or need? There's a lot of times we write goals and then we go to progress monitoring time, and it's like crap. I was looking at attention when I wanted to look at the real skill, and you don't know where to go with that information. So being measurable is extremely important.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and you know, let's, let's dive into that measurable a little bit more. How do you go about ensuring that a goal is measurable?
Sarah Beaulieu
One of the most important things is to make sure that you're keeping the language and the goal really objective. You don't want to leave it open to interpretation. So when we're teaching others about goal writing, we really emphasize what we call the stranger test. So a stranger should be able to read your goal and know exactly how to implement that goal. They should really have a clear understanding of what you're trying to target and how you're going to measure that goal. And I think this is really especially important when you're working in a collaboration with a coda who may be implementing those goals and measuring them, or if the student were to move out of district, you want to make sure that their new therapist would share that same understanding of how the goal should be measured, and by using that objective straightforward language, you can help promote that. And another way is to just make sure that you have a plan on how you're going to collect that data before you add that goal to the IEP. So you should have a really clear plan forward of how you see yourself measuring that progress, whether it's with a plus and minus chart, using graphing, activity analysis sheets, those things help ensure that you're able to show meaningful progress over time.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? Going a little bit even further on that, do you, Sarah, will you have either a paraprofessional or even a teacher at any time help you with measuring goals?
Sarah Beaulieu
Absolutely, especially when it comes to working with the self contained teachers and the self contained program, we do a lot of shared collaboration on ADL type goals. So we usually will develop an activity analysis chart, something really quick and easy for them in order to track that progress, and we discuss it on how it's going to be implemented and tracked by the paraprofessional or the teacher in that classroom.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely. I. I do the same exact thing too. And I think as long as we as professionals a treat them like professionals, and, you know, provide them with the training that they need in order to do whatever we are asking them to do. I think that is completely fair. I also think that if I think, if we're going to work with a pair professional, we need to be working with that teacher very closely as well, because we don't want to overstep the teacher's directives to that paraprofessional, or whatever it might be, and so we might want to go through the teacher to get to the paraprofessional, as opposed to going directly to that paraprofessional. I don't know. Have you found anything that works really well?
Emily Deller
I think that using that collaborative team approach is really important. So maybe talking to the paraprofessional and the teacher at the same time, because I feel like a lot of times there is a power imbalance, or can be a perceived power imbalance, and we don't want to make it that way. We know how important those paraprofessionals are in the classroom to help our students succeed. So talking as to the group or to the educational team as a whole to address this is how I want to take the data. Here's how you can present the goal, and what else, is a good way to go about it.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. All right, so we already established that, Emily, you're in Delaware, Sarah, you're in Maine, correct? All right, yeah, you're, you're, you're far apart, but you're both on the East Coast, north northeast. Do you find that your goals look similar, or do they actually look different because you're in different parts of the country?
Sarah Beaulieu
I think just the nature of the different roles that we're in, the different school settings, they can vary quite a bit. Emily writes a lot of life skills based goals, whereas I do not where I'm working with those younger students, but definitely the formatting varies. I believe, Emily, you have a shared goal bank that all of the contracted therapists use together. Whereas we don't have that consistent formatting. We're kind of, we're able to write our goals in whatever formatting that we like.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, Emily, do you want to add anything?
Emily Deller
Yeah, we we found this as a company to be extremely confusing, as we were working across the program, and everyone had their own kind of way of writing goals, and then the students would either switch placements or would come back on what we call on site, and they would just move around a lot, and we wouldn't know what the goal meant or how to track it. So we came up with a company wide way of how we're writing goals, and the goal bank to pick from and then to modify, to make client centered or student centered, to just be the best for us. But it's also a small company, so we know that that's not very doable in large districts.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, you know, I have, over the years, I've had access to goal banks, and sometimes they've been, you know, on Google Sheets. Sometimes they've been within the IEP program itself, and I've never fully implemented, like, the use of it. It's just it takes a while to to put together a system to use a goal bank. And sometimes it's just easier to write a goal off the cuff, like, you know what you want to work on, and you just want to write it. But I'm sure you know, it is nice to have that goal bank to potentially refer back to and just see, you know, our other ot writing goals kind of similar to this and and going back to that. So absolutely, all right, this is a question that I love to ask all all guests, but specifically in relationship to the topic that we're talking about, and that's a little bit about research. You know, Is there research out there related to best practice for goal writing? You know, I personally have never seen a research article like titled occupational therapy goal writing in schools. But I want to ask you, do you know of any research related to to goal writing in schools?
Sarah Beaulieu
So what we're hearing from our national therapy associations is that collaborative goal writing really is best practice. And recently, a otta and Asha put out a joint statement on inter professional collaborative goals and school based practice. And in that joint statement, they really conclude that collaboration increases understanding of different team member roles, and it really helps to enhance student outcomes, and they help to outline a general process on how therapists can move towards that collaborative model in goal writing.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely and Emily, what about you? Do you, do you have anything else beyond the collaborative goal writing that you like to do as best practice?
Emily Deller
So a OTA does have a book out there called Best Practices for occupational therapy in schools, that includes the best practice areas for goal writing, but not necessarily anything too specific. There is some new research that's coming out in terms of strength based goals. So strengths based goals are really respecting a student's independence, autonomy and preferences within goal writing by looking at what the student can do. It's another way to be client centered and to make sure that the goal is specifically written for an individual harnessing their strengths to learn a new skill.
Jayson Davies
Great. Yeah, I think that absolutely is the way that we are going with goal writing and keeping it strength space, especially in the schools. I think that's a. Right way to go about it, speaking of that, a little bit, because this kind of ties into the type of goals. Is often tied into the number of goals that we have. And so how do you go about determining, in a way, how many goals you want to write for a student. Is there a specific number that you aim for? A specific number that you want to stay under? Is it completely irrelevant? How many numbers, number of goals? What are your thoughts on that?
Sarah Beaulieu
So for me, we're writing ot specific goals in my district. I know that not everybody does, but So keeping that in mind, really less is more you want to aim for maybe two to four goals total. You don't need to write a goal for every single skill that you're working on in therapy, because if we did that, we'd spend more time collecting data than we would on developing those skills. So when I'm writing my ot specific goals for my students, I really try to shoot for that lower range and just making sure we're narrowing it down to the most impactful areas for that student, and choosing to measure those and track those over the IEP year.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, absolutely, you know. And while we're on this topic, because, you know, we might recommend, let's say we recommend two goals, but then a parent comes in, or an advocate comes in and they say, I want a different goal. How might you respond to that? If you know you've already decided on kind of these two goals, how might you respond to that?
Emily Deller
So if it happens at an IEP meeting, the first thing that I always say is I'll have to collect baseline data and get back to you on that. We don't want to just write down a goal willy nilly and not have any kind of data to see what the student actually does. We know a lot of times the skills that are presented at home are different than in school, so always keep that in mind, and IEP can always be amended at a later date, although case managers don't always love that. They'll do, but if it is a concern that's brought up prior to an IEP meeting or in the planning of that, you can definitely ask about specific areas of need that a parent has, that they would like address. So really start that conversation early on to see what are their concerns and how can you address it. It also comes in terms of the advocacy of just more goals don't always mean more progress, and that the skills that we're addressing within one goal probably already are relating to their area of need that they have. So those are just some different ways to go about that. The third way that you could is, and this is very dependent on state and programming, is adding in the parents areas of concern, in your ot need, in the accommodations and modifications. So for example, in my electronic programming, I can write, in addition to the following goals, ot services will address x, y and z through direct and consultative services, but not have a specific goal attached to those. So if that's it's a possibility in some districts.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and we always have those supplemental aids, modifications, accommodation soon. And I think as OTs, we need to learn to use those a little bit better. It is less restrictive to use an accommodation than it is to provide direct therapy services. And so we need to learn to use those, those accommodations, especially, a little bit more. So thanks for that. I love that answer. By the way that you said, it's okay to say, hey, I need more time. Oftentimes we get caught up in IEP meeting, and we want to just, like, give the right answer. And I think it's perfectly okay to say, I hear you, I understand, but I don't have the data that we need right now to move forward with this. I would love to, you, know, see the student over the next two weeks and then get back to you. I think that's perfectly fine to say. So yeah, exactly with i Sorry. I actually I don't want to go forward because I kind of cut you off in a way, Emily, because I didn't give you an opportunity to talk about the number of goals. It sounds like you use a more collaborative approach potentially within your program. So does that alter the amount of goals that you potentially have as a therapist?
Emily Deller
So when Sarah and I had discussed this in the past, many times, I think she writes too many goals, having four, and I usually stick to one or two, but that's just differences in our programming, right? So while I'm still writing district or sorry that while I'm still writing related service specific goals, I have a more collaborative environment, where we have team meetings every week, where the whole entire educational team is there to discuss this is how we want to address the goal. Here are the supports to put in place so we don't need as many goals, because it is such a trans disciplinary environment already.
Jayson Davies
All right, so Emily, we're all going to need to know what district or school you work for. Jump in on that right weekly collaborative meetings. Wait, what is that? All right, here in California, and I know it's fairly common across the country now for every long term yearly goal, we often have to break that down. Into progress monitoring types of goals like maybe two to three short term objectives. Do you do that? And if so, what does that look like?
Sarah Beaulieu
Yeah. So at my school, all of the related service providers do write short term goals, or what we call also objectives, and the formatting those can vary. So for example, you might have a single long term goal and a single objective under that, or you could have a single long term goal and multiple short term goals under that that are maybe time based per quarter, per trimester. It really varies. We don't have one consistent way in which we write those, but we are required to write those short term goals and objectives.
Emily Deller
And so I've actually found that it's through coaching that that's not the norm. I talk to people in a lot of different states and many districts only write long term goals, so that leaves it up to the therapist to then break that up into the benchmarks, so that they're taking data to show progress over time, and they actually can see it, because otherwise it comes to IEP time, and they may not have any progress, or they're just then looking at that progress reporting.
Jayson Davies
Wow, yeah. In California, it used to be really, when I first started, back in 2012 it was really we only had to write short term objectives for students that that had more severe disabilities, that they were in a more severe program, those types of students that needed more, just more support, for some reason, legally and from the state, we had to write objectives for those, for those kids. However, over the last 10 years, it has really just kind of caught on that we just need to do that for every student. So that's kind of what is that's kind of how it shifted over here in the last 10 years, but yeah, that's interesting to hear that that's not the norm. So, wow.
Sarah Beaulieu
I think that's what makes it so difficult to learn how to write proper goals, because it changes so much from district to district. There's no one gold standard on whether or not you're writing short term goals, how you're going to format those goals, so it makes it really difficult, especially for new grads, to really grow that skill set and really understand if they're doing what's right by the student and what's best practice.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. And, you know, I always tell people that I think it's very unique that in the schools, we write a goal for 12 months. Like 12 months is a really, really long time, especially for a student. And actually, since you both have kind of worked in that pediatric clinic setting outside the schools, or whether it's home or clinic, whatever it might be, really quickly when you write goals there, what time frame are you talking for a goal?
Sarah Beaulieu
When I was an outpatient, we were writing them quarterly.
Jayson Davies
So three months, kind of is, is what the time frame was for each goal. Emily?
Emily Deller
Yeah, mine was three months or insurance based, so we would know how many visits they get before insurance runs out, and do it that way.
Jayson Davies
So if they have 10 sessions for insurance, then you're writing a goal for 10 weeks or five weeks. If they're twice a week, something like that. Wow. So we're talking at most 12 weeks, and in the schools, we're talking a school year is like 40 weeks, or something like that, 35 weeks, something like that. So very big difference from being a pediatric outpatient or out whatever clinic, versus in the schools. Yeah, it's pretty crazy that we read a goal for 12 months, because so much can change in that amount of time? Yeah, all right, moving forward, still talking about goals, of course. Can goals be changed, either at an IEP, or maybe even halfway through the year? Once you know, you put a goal in place at the annual IEP and maybe you see changes, can you make changes to goals halfway through the year?
Sarah Beaulieu
Absolutely, you know, at minimum, we should be updating them annually, and sometimes we'll update them at a triennial, a three year eval meeting as well, if that falls in between each of their annual meetings. If you're finding that as you're progressing throughout the year, several months go by and they're really not making progress to toward those goals, or you're finding that it's really not an appropriate goal for them. For whatever reason, you can absolutely call a meeting to have that amendment. Sometimes I've come across IEPs where the students goals have remained the same for multiple years, which absolutely should not be happening if they're not meeting those annual goals. We need to really reflect on their plan and our approaches and make the appropriate changes so that we're able to make those goals more attainable and realistic for the student. And I know, and speaking with Emily, you know where they work so collaboratively, and they have that those weekly occurrences of meetings, I think Emily, you guys even maybe update them more frequently than annually as well.
Emily Deller
Yeah, so it remember, the parents and caregivers can call IEP meetings at any time, so just because they have the annual doesn't mean that they aren't going to call a meeting with a new concern or one thing's updated, and so can the educational team. But some states also have requirements when goals aren't meeting those objectives or those benchmarks when they have to be revised. So for example, there's a district. My district works, so that. If a student isn't making progress in two consecutive marking periods or benchmarks, it's required to have a revision to address it. So some states also have additional laws to make sure that they're not going an entire year without making progress.
Jayson Davies
absolutely and that is kind of where we're at here in California, like they want to see progress, and grades are really based upon progress on goals, as opposed to their grades within the classroom, a little bit for the self contained classrooms. And so you were talking about Emily, how you kind of write goals that are related service specific, but you really work in this collaborative team. If there's someone out there listening, what might be a tip for starting on the route toward being more collaborative, primarily with goals, but in general, more collaborative.
Emily Deller
Yeah, so Sarah actually has more experience than I do in terms of writing the collaborative goals, because my I'm already in that collaborative environment. It's not necessarily something that I've stepped my feet in. So Sarah, let's just speak to that.
Sarah Beaulieu
Sure. So as I mentioned, we in my district have been writing separate related service provider goals for quite a while, so making that shift is really quite difficult. You know, everybody has their established roles and systems in the way that they do things. So my recommendation would be to really just start small, and that's what I've done. Just this past year, I started in working more closely with the self contained classroom, developing collaborative ADL goals. That's really a really great starting point, I would say, because you really do work so closely with them. You know, oftentimes it's a special education teacher who's writing those dressing goals or toileting goals, but we have such skill and expertise in those areas. So I've tagged on what we call, quote, unquote, tagging on to those special education goals, where typically I might write a separate dressing goal, as is the norm. I've also worked with a resource room teacher on an executive functioning based goal for a student who really that was their biggest area of need. So I think just starting small, starting with maybe a teacher that you're close to who would be open to that collaboration, yeah, trying to do it just a little bit at a time, not trying to all of a sudden, okay, next year, all of my students are going to have just 100% collaborative goals. I'm going to be supporting all of the classroom goals, just really starting small and making that gradual shift towards that collaborative model.
Jayson Davies
All right, and Sarah, as you're making that shift, what are you trying to include in that goal to make sure that it is a collaborative goal.
Sarah Beaulieu
I think it's important in order for it to truly be collaborative, you really need input from both of the professionals who are going to be working on it, so making a point to meet with them ahead of time, to really talk about how that's going to be written, and making sure that you have a plan on how you're both going to contribute to working towards that goal, what unique skills you're going to be bringing to the table in order to help them achieve that goal, as well as having a plan in order to track that progress on the goal, you don't want to come to progress note time and say, Oh, I thought, I thought you were writing the summary. Oh, wait, I was supposed to write the summary. So making sure you're really figuring that all out up front before you get into that situation, because that definitely would not be a fun time.
Jayson Davies
100% the last thing you want to do is show up to an IEP and blame each other on who's supposed to have the progress report Absolutely. Do you find that your actual written goal looks very similar, whether it's collaborative or related service specific. Or do you find that they actually look pretty different?
Sarah Beaulieu
So and just my limited experience, of course, far where I have been working so much on goal writing, I have sort of taken charge on the formatting of the goal and I I run it by the teacher, and I asked, Does this sound in alignment with what you were thinking? Does this sound okay? So I've kind of taken that on, and the goal itself doesn't look much different than how I would write it as my own ot focus goal, it really does look quite similar. So for an an ADL goal around hand washing, it's broken down by following that activity analysis, I wouldn't necessarily write it any differently.
Jayson Davies
Great, great. And do you do you either put in the goal or somewhere I know every IEP looks different, and they have like different spots for you to input different things. Do you write within the IEP who is going to be accountable for measuring the progress?
Sarah Beaulieu
Sure, so on our IEP documentation system, they can add under each goal a responsible person. So I am listed as a responsible person under those goals that are shared.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha and but do you go even further to like say the OT will be the one to measure this goal, or the teacher will be the one to measure this goal. Or do you guys just do that behind the scenes?
Sarah Beaulieu
Sure it's more so behind the scenes, just in my experience so far, again, it's something new that we're trying to navigate. And yeah, I know, I think that that could come back if you're in a large district, and you could come back to bite you if you don't have it specifically laid out there who is responsible. So I, I don't think that's a bad thing to make sure that it's really clear in the documentation.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. All right, this is totally off the cuff again. I love that you guys are taking my off the cuff questions. Thank you back in the day, because you mentioned those responsible people, right? You write a goal and then you like, click a check box on next to the OT, next to the teacher who's responsible. So my first question is, is there an option for a parent to be on that checklist for a responsible party, for a goal?
Sarah Beaulieu
That's a great question. I I actually am not sure if that's possible in our system.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. So I remember back in the day, back in 2012 when I first started, that was an option. We could actually put a parent as a responsible party. Now we never did. I remember hearing that there was only like one time that the district ever did that, when I was brand new, and it was for a goal, an attendance goal. And so they actually did. They did put the parent as a responsible party. But it sounds like neither of you have probably ever done that right where a parent is a quote, unquote responsible party for a goal in addition to other related service providers, or have you?
Emily Deller
I have so many like problem scenarios that are going to provide right now, if I were to make a parent responsible for a goal, so I personally would never do it.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and, you know, I think that's why it doesn't happen, right? Yeah, it's, it's, we are the specialists. We are the ones responsible for the goals. And that's what I kind of figured the answer from both of you would be, it's like, No, we haven't done that and but you know, you never know. So I figured I might ask. So All right, now I think both of you are working with the younger kiddos, but no, Emily, you're working with older kids too.
Sarah Beaulieu
K to 21.
Jayson Davies
Oh, wow. Alright, awesome, perfect. So then my question here is, do high school goals, elementary goals, maybe even transition age goals, the 18 to 21 year old kids, or young adults, I should call them. Do all these goals primarily look the same? Or do you see a big difference between obviously, the you know, the tasks that we're demanding, they're asking of them, is going to be different, but do the goals look similar in the way that they're formatted and overall.
Emily Deller
Possibly, it depends answer, right? So it really just depends on the students programming and the students needs, so in terms of the skills that are addressed, like, yes, you can have a high school student that's working on life skills. You can also have an elementary student who's working on that same skill. In terms of how they're formatted, they're not necessarily different other than the scenario that it might be done in could be different. So like, whereas a lot of times it's during structured therapy sessions, or within the classroom setting some of the older students might have within the community or on a job site as more of their area or where the skill is being measured. But because it's so specific to a student's need and because you're making a goal measurable and individual to that student, the format ends up being the same.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. I it was so much fun working with the high schoolers and the transition age students because of that, what you just mentioned, you could write a goal for something that happens at the grocery market, or you can write a goal for something that happens out on the quad, where they're all eating lunch. Like you don't get to do those types of things often, at least not often, with the elementary kids, because it really is based upon that that classroom. So, so yeah, that's a lot of fun when you get to the high school, school kids, and you can do something like that. Sarah, have you actually worked with older kids or not yet?
Sarah Beaulieu
Not in an OT capacity, my background is in being a bhp, a behavioral health professional working with teenagers, adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities, but not within the school based OT, practice setting.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, very cool. That's a it's always fun to hear what the background, what background people have too, because it influences, you know, our practice today as occupational therapy practitioners, so very slowly. All right, I want to play a little game with you all. I never well, maybe I did it one time before on an episode, but it's going to be like a quick response game. But I have one more question before we get to that. So what might you say to a parent who is asking for more goals at an IEP earlier, I asked you, maybe a parent wants a different goal. But again, kind of the you get to that IEP meeting, and this happens frequently for ot practitioners, they want more goals. What might you? How might you respond?
Emily Deller
I think a lot of it we had mentioned in terms of less is more in goal writings, that. We can address a skill and it carry over to another area of need, again, saying that we need baseline data, we need to stop, but also, really the fact that we can address multiple areas, multiple skill needs, with outside of the goals, so the interventions that we choose and advocating this to a parent to parent, our interventions aren't necessarily guiding the amount of goals, just the quality of what we're doing as therapists. So just because we had a different goal doesn't mean that the student is going to get more services. It also doesn't mean that they're going to make more progress.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. And Sarah, do you have anything that you'd like to to add to that?
Sarah Beaulieu
No, I think Emily laid it out beautifully. I think that really emphasizing that just because we're adding more goals doesn't mean they're going to get more dedicated therapy time each week, because we want what's least restrictive, and adding multiple so many goals doesn't improve their progress towards those goals, I think about like my personal life, my personal goal setting. If I had so many different personal goals that I'm trying to strive towards within the year, I'm not necessarily going to be able to accomplish all of those goals. Whereas, on the flip side, if I really narrowed it down to what's most important, my chances of meeting those goals would be higher. So I know that necessarily won't translate to the parent and then I think, but just really trying to explain that more is not always better.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, 100% agree. All right, so we're going to play a game here. This is going to be a quote, unquote quick response. We'll try to make it quick. Who knows? Maybe it won't be as quick, but I'm going to ask you several questions I have here. And yeah, we'll just see how this goes. This first one, I'm actually going to trick you a little bit. How far in advance of an IEP, should you have the goals written?
Sarah Beaulieu
Should or do?
Jayson Davies
Should.
Sarah Beaulieu
You should have them as far enough in advance that allows everybody else on the team, including the parents, time to be able to review those so I'd shoot for at least a week. I know in my district, we have a minimum of three days. I always like to do it before. Then I typically start the goal writing process several weeks in advance of the IEP, just so I have enough time to collect that baseline data. But I don't typically have them, like, fully formatted and written till we're a bit closer to the IEP.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. So, So Sarah's answer is about a week is like the should? What about you, Emily? What is the should date?
Emily Deller
Oh, well, that scares me. We have to send IEPs home in draft form five days before the meeting, at least. But I like to have at least three sessions of data prior for the baseline to be written. So you should have it at least two to three weeks out of the IEP written.
Jayson Davies
All right, so one week for Sarah, two to three weeks for Emily. And now is the what do you actually get done? When does it actually happen for you?
Emily Deller
The night before it's due?
Jayson Davies
So all right. All right, I'll let that one slide this time. Oh gosh, I'm the same way, right? You aim for, usually I aim for about a week before, but oftentimes it it could be a few minutes before walking into the ivy. Yeah. All right. So next question, what is your Instagram handle? We'll start with Emily.
Emily Deller
My Instagram is Emily Marie, underscore, OT.
Jayson Davies
All right, be sure to follow Emily and Sarah. Mine
Sarah Beaulieu
is Sarah, B, O, T, B, E, E, like the bumble bee, absolutely Oh. And I should mention that Sarah with an h,
Jayson Davies
S, A, R, A, H, right.
Sarah Beaulieu
Got it.
Jayson Davies
All right, fun one here. Think about the future and finish the blank. One day I will likely write a goal for a student to what?
Emily Deller
Shave facial hair.
Jayson Davies
All right. All right. Very functional.
Emily Deller
Yeah, not something I've written yet, but I feel like coming with a few of my students as they're getting together. All right,
Jayson Davies
all right. And what about you, Sarah?
Sarah Beaulieu
so I've worked a lot with students who use AAC devices, so I could see myself one day writing a goal that one day the student will be able to access their AAC device, and I see that as a collaborative goal with a speech therapist.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, it always should be collaborative whenever you're talking about AAC, in my opinion, yeah, personally, for me, I when I wrote this question, I was thinking about the one thing that I always kind of joke, a lot joke about in IEPs, but I think one day it will happen, and that is access to social media for a student, making sure that they have access to social media. Because, I mean, right now my my little cousin, she's 12, and she's in the other room and, oh my gosh, all she is doing is on her phone. I mean, I'm on my phone a lot, but, my goodness, yeah, so I think social media might be one thing that I might do one day in the future.
Sarah Beaulieu
That's a cool one.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. All Right, If we see you at a conference, what color pen are you using? Sarah,
Sarah Beaulieu
probably black, classic.
Jayson Davies
All right, and what color is the actual pen? Is it black, or is it like a cute pen, or what? No, but the actual like the style of pen Are you are you using? What are you using? Are using a Bic pen are you using?
Sarah Beaulieu
I don't know it's been so long since I've been at an in person conference typing notes on Google Docs.
Jayson Davies
All right, so, so an apple pen, an Apple Pencil, is probably her answer for that. All right. What about you, Emily,
Emily Deller
I'm a colored girl. I like purple or green, usually is my colored choice.
Jayson Davies
I could tell with the notes that you added to our Google Doc. They're all purple. Love it. All right, all right. So, so we got some some flair with Emily, and we got some classic black with Sarah. What do you prefer collaborative goals or service specific goals prefer? What do you prefer?
Emily Deller
So, I prefer collaborative. I do find that that transdisciplinary approach is the most effective for skill acquisition and progress. I mean, while I'm still using Service specific goals, those meetings that we have really allow us to be collaborative.
Jayson Davies
And what about you, Sarah?
Sarah Beaulieu
For me, since it's all that I'm used to, I'm really most comfortable with ot specific goals. But as I've sort of dove into it this year. I've really come to enjoy writing those collaborative goals, and I definitely see that moving forward as something that I prefer overall.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, absolutely love it, all right. This is a fun one, and I'm when I say fun, it's like, I really look forward to your answer on this. Should students help write their own goals? Emily.
Emily Deller
Yes, yes, of course, if they're able, definitely we need to be writing client centered goals. It's really crucial to our practice and the students progress if they're not writing their own goals, and we need to make sure that it's addressing what's important and motivating to the student.
Jayson Davies
And Sarah, I assume you agree or no,
Sarah Beaulieu
Definitely, in my experience at the elementary level, our students aren't usually involved in the goal writing process, but I think it's still really important that we connect them to those goals in therapy and make sure that they understand what they're working on and why that it's important, and making sure that it's meaningful to them as well.
Jayson Davies
All right, this is my favorite part of the game. It's my game. I get to create the rules and change the rules. At what age might you consider having a student to really help out with that goal writing?
Sarah Beaulieu
Gosh, I don't think it could really necessarily be defined just by age. I think it's important to also consider their cognitive capacity as well and how aware they are if their therapy goals. But I mean, I could see potentially some of my later elementary students being included in that process.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. What about you Emily?
Emily Deller
Yeah, I've done it with as early as third grade.
Jayson Davies
Okay, very cool. I like that answer. All right. Final question, what is the most unique goal you have ever written as a school based occupational therapy practitioner who wants to start with this one. Go for it. Emily.
Emily Deller
All right, so I do work at a school for the deaf, which is unique. So I get to write goals that are specific to addressing hand shapes for ASL.
Jayson Davies
Oh, that's awesome. I love that. What about you Sarah?
Sarah Beaulieu
So I recently wrote a goal around brailler use for a student who has visual impairment working on finger isolation and strength in order to activate the keys on their brailler. And that's been definitely the most unique one I've written so far.
Jayson Davies
That is that's very cool. I love that. I have never worked with a student using a brailler, but that would be interesting. My My wife had a student in her classroom who used a brailler. And I was a little shocked and let down by how few services that that student had for him. This was in a public school setting, and I was like, he had someone who was helping him learn the brailler, but I thought he needed more. But, you know, I'm I wasn't the OT at the school, so yeah, not my pleasure.
Sarah Beaulieu
That's been really a really fun thing to work on.
Jayson Davies
Very cool. All right, before I let you go, what resources are out there for school based OTs to improve their goal writing?
Emily Deller
Sure. So Sarah and I do have a school based ot goal writing workshop, and it's unique because we do work on the goals with you in the moment, review case studies and really ask for that active participation, so you're getting a lot of feedback instead of just kind of like watching a video. There are some books out there as well. There is the documenting occupational therapy practice by Karen sains that really discusses co writing, vocabulary, formatting, but in a general sense, not necessarily specific to school based practice. And then there is an A OTA book called documenting occupational therapy services in schools. But neither of us have necessarily looked at that. That's one of the new offerings for a OTA.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I just seen email come out with with that book being a relief. So interesting, alright? And actually, I want to go a little. Deeper you mentioned your course. Your course, it's cohort based, right? It's not like a self paced online course where anyone can sign up anytime you guys have made the decision, or you ladies, I should say, have made the decision, to really hone in on having that collaborative experience with everyone who's taking the course. So how many is it like weeks? Or is it what does that look like?
Sarah Beaulieu
So our our goal writing course, is really in the format of a live workshop, and we only launch it a few select times per year, and we limit the number of people that attend it, because we want to be able to give that in the moment feedback to people who are working on crafting their goal writing. So that's formatted in a single life workshop at the moment, where they come and we go through a presentation that Davies much deeper into the how to write and format successful, measurable, school based ot goals, and then it's followed by a workshop that gradually gets a little bit more involved as we go through on building that skill set even further, anything you want to add to that, Emily?
Emily Deller
and we really, definitely put an emphasis on that workshop component, where it is, going through case studies, going through questions, working you from ABC answers to crafting Your own goals and submitting them. It's a very friendly and non intrusive environment. We're not there to judge anyone's goals. I mean, we have written our own awful goals in the past, so it's really there to be a service for those who don't necessarily have access to those mentors out there, or other resources for school based goal writing.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, and where's the easiest place for people to learn about the goal writing workshop?
Emily Deller
Sure. So you can go to Emily Marie ot.com/goals and we have a wait list there. So everyone on the wait list will be the first ones to know when we are launching next.
Jayson Davies
Great. And we will be sure to sorry, real quick, Sarah, we'll put that in the show notes so everyone can find that and go ahead, Sarah.
Sarah Beaulieu
I was just gonna say you can also reach out to us over on Instagram is probably where we hang out the most, and share some information about goal writing there as well. So be sure to look into Instagram if you're interested in learning more about that.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. And Emily mentioned her website is Emily Marie ot.com right? Emily, correct. And Sarah, yours is Sarah B ot.com All right. So for everyone listening, you can find them on Instagram or on on their websites. I believe that's probably the easiest way to find them. Any last words or anywhere else you'd like people to find you at?
Sarah Beaulieu
Nowhere else for you to find us. But I just wanted to thank you for having us on.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely thank you for coming on. It's been a pleasure, and I'm sure this is going to help so many occupational therapy practitioners out there that are listening. So thank you for sharing. And you know you shared a lot today, so I can only imagine what else is in that workshop when people have the opportunity to take that so thank you again.
Emily Deller
Thanks Jayson.
Jayson Davies
And before I wrap up the show, first of all, thank you so much to Sarah and Emily for coming on the show. But before I wrap this up, I just want to say that things change so much I remember, I believe it was the second or third episode of the OT school house podcast. Was all about goals, and myself, and Abby at the time, who was working with the OT school house with me, we did an entire episode about goals, and we talked about smart goals, and I think we even actually added our little e at the end to make sure that our goals are educationally relevant, but things have just changed so much. Goals are so much more important, and the SMART framework still works, but we need to be careful when we are writing our goals. They do have implications on how we provide services, so make sure that you've written down some notes. Get those notes into your computer wherever they will be safe from this episode, because Emily and Sarah just brought so much knowledge, and not only about school based OT, but also how goals are different from the clinic setting. I've never worked in the clinic setting, so I was super excited to have them talk about how things are different from the clinic versus the school setting. Again. Thank you Sarah. Thank you Emily for coming on and sharing so much about goals. And if you want to learn more about Sarah and Emily and their goal writing course that they have be sure to head over to Emily Marie ot.com where you can learn all about their goal writing course. All right, take care, and I will see you in episode number 107.
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 otschoolhouse.com. Until next time class is dismissed.
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