OTS 018: Get Inspired! Featuring Lauren Drobnjak of The Inspired Treehouse
- Jayson Davies
- Nov 19, 2018
- 29 min read
Updated: Apr 8
Press play below to listen to the podcast
Or click on your preferred podcast player link!
Welcome to the show notes for Episode 18 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, we are excited to host one of the therapists behind The Inspired Treehouse Bog at TheInspiredTreehouse.com
Lauren Drobnjak is the Physical Therapist half of this popular blog and she joins us today to talk about how she and Claire Heffron, the Occupational Therapist half of the blog, began working together and ultimately started The Inspired Treehouse.
She also shares how they went on to start a non-profit center for children in their local community and how those kids helped them to develop the book they just released.
Just listen to the first 30 seconds of this podcast and you will hear how much Lauren cares for these kids and the community she serves. Then, listen to the rest of the episode to hear how Lauren and Claire are helping teachers, therapists, and parents around the world with their new book titled "Playful Learning Lab for Kids "
Links to Show References:
An inspiration for many including us here at the OT Schoolhouse, The Inspired Treehouse Blog is a place where we often start when in need of some fun and therapeutic treatment ideas.
Along with their free resources, we highly suggest you look into their offered webinars. Both provide great content along with resources and worksheets to help guide you to being a better therapist:
(Don't forget to use promo code otschoolhouse20 to get 20% off your order before 12/31/18)
This is THE book. Lauren and Claire spent a lot of time and energy compiling these 52 activities for you to use with your kids and students. Then they put together a blog post about how you can get all the needed materials to complete all 52 activities for under $50! So, be sure to check out the book on Amazon
The Treehouse Ohio in Bedford, Ohio is a not-for-profit center for developmental play founded by Lauren and Claire. If you would like to learn more about the Treehouse or make a donation, visit TheTreehouseBedford.org
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 about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
Well,
Thanks for visiting the podcast show notes! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the full episode transcript.
Lauren Drobnjak
I think the kids in the book probably, I think that's probably going to be my favorite memory for a long time, is just how happy they were to be able to be a part of it, how happy these families have been to watch that book come out and to watch the Facebook feeds and see say, hear them say, or see them say, That's my kid in this book.
Jayson Davies
Hey everyone, you may not recognize that voice you just heard, but That's Lauren drobnjak talking about her new book and one of the greatest memories she'll ever have from creating that new book. Lauren is one half of the inspired tree house, along with Claire Heffron, the occupational therapist behind the inspired Treehouse, and today, Lauren's here to talk about their brand new book, as well as several other things that they've got going on at the inspired treehouse.com. So stick around to hear from Lauren Drobnjak of the inspired tree house, and actually, she surprised me with a special discount code for all of you, and so she will be giving away that discount code at the end of the episode. So stick around. We're going to do the intro real quick, and we'll be right back.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research. Now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
All right. Well, welcome everyone to Episode 18 of the OT school house podcast. We are super excited today to have on Lauren drobniak of the inspired treehouse.com as our special guest today, before we get too far into the podcast, I do just want to give a simple reminder that we will have all the links to many products, many resources from the inspired tree house on our show notes at ot school house forward slash episode 18, we really appreciate whenever you do use a link from our website to a site such as the inspired tree house or Amazon or most other websites that we do have links to, these are where they're called affiliate links, and allows us to make a small commission at no additional cost to you. In fact, if you listen to this podcast, using our link will even help you to get a discount, because you'll be able to use that promo code that we have here. So this podcast does take time and energy, and so we do appreciate any way that you're able to give back through using these affiliate links. So we thank you in advance for using those. You'll hear me say later in this podcast that I was really looking forward to one of their webinars, and I have since actually had the chance to go on and start that webinar, and I'm just super thrilled about it. It's six videos, about four hours in length, of content, as well as several resources that they provide that can be very useful in my practice. So I want you all to know that they have a lot of awesome resources over there at the inspired tree house. Claire and Lauren both do a great job over there. Lauren being the physical therapist and Claire being an occupational therapist. They combine and work together to collaborate on a just a brilliant website, a big inspiration for us here at the OT school house. So we want to not keep you away from this awesome interview with Lauren and the stuff that she has to say. So we're gonna jump right into it right now and let you listen in. So put that cell phone in your pocket, or start your workout, start your drive and well, here's Lauren jobniak, hey, Lauren, welcome to episode number 18 of the OT school house podcast. How are you doing today? I'm good. Jayson, how are you? I'm doing? Well, November is off to a very quick start. I guess we could say I am looking forward to the holidays, though. How about you?
Lauren Drobnjak
Yeah, I would say November's off to a pretty cold start here in the Northeast. But, oh, really, yeah, we're supposed to have a mild winter, but it's awfully chilly right now.
Jayson Davies
Oh well, there's a reason. I don't live in the Midwest. I am a California boy that is for sure. Love my warm weather, yes. But every now and then, we like to get up into the mountains and go snowboarding. Is there anything fun in Ohio that your family loves to do as a together?
Lauren Drobnjak
Yeah, we actually live less than five minutes from a pretty decent ski hill, so we try to do that every so often. Some great slide riding around here, as long as you can stay on the coals, but and then we like to escape as soon as we can to somewhere warmer. Oh yeah, yeah, Spring Break can't come fast enough around here, not yet, not yet.
Jayson Davies
Haven't figured out where you want to go yet. We'll get there great. Well, you know what? You obviously are on the podcast. For a reason. You are one of the bloggers, the therapist behind the inspired treehouse.com and, well, that's fascinating. I've been following you guys for a while and and appreciate what you guys do, but I want to give you a chance to tell a little bit about yourself, as well as the inspired tree house. So if you'd like to share about your experience as a therapist and how you got to where you are, where you are?
Lauren Drobnjak
Okay, great. I was always interested in pediatrics from a very young age. I thought I was going to be a pediatrician. I went to college, followed my high school sweetheart and on a full basketball scholarship. I. Went to a school that probably wasn't my top choice, but those two factors were very influential in my college decision. We have a college here called Neo EUCOM, which was an Ohio based medical college, and I went to Youngstown State University, and it was affiliated with Neo UCOM, and I just thought, well, that will kick start my path to pediatrics and my future career as a pediatrician. Oh, wow. Well, my experience in college basketball led me to lots of physical therapists, and I thought, Oh, this career is kind of cool, but I don't want to do what they do, because they hurt me. So I'm going to keep going with my pediatric dream, and maybe I'll be a pediatric physical therapist. And it just so happened that in my senior year at Youngstown State, they got a physical therapy program, so I was part of the inaugural class there. Made my way through physical therapy school. Did almost all, I think, all, but one of my clinical experiences in pediatrics, my favorite being the Shriners Hospital of children, four children, in Shreveport, Louisiana. And then when I got out of school, I worked one year in a skilled nursing facility, and since then, I've been in pediatrics. So did a brief stint in school based therapy, right from the get go, and then spent eight years at the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital for rehabilitation, and then went back into schools. So I've been a pediatric therapist for a very long time.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, it sounds like you kind of got one year of a little bit of with those adults in the sniff. And then, no, yeah,
Lauren Drobnjak
Yeah, that was enough.
Jayson Davies
Wow. So, so you're currently in the schools? Correct, correct. Okay, are you? Are you an employee of the school I know in various parts of the states? It kind of varies. Some people are contracted. Some people work for the district. Where are you at?
Lauren Drobnjak
I am contracted to the district, and I currently contract myself to the two districts that I work in.
Jayson Davies
So you're working for two separate districts under your own name, or under the Inspire tree house, something like that, correct? Yes. Oh, very cool. How's that going? It's great. Have you been doing that for a long time then?
Lauren Drobnjak
No, it was within the last two years that I took the contract over myself. We actually have the contracts under the inspired tree house. But it was in within the last two years that we did that. Prior to that, we did work through a contract company.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, that's a definitely a very interesting topic that I would love to dive into more sometime with you. But to keep this going, remind me again, do you have your DPT or the doctor?
Lauren Drobnjak
No, I do not know, and that's a sore subject, because as the inaugural class through the first physical therapy at Youngstown State. We received a bachelor's degree. They had to be accredited as a bachelor's program first, and then the very next year, they were accredited as a master's program with no additional coursework added, but they would not grandfather us in. So I say that I have my master's degree by default, but I don't I have a bachelor's degree in physical therapy.
Jayson Davies
Wow. Well, yay. You're still in the same spot you would be, even if you had the master doctorate. I mean, you're still a physical therapist, and you're still doing what you love, right?
Lauren Drobnjak
I am, and I feel like my years in the field have probably prepared me for anything better than school would have at that point. So, all right, perfectly content.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely. So obviously, we've talked we're talking about how you're the physical therapist, but Claire isn't with us today. But would you like to give a brief introduction to Claire and how you two work together?
Lauren Drobnjak
Sure, can Claire is the occupational therapist half of the inspired treehouse.com she and I met in the school district where we worked together probably for a good eight years. Claire is a journalist by background. She her first degree was in journalism, and then her second career is occupational therapy. She has also spent the majority, if not all of her career in pediatrics, and that's how we met. Was within the school districts.
Jayson Davies
That's cool. That just, I mean to you're happy if you can make a friend and when you go to work, but to find a partner to run a blog with and get all this, these other things that you guys are doing that's super cool. And we'll get into that in a little bit.
Lauren Drobnjak
Yeah, we had very similar work ethics. So it, it kind of, yeah.
Jayson Davies
Worked out, yeah. So actually, in practice, at the schools, do you have a chance to work alongside Claire as far as treatment goes? Or do you guys kind of do more you do PT over here and she does ot somewhere else? Or do you guys get that chance to collaborate?
Lauren Drobnjak
We, we used to collaborate a lot, and that's probably why the inspired tree house started. We used to do a lot of CO treatments within a preschool classroom, and actually we included speech in that. So ot PT and speech would go in and do small groups with each of the preschool classrooms. We picked one day a month where we'd go in and kind of tackle them, and we'd run 30 minute groups, kind of bouncing. Using the kids between three different stations, one PT, movement, one OT, more fine motor, one speech language, and they would rotate through us.
Jayson Davies
That's perfect. Actually, that's kind of we're in a transition period at one of our schools, and so that's one of the methods that we are considering doing. One of the teacher concerns, and I'll ask you right now is, did you see that the students get tired at all, bouncing straight from ot to PT to speech. Or did it work out pretty well for you?
Lauren Drobnjak
No, I thought the kids loved it. I think they they didn't realize it was therapeutic. They thought it was play. We had a different theme every time we went in. So they thought we were super fun. People coming in to play with them, is what they thought cool.
Jayson Davies
And so I want to ask you, because some, some people out there just feel like treatments, good treatments, magically occur. Did you guys spend time collaborating before? And how much time if you did before you actually went into the classroom?
Lauren Drobnjak
I I think that we just worked together so long and knew each other's styles so well that it came very naturally to us, we would definitely prep our themes ahead of time. And I just knew that I was going to create some kind of movement activity or activities around that theme. Claire would create her piece, the speech therapist would create hers. And it just kind of all came together. So I wouldn't say there's a whole lot of prep at all in front of it. I think we just, we just worked well together.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's good. It's nice. The theme, the theme idea, I think works really well, because then you're right, like you said, you don't have to spend too much time collaborating with each other, but at the same time, it's going to look like you did, because you're all working on the same snowman theme, or whatever it is, yeah.
Lauren Drobnjak
Yeah. I think pediatric therapists are so creative by nature and flexible. So yeah, yeah, I don't get up anything that needs to be.
Jayson Davies
With the punches Yes, and keep it going. Yeah. So exactly a second ago, you mentioned that you and Claire were working together, and you guys had the same work ethic, and you're collaborating anyways, that kind of led to the inspired tree house. But was there, like, one particular moment that really just like we need to do this?
Lauren Drobnjak
Yes, we both have very entrepreneurial kind of a drive. And we were talking one day about how else we could use these skills outside of school based therapy, because we were kind of in a low about IEPs and evaluations and all the paperwork, and we just kept thinking, There's got to be some other way to do this. So we started talking, and we talked about, actually, a drop in play center. Is what we talked about, let's create this place where families can drop their kids off to play, but the play is led by therapists, so it's very developmentally appropriate and kind of like a babysitter, but kind of at on a whim, you could just say, Oh, I've got this doctor's appointment now. I'm going to watch my kids. I'm going to watch my kids. I'm going to drop them off here. So that was our idea. And there's actually a place in and around Cleveland that does that. They're not therapist led, but there is a drop in play kind of situation here. So we went to talk to the people that owns that place, and they happen to be Harvard Business grads. Oh, wow. And they were very insightful, and they actually told us to start a blog, put our ideas in a blog, and that that blog would eventually become our business plan. Should we decide to open a brick and mortar location? And Claire and I both looked at each other and thought a blog like, what is that? What do we do that's more paperwork? What's more writing? What do we what are we doing that for? But we knew that we had this whole archive, just 1000s of activities in our brains from being therapists for so long in pediatrics, and we thought, well, we'll just start writing activities. We'll write these things down. We'll tell what developmental skills they're good for, and we'll tell people how to change them up. So if you look at our very earliest posts on the inspired Treehouse, all of them were formatted that way. Here's the activity. Here's how to change it up. Here are the skill areas addressed. So that's kind of where the blog came from.
Jayson Davies
So then you created the blog. How long has the blog been out? Again?
Lauren Drobnjak
It's four years. Four years. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
Wow. That's amazing. And so now, how has has that come true? Did you start the blog and then eventually open up the play center?
Lauren Drobnjak
For sure, did.
Jayson Davies
And that's.
Lauren Drobnjak
That's tree house, yeah.
Jayson Davies
Tree house, Ohio, right?
Lauren Drobnjak
Yes, yes.
Jayson Davies
Very cool. And so I know we're gonna jump into that, so I won't go quite into that. But when you originally started doing the blog, who was your intended audience? Were you trying to get out to parents, the teachers, other therapists, or who is the inspired tree house for?
Lauren Drobnjak
I don't think we really had the concept of an intended audience at that point. I think we just wanted to make our writing very clear to whoever read it. So if you were a therapist and you read it, you'd say, Oh, I love that they target these developmental skills. I can write a goal, or I can use this activity in my treatment session to address balance. If you were a parent, you could come in and you weren't going to see words like range of motion or bilateral coordination. It was gonna be very simple. So I don't think we had that. That. Direction very clear from the get go, but we quickly found, we surveyed our audience within that first year, and we quickly found that a third were teachers, a third were parents, and a third were therapists. Oh, wow, which was fascinating to us. We were happy because we thought, Oh, wow. We did it. We wrote simple enough that anybody could understand. And, you know, gained our audience that way, and they seem to stay in that ratio. Third, third, third.
Jayson Davies
Great, yeah. And I, I loved, like, even just opening up your page, the logo that you guys have, the tree with the swing, it kind of just shouts out play, shouts out development and all. And that's great. Thank you. Right now. I mean, you guys have a lot of content on there. Is there one or two go to resources that you still find everyone wants to know about.
Lauren Drobnjak
Our webinars have been a huge resource that everybody seems to flock to. And then if they find the webinars through some other source, then they keep coming back to the blog, and they'll leave comments on blog posts. And so our webinars are probably our biggest traffic driver right now, and we have to create a pediatric treatment strategies, and then pushing into the classroom.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that pushing into the classroom one you have no idea there's at least been, I don't know, five times probably where I've been, like on my mouse about to hit the button, like I should do it, and then I don't. I know I need to that pushing, pushing into the classroom webinar. I'm sure it's amazing, and I guarantee, like tonight, after talking to you, I'll probably go over there and do it, because that is something that a lot of I'm sure you must have been seeing it, otherwise you wouldn't have created the webinars parents are asking for. That least restrictive environment, you know, working in the classroom, and is that basically why you guys developed that program or that webinar?
Lauren Drobnjak
Yeah, totally. I feel like that's really where we started, without really knowing that's what we were doing at the time we were doing it. We were pushing in. But just more recently, that's become a big buzzword pushing into the classroom. And I think as seasoned therapists, nobody wants to be told what to do or how to change their practice up. It's hard. It's hard for people that have done this. Me, I've done this for 18 years, and I don't want to be told that I have to change up all these things I've been doing to come into the classroom. Teachers don't want to change up what they've been doing, to say, hey, therapist, come on in. Interrupt my class for 30 minutes and do your thing. So we created that webinar to kind of ease that transition, give some tips and ideas for therapists to kind of approach teachers. There's an action plan in there that kind of says, Hey, this is how I do it. This is this is how I'm going to progress through this. Here's how we're going to start. Going to start slowly and kind of move into it a little easier. I talked about how you're going to get your objectives met when you're having to work with a whole classroom of kids, when you're really only in there for two or three so I think that's why we why we did it. It was hard for us. It was hard concept for us, let's, let's just research it and throw it out there. There you go. And well, received, good, good.
Jayson Davies
You touched upon something, you know, meeting the benchmarks. Are you and the other IEP team members creating more collaborative goals? Or do most people have their own goals?
Lauren Drobnjak
This is, this is so funny. You mentioned this because we just had this conversation today. I find, as a PT, I struggle with this. I think the OTs have gotten a little more into that. You know? I think it's easier for a teacher and an OT to collaborate on a goal, yeah, so I'm might not be the right half an.
Jayson Davies
AP teacher. Then do you collaborate with any ape teachers? Or do they not have too many in the district?
Lauren Drobnjak
We don't have any AP teachers in either of the districts I work in answers that question, yeah. And most of my goals have had to become so much more functional. So whereas before I would collaborate with the physical education teachers and say, Hey, what are they having trouble with? Inevitably, it was jumping jacks. And, you know, I can't necessarily write a goal for jumping jacks anymore. Is that going to affect their ability to function in their school environment? Maybe. But if I screened all of the 150 kids that they see every day in gym class, I bet probably 50% of them can't do a jumping jack. So it's just gotten a lot harder to to do that and to make my goals functional, but yet still a team goal.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, you mentioned jumping jacks, obviously, and bilateral and, and sometimes that is one of those key terms when you talk about sensory, sensory as a PT, do you how do you manage sensory and is that something that you kind of integrate as a physical therapist? Or does Claire do a lot of that? Or how does that work?
Lauren Drobnjak
We do a lot of a lot of collaborating with any child that needs some work with the sensory systems. A lot of back and forth with teachers. I think, you know, we wrote what sensory processing. 101 again, to try to simplify all of those sensory systems and make that easy to understand for teachers, parents and even therapists that may be new to it, it's definitely not my niche. Yeah, so I rely heavily on the team around me to to help with that, definitely, and we're seeing so much of it. So.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and in collaboration, actually, one of the things that I've done in the past is collaborated with the ape teacher, because, I mean, a PE teacher, yeah, they know the exercises that a student needs to be able to do, but sometimes they don't quite understand, you know, some of the things that may be limiting that student, such, especially the sensory aspect for it, right? And so myself and the other OT, we would work really close with that ape teacher, as well as the PT, and all three of us would kind of work on it, because, let's be honest. I mean, there is research that shows that PE and recess have a big role in academics. And so if we can help the ape teacher even further solidify the sensory systems through using those bilateral crossing midline activities and stuff like that. You know, according to research, we should see some improvement in some in the academics too. And so, right? It's a good way to way to do that. So, all right, the exciting time we get to announce Lauren and Claire actually just had a new book come out. We are recording this on Thursday, so it came out two days ago. I got my copy in yesterday. I'm so excited. I got it right here, but I'm gonna let you do a little announcement. What's the title of the book?
Lauren Drobnjak
It is playful learning lab for kids.
Jayson Davies
Exactly, and it has a beautiful cover. I love it. I looked through it. I haven't had a chance to completely go through every activity. But what the book is and correct me if I'm wrong, it's a lot of different sensory motor and just all types of activities. It looks like it could be one of those activities, or a book, just like your website that is for teachers, for therapists, for parents, for, I don't know, maybe babysitters that want to have some activities to do with kids. Anyone can really use this book. And that's what it it's, it really looks nice. It's, it's easy to go through. It's broken down into step by step. And you're sharing with me, how did you guys actually try to break it down.
Lauren Drobnjak
Try to break the activities down. How did you segment the activities? Oh, the activities are segmented by academic areas. Okay, so there is a chapter for geography, a chapter for science, a chapter for literacy, art, music, social studies, math. Did I say math already? But it's, it's all the chapters are broken down into academic concepts, and every I could, every activity within those chapters addresses, what do we say?
Jayson Davies
Academic need? Or?
Lauren Drobnjak
Yes, skill, yeah, and in that area.
Jayson Davies
And that's cool, because right now, of course, again, most of the states have gone to Common Core, and we're trying to make all of our goals relevant to state standards and stuff. And so if you know this kid's working on a geography goal and they need some sensory motor stuff going on, boom, you just have an entire chapter right there for some geography stuff. So that's very cool. So what are some of your favorite activities that you provided in the book? All of them. All of them, of course, well, naturally.
Lauren Drobnjak
I think rabbit hole is one of my favorite. It's actually a blog post that we wrote way back when we started the inspired tree house. It's a game where kids try to escape the fox or the wolf and get into their rabbit hole before they can get eaten. And so they have to step over a hula hoop that's balanced on top of cones. So it works on balance and body awareness. It works on cooperation, because they have to work together to get in that hole without the hole falling feet in the sand. Is probably another one of my favorite. It's a twist on a typical sensory bin. Everybody thinks sensory bins are for getting hands in and getting messy, and this sensory bin in particular uses a child's feet, so we put some sand in there. They sit on a bench, they stick their feet in the sand. We buried animals in there, and they had to use their feet to pull out an animal and tell us whether that animal was a land mammal, a sea animal, whether the animal is, you know, big or small, what the animal's name starts with? Things like that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And of course, OTs can be creative and go even further. And PTS as well, just make it, adapt it for their child.
Lauren Drobnjak
So we actually have suggestions through the book on how to make each activity either more or less difficult, depending on the child's needs.
Jayson Davies
You read my mind that was gonna be my next My next question was like, yeah, so obviously, every child's a little bit different, and so you there's different activities, or not different activities, but different tips to to grade the task.
Lauren Drobnjak
Yep. How we call it? Yeah, how to change it up or how to enhance so each activity has those options. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
So what do you think is going to be the reader's favorite part of this book, whether it be an OT or maybe it's different if it's an OT versus a parent, if you want to give separate answers or just one general answer, what do you think is going to be the reader's favorite part.
Lauren Drobnjak
I think in general, it's a very colorful, well laid out. It's visually appealing. I think the activities are very simple to follow. We tried to stay in the same tone that we write the blog with, so activities are simply written. Instructions are easy to follow. It doesn't take many supplies. In fact, we just wrote a blog post last week, and we called it 50 games and activities to learn under $50 I think we put together a basket with every possible material you would need for doing the activities in this book. Oh, wow. And it was under $50 so it doesn't take a lot of cost.
Jayson Davies
That was great, because I was actually thinking about that. I was gonna, like, go through and actually look at all the activities and find all the materials. Go to Michael.
Lauren Drobnjak
Go on the blog.
Jayson Davies
That is perfect. Good for everyone out there to know too. So you guys really did think of everything that's cool. So you mentioned to me a while, not too long ago, but when we were kind of getting this already, that one of your favorite parts of the book was the pictures in this book. And I want you to go ahead and share why the pictures in this book are so meaningful.
Lauren Drobnjak
The pictures in this book are of all of the children that come to the tree house. And we were able to, we had so many kids that wanted to do this, and we were able to pull every single one. Single one of them in. I think only a few didn't make picture cuts, and it was only because we had so many pictures of every child doing the same activity, yeah. So we were so happy to include them, and they're such a big part of our lives now, and it's fun to be able to see them on the pages of the book. We're actually having a book release party for them on Saturday where they're all going to come in and autograph the books and make it a big deal for them, so.
Jayson Davies
How nice. That's cool. And so that brings us back to the treehouse Ohio. Tell us about the treehouse Ohio. You've talked about it a few times. What is it?
Lauren Drobnjak
So the tree house Ohio is the brick and mortar dream of the original plan that led to the inspired tree house, a little twisted than it originally intent, than we originally intended it to be. The tree house Ohio is a nonprofit, 501 3c corporation, and we wanted it to be this way. We chose Bedford, which is the district that we both worked in for so long, as the location for the first tree house, because many families there work, many jobs. Kids live in apartment buildings. They don't have access to outdoor play as much as other kids might. They don't have the means to get to classes that are expensive, yeah, so they just don't have the opportunities to build the developmental skills that many other children do. So we were finding in the district that many teachers were coming to us completely frustrated because kids were falling out of chairs, or they were seeing increase in behaviors because kids were frustrated because they couldn't write or because they couldn't go up and down the stairs, just behind in developmental skills, and unfortunately, we couldn't offer much support, because those kids weren't on our caseload. They hadn't been identified with a specific need. And we were overloaded as we were, as we overloaded as we all are.
Jayson Davies
As every OT and PTA, yeah, yes.
Lauren Drobnjak
So we decided to open the tree house and run developmental play groups for these kids, and we wanted to make it non profit, because we wanted to make them free to low cost, so every child can come to the tree house for a play group one time per week for free, and if they'd like to come additional times per week, it's $5 a class. So we sell punch cards for $25 and they get five classes on those punch cards. And we are currently we have classes for ages, baby, infant up through age 10, and it's just been it's been really fun. It grew faster than we ever thought that it would. We're serving communities all over Greater Cleveland, not just Bedford, which we really thought we would target just Bedford, and maybe 50% are from Bedford, and the other 50% are coming from zip codes all over the place. Wow, that's
Jayson Davies
cool. Yeah, you're having such a meaningful impact on so many kids. And so, I mean, what would you say about how many kids are you able to support?
Lauren Drobnjak
We, we have 251 kids on our intake forms now. Wow. So, yeah, yeah, it's fun.
Jayson Davies
So how does it work? Do you actually schedule classes throughout the week and the kids can show up for that class? Or is it just kind of like you said earlier, a play or drop and play, or?
Lauren Drobnjak
It's scheduled, it's pre scheduled. It is drop and play, and in the sense that the parents don't stay, it is a drop off. Yes, but they do schedule in advance. And in fact, we opened up our schedule for January through March. We open up three months at a time. We opened that schedule up last week and it was full within an hour. Wow. So they fill very quickly. That's
Jayson Davies
amazing. It is. So if people want to learn more about the the tree house, is that a link on your blog, or is there a specific website that they can go to the for that?
Lauren Drobnjak
The website for the tree house is WWW dot the tree house, Bedford, B, E, D, F, O, R, D.
Jayson Davies
And so, yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not actually providing any therapy to these students, right? It's all just kind of developmental play groups, if you want to call them that
Lauren Drobnjak
correct. However, every play group is therapist LED. So we like to call it an alternative treatment setting. We do not provide an evaluation. We don't follow goals. We have no paperwork. So there you go. We infuse our, you know, our therapeutic minds on every activity we do, we run it very similarly to those collaborative therapy sessions we used to do in the school every week is a new theme at the tree house. Every week we prepare about 35 activities that span gross motor, fine motor, sensory motor, and the kids move through all of that within a play group session.
Jayson Davies
And is that Monday through Friday or your Saturdays and Sundays too.
Lauren Drobnjak
It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We're in the schools working. Okay, well, Fridays, we have play groups that another therapist covers. And then Saturdays, we just did open up to new groups on Saturdays.
Jayson Davies
Wow, that's super cool, that you guys are able to find a passion that you guys love, and then completely give back, and especially to do it through a way that's a nonprofit that you guys are really supporting this that's That is very cool. What has been like a memory from the Bedford, the tree house in Bedford, like one of your favorite memories from there?
Lauren Drobnjak
Oh, wow. I think the kids in the book probably, I think that's probably going to be my favorite memory for a long time, is just how happy they were to be able to be a part of it, how happy these families have been to watch that book come out, and to watch the Facebook feeds and see say, hear them say, or see them say, That's my kid in this book. It's just been so fun, and to know that those kids still come to us every week and and still participate in those play groups and love to come in is is just amazing to us.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's cool. And, I mean, I'm sure they're gonna see the book and they're gonna go back and look at all the activity and be like, Yeah, I did that one. Yeah, they all love it. So that's super cool.
Lauren Drobnjak
They can be brutally, brutally honest reviewers, I think.
Jayson Davies
Sometimes miss Lauren doesn't do this. I'm quite right, like she says in the book. That's right, that's funny. Are you doing anything special for for the book launch then?
Lauren Drobnjak
we're doing the party on Saturday with the kids, yes. And other than that, Claire and I have launched several products before, so we're just full blown into this lunch right now, just trying to keep up with emails. We did offer a freebie for anybody who bought it on Amazon this week. So if they bought it and sent us our receipt, they had a 20 page printable pack that supports that book that we sent them for free. So we're trying to keep up with all of those people sending receipts and getting those printable packs to them. So definitely and so email. Jayson, yeah, I know you got one so that, oh, the Send us your receipt. We know you have one. You can have the printable pack.
Jayson Davies
Yep, I do have my printable pack. I went through it, and it's a lot of I love that you guys have stuff that can be produced. And then you even just say, hey, laminate this, make several copies of it, and then put them on the floor, you know. And as teachers and OTs in public schools, I mean, obviously everyone knows that the funding is minuscule. And so those, those little activities, and those, those extra pieces of paper that we do have access to in a laminator. I mean, gosh, the laminators will be fought over in every school district, you know, before leading up into the school district or into the school year. So, yeah, I love that you can just get that 20 page document and do that. All right, good. Well, we will be sure to submit a link in the show notes to that, as well as the inspired Tree House, the tree house Bedford and the OT school house. Show notes at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 18, that will be, unfortunately, when this comes out, the 20 page printable will be available. But.
Lauren Drobnjak
we do have an offer for ot school house listeners. We will give anybody that is listening a 20% off discount from anything in our shop. Oh, it's the code ot school house 20.
Jayson Davies
Wait. Thank you, Lauren. I was not expecting that. You surprised me. Thank you so much for doing that. We will definitely put that in the links as well. Is that for a limited time?
Lauren Drobnjak
That will expire at the end of this year. So December 31, of 2018
Jayson Davies
perfect. Sounds good. That'll be really help. Definitely check out everything. They have webinars. They have all their books, multiple books that you guys have over there, the new book that won't really count for because the new books on Amazon, right? So you won't be able to use it there.
Lauren Drobnjak
But sensory processing 101, that is on its own, yeah.
Jayson Davies
Okay. But to be fair, the book is, I know you guys had a special on it leading up, is like $16 I think now it's about 20 right now, or is it still at that?
Lauren Drobnjak
Changes that? Yeah, no control over Amazon, unfortunately.
Jayson Davies
Right? So it is a fairly, I mean, it's a relatively cheap book for what you get. I mean, it is, like I said, 15 to $22 somewhere in that range on Amazon. And you get, how many total activities are there? You remember off the top? Yeah, 52 I think so. I think you're right. I think I read that when I opened it up earlier today. But yeah, it's there's a lot there. And let's be fair, you can never have enough resources when it comes to like activities that are really this great. And it does give you some way to grade the activities too. So you can go into, you know, a general education classroom, or you can go into a more classroom with students who have more severe disabilities. And there's ways to modify, ways to make it fun. And every kid's gonna enjoy this. So I'm going to, or I look forward to taking it to work and have it on my shelf and being able to reference to be sure to also check out the blog. Lauren did mention how you can get every activity basically for under $50 it sounds like, right? Yep. And so that's a blog post over there. We will find that and make sure we have a link to that on the show notes as well, so that everyone can easily get the stuff to do all the activities in the book. So well, do we miss anything? Is there anything that you wanted to kind of give a shout out to or anything?
Lauren Drobnjak
I don't think so.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. All right. Well, I want to give a shout out to Lauren, to Claire for starting up the inspired tree house, and thank you for coming on the show. A big shout out to any of the Bedford tree house people that are that, for some reason, you know, they want to take a listen. But, yeah, that was great. I'm so happy to have your book. I'm so happy to share your book, because you guys have done a lot, and you guys were even part of the inspiration for the OT school house was the inspired tree house. So, oh, thank you. So, yeah, we appreciate everything that you guys do, and are you ladies do and so, yeah, well.
Lauren Drobnjak
Thank you for having us on, or me on. Yes, on Claire and in spirit. In spirit.
Jayson Davies
yes, we'll, maybe we'll have to get her on another time, sometime to talk some more ot stuff. We'll see. Maybe we can make that happen in Episode 48 I don't know, but we'll see what happens. But thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate you. And again, congratulations on the book. I hope it does super well, and we'll be sure to let everyone know about it over here. Great. Thank you so much. All right, thank you, Lauren. Have a good night. You too. All right. Well, I hope you all enjoyed that interview with the physical therapist Lauren dromniac of the inspiredtree house.com be sure to head over to amazon.com and pick up your version of playful learning lab for kids. You're sure to find many activities that you will be able to use with all your kids. And of course, every page has and every activity has a way to adapt the activity to make it either more difficult or more simple, depending on the kid you're working with. So head over to Amazon. Check that out. Head over to OT schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 18 to see all the show notes from this page, and we'll see you next time on the OT school house podcast. 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 otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
Click on the file below to download the transcript to your device.
