OTS 12: How to Pay It Forward by Being a Fieldwork Educator
- Jayson Davies
- Aug 19, 2018
- 36 min read
Updated: Jan 26
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 12 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode, Jayson interviews his older sister and fellow occupational therapist, Akemi McNeil (formerly Davies). Akemi is currently the Academic Fieldwork Coordinator at Stanbridge University's Master's of Science in Occupational Therapy program where she works with hospitals, clinics, schools, and other employers in order to place upwards of 120 students in an appropriate fieldwork setting.
In this podcast, Jayson and Akemi talk over what it means to be a fieldwork educator and what every school-based OT should know before taking on a student.
Have a listen if you are interested in the following objectives:
Listeners will understand the fundamental requirements for being a level 1 and/or level 2 fieldwork educator.
Listeners will understand the basics of what is expected of both fieldwork educators and fieldwork students.
Listeners will understand the basics to provide learning experiences to fieldwork students in a school-based setting
Links to Show References:
Have a question for Akemi McNeil? You can contact her at Adavies@stanbridge.edu
AOTA's Fieldwork Educators Certificate Workshop - If you would like to further dive into the theory and supervision models of being a fieldwork educator, check out AOTA's certificate workshop.
AOTA Official Document: "Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Education: Value and Purpose" - Check out this document to solidify your understanding of the purpose of fieldwork education.
AJOT Article: "Supervision of Occupational Therapy Level II Fieldwork Students: Impact on and Predictors of Clinician Productivity" - While this study was not conducted in a school district, their findings do support the idea that taking on a fieldwork student does not typically cause a decrease in productivity.
Earn Professional Development for being a Fieldwork Educator:
More Helpful Resources not mentioned in the podcast, but passed on from Akemi McNeil (Affiliate links for your convenience)
When someone asks Akemi for references on how to improve as a fieldwork coordinator, these two books by Donna Costa are her go-to recommendations. Check them out on Amazon if you would like to dive even deeper into being a fieldwork educator.
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,
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Episode Transcript
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Jayson Davies
Hey, everyone, I want to try something different real quick. I want you all to think about that first day that you walked into your first level two field work, or maybe even your first level one field work, and you met your clinical instructor or your field work educator that day, and you really had no idea what you were doing there, whether it was a school based or if it was an acute rehab or whatever type of facility it was. You had no idea what you doing, probably, but you know, week one went by, week two went by, and the next thing you know, you're already on week 12, and you're possibly putting together your presentation to present to the the other occupational therapists that work there, or maybe you're taking on full 100% of the case load, and everything's going great, and you're feeling confident and you're feeling so thankful for your clinical instructor. Well, today, that's what we're here to talk about clinical instructors, and how to be one, in fact. And so we have a special guest for you, but first, let's Cue the intro.
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
Hello and welcome to episode number 12 of the OT school house podcast. I hope you all are having a great start to your school year. By the time this episode comes out, I will have just began, started seeing the kids both in a pull out and push in models. So this is a new job for me, and I'm super excited today though we have a very special guest. She's not only a fantastic occupational therapist, but you will also quickly come to learn the close connection we have, and I can't wait to share that with you here in just a minute, before we get into that. I do want to just remind everyone that you can find just about anything that we talk about today on the podcast at the show notes. And the show notes for today's episode will be at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 12, episode and then the numbers one and two to see those show notes. Also on the show notes, you'll have the opportunity to purchase the professional development opportunity for this podcast, which basically just consists of you listening to this podcast, learning a little bit about being a field work educator, and then taking a short quiz to show that you understood what was discussed in this episode. And so for a small fee of $10 you can do that, and we will send you out a certificate of completion. All right now, getting into today's objectives, number one, listeners will understand the requirements for being a level one and or level two field work educator. Number two, listeners will also understand what is expected of both field work educators as well as field work students. And number three listeners will understand how they can provide learning experiences to fieldwork students in a school based setting. So that's what we're going to get into today. And now let's go ahead and meet our special guest, Akemi McNeil. Akemi is a local academic fieldwork coordinator at stanbridge University here in Southern California, Orange County, to be exact. And she's here today to talk a little bit about paying it forward. You know, in the intro, we talked about remembering your field work experiences when you were a student. Well, now we're talking about being that field work educator, being that clinical instructor, and then paying it forward to the future generation of occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants that are, you know, working toward getting their credential and becoming MBC OTs certified. And so today we have, like I said, with us, Akemi McNeil. And you know, she's a great person, a great therapist, and she's doing wonderful things down there at stanbridge with connecting field work educators, with field work students. And so Akemi has over 10 years in a pediatric experience, she worked both in a private clinic or multiple private clinics, as well as being a school based therapist. So she's right up our alley, and she has a lot to share with us about what it means to be a clinical instructor or a field work educator in a school system. So let's do this. Here's Akemi McNeil. Hey there, Akemi. How's it going today?
Akemi McNeil
I'm great. Thank you. Hope everybody out there is doing well too.
Jayson Davies
Yes, school is getting back started in session. So I hope you all are getting off to a good, productive start over there. So all right, well, to get started, I guess I should tell you how I know Akemi, Akemi is actually my older sister, and has obviously had a huge impact on my life. She's the reason I'm an OT and she allowed me to shadow her at a pediatric clinic for hours upon hours before finally committing to OT over film production, as I was also pursuing at the time. And now she's here on the OT schoolhouse podcast to talk to us about what it means to be an academic field work coordinator. So we're also going to talk about being an educator as well, but she is a coordinator. So first of all, can you give us a rundown of what a field work coordinator of a master's occupational therapy program does?
Akemi McNeil
Yes, I'd be happy to thanks. Jayson, the academic field work coordinator, or we often are called an afwc, often acts like a liaison. Uh or a support system. We are basically liaisons between the schools, the students and the sites to coordinate with and support all parties before, during and after field work rotations. This usually involves getting to know the personalities and strengths of our students, and at the end of the day, we really look at the services and specialties of each of the clinics, as well as the personalities of the students and how they might fit together or be a good match for each other. So getting to know everybody involved is really important in what I do. I'm also a support system to our students and our sites. If something is not quite working out, I can always come help assess and provide our sites or students or resources that will help field work experiences go as smoothly as possible.
Jayson Davies
All right, so how do you get to know both the students and the sites? Because, I mean, you have to kind of pair them, right? So how do you go about getting to know them?
Akemi McNeil
Yeah, we have a lot of students that we work with. Each year we take in 60 more 64 more students, and I do my best to get to know them through giving orientations, meeting them in class. Sometimes the students will come to me and meet with me one on one. We do a lot of email correspondence and then with the sites. Oftentimes, when I have the opportunities, or as often as I can go out, I will go directly to the sites and meet all of the OTs that we work directly with.
Jayson Davies
Oh, wow. So just to clarify, you work at stanbridge University, and that is in Southern California. So I'm assuming you go to many places in Southern California. But how far do you venture out of Southern California?
Akemi McNeil
So far, I've been in most of the Southern California area, as far down as San Diego, but I do have access and ability to go to any of our sites at any given time, especially if a student is struggling, or if a site makes a request for us to be there, we would definitely make the trip.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. So how far do some of the students end up traveling for their field work Then?
Akemi McNeil
we currently have students as far north as Sacramento and San Francisco area and as far south as San Diego.
Jayson Davies
Oh, so they're mostly all in California, or they all are in California?
Akemi McNeil
Right now, stanbridge follows one of California's laws, which I can go into maybe later in this discussion or another day, but we follow some standards that keep our students right now in state and different schools have different programs, but That is what our program follows currently.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, okay? So as you know, most of our listeners are school based, OTRS and CODAs, and I don't know how many of them have ever had the opportunity to host a fieldwork student. Well, I guess that's not totally true. I did an Instagram questionnaire earlier, and about a little over 50% have hosted a student. But today, I wanted to get into what the school based OTs and CODAs may need to know about hosting a student. So to start off with that, what are some of the requirements for someone to be a level one or a level two field work educator?
Akemi McNeil
So a level one field work focuses on professionalism and interacting with a variety of populations and those populations who receive services. So this is really about anyone who is on the rehab team, the medical team, the Special Education team, who is willing to take a time out, basically 40 hours out of their week to help supervise the students. Now there are different types of level ones. It could be one time a week for 40 to 80 hours. It could be a one week for 40 hours. There are different structures for different programs, but this is really a good opportunity for students to observe all team members. And so it doesn't have to be an OT for the level one. However, an OT or an OT A can be the main supervisor, but you might want to take the opportunity to schedule out the student to see different types of professionals working or who work with you.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I remember on one of, I think it was my level two, actually, or my occupational therapy fieldwork supervisor set up a she set up a time for me to observe a surgery, actually. So I was in the operating room observing the surgery, which is kind of cool once in a probably lifetime experience, but that was really cool. I know that was a level two, and you're talking a little more about a level one, but still really cool experience that we wouldn't get to know and get to see. And I mean, we end up working with those patients after the surgery, so it's kind of good to see what happens before we get to work with them.
Akemi McNeil
Absolutely and a level one in the school system. From my experience, we often would take a level one under an OT but then maybe work with the speech therapist or. A special, special ed teacher, or even an adaptive PE teacher, and have that student follow that person out for a couple hours or a full day, and that way they start to gather, you know, what each person on the team actually does and how they might contribute to the team later on, when they're in an OT role and so and so that the level two is much more focused on specialized skills and building and using those skills as an OT. So masters ot students need to be primarily supervised by licensed OTs. Well, an OT a student might be supervised by an OT a or an OTR, these OTs who supervise students must have at least one year of experience, and really you can learn to supervise in any way. Maybe you've seen it happen. Maybe you just realize that you have more experience than a new grad or a student, and you just are ready to take on hosting. So there are some the basic requirements to have that one year of experience.
Jayson Davies
Oh, that's really not that much. So most people that are going to be listening to this podcast can do it then, as long as you have that one year of experience. So what about for coda? Do they also have to have one year of experience?
Akemi McNeil
Yes, they should have one year of experience to take an OT student.
Jayson Davies
Okay, and just to clarify, can a OT, a COTA supervise a level two Master's ot at any point
Akemi McNeil
a level two ot student might be I'll spend some time with an OT A, but an OT a or CODA should not be supervising an OT student.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Okay, all right. Well, as you know, I have yet to take on a student, something that I'm looking forward to do, hopefully in the near future. But if I were to do so, what are some of the commitments I would be signing myself up for?
Akemi McNeil
Yeah, I get this question a lot, actually, and I think it's one of the it's a popular question, but from my experience, I actually got more from the student than I saw loss in time. So just from experience sake, I've had many students over the years, and I might put a little extra time in at the beginning to make sure that they have their foundational skills, to make sure that they know they have the schedule and all their expectations, that they might know what the policies and procedures are the facility I work in, so that they're familiar and comfortable with the environment. But then once I get them, you know, rolling on their first week and they're comfortable, I start giving them tasks that are at their level. You know, I'm assessing their skills as I go each and every day, each and every week. And so I might give them an assessment to score. I might have them take over an activity that I start. So I start building things very early on, and start tossing different skills at them very early on, and as I watch and observe what they can do, I grade that expectation to be higher and higher. So as they take on more I'm able to do more things on the back end. Maybe I'm sitting in a session, you know, having my student finish an activity with one of my clients while I look at one of their their notes that they've written they've written for another client. So I'm always going back and forth with my time and filling in the gaps. But by having an extra hand there, you know, I'm able to do the work that it requires of me, of being a supervisor, but it also gives me a couple more minutes to maybe look at a chart while that student is working with my client. So it's just a balance, and as long as you know how to delegate the work appropriately and give the right amount of work to the student, it's a beautiful balance, and I actually have gotten my productivity up to above 100% by the end of a rotation.
Jayson Davies
Oh, wow. So sometimes maybe we're looking at it the wrong way, then where, instead of taking time from us, it can help us actually gain time.
Akemi McNeil
Absolutely.
Jayson Davies
Very cool. And before I forget, Do you by chance know of any evidence that supports that about the productivity?
Akemi McNeil
Oh, thanks. Jayson, yes, I forgot there's an article in a ot from 2014 that says there's no significant difference in productivity between clinicians with students and without students. So that might be a really helpful article for those out there.
Jayson Davies
Definitely. I'll be sure to post that in the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 12. So I was browsing the A o t a website before I got on this call with you, and I saw that a o t a does have a actual course for field work educators. Is that a requirement? To be an educator, or no, because you just said it takes one year of experience, right?
Akemi McNeil
Yes, that's absolutely true. It is not a requirement, but it's an extremely helpful resource.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, okay. All right, I want to get into this because I know some other people have this question, what are the benefits to taking on a student you kind of turned a negative into a positive with a time. But what other benefits are there for taking on a student?
Akemi McNeil
Not only is there a benefit of looking at your skills and turning what you do every day into words and being able to teach somebody else and pass on all of your amazing knowledge, because there's always you look at a student, you go, Oh, they're not going to ever do it as good as I will. But the reality is, that's not true. You have the power to teach that student and push them to their levels and make sure that they have the most accurate and up to date information from the field, because they're coming in with accurate and up to date resources from school, but that's the research, and that's the theory, right? You have the ability to turn that theory into actual practice, so you're creating the next generation. However, the benefits to you also is sometimes time, or it can be financial, because you can get PD use by hosting a student. So instead of paying for PD use, you can host a student and get 12, which is about half in some places, remember to check your licensure for what allowances you get for student supervision as well.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's absolutely true. I know many states require about 12 per year, is what it comes out to, even though it's over the course of two to three years. NBC OT is 36 in three years. So again, that's about 12 a year. So we'll definitely link to NBC OT and the individual state's requirements in the show notes, so be sure to check that out there. Alright, jumping back to some people who may not their field work may not have been in the most recent past. How long is a field work, or what is the commitment for the student for the field work?
Akemi McNeil
the students have their level ones are one week or 40 hours. Sometimes that can vary by school. The level twos are pretty standardized, at 12 weeks for the OTR student and eight weeks for the OT a student.
Jayson Davies
Okay, so it's a little bit different depending on if you're doing the assistant or the master's program. Okay, I did not realize that, all right, so and then, so now you know a little bit about what it what a student is going to be there for, how long they're going to be there for? What do you recommend on that first day? What should we expect from a level two student coming from a college?
Akemi McNeil
Level two students, I think, as open and resourceful and organized, you know they're still coming in, a bit a bit nervous, so helping them to get organized, maybe giving them a schedule, setting the expectations early. You know, you should expect them to be willing and jumping into a learning experience, but we should also make sure that if we build foundational skills, they'll be ready to actually use all the information that they're bringing in from school, in most cases, from my experience in this position, all of the students have passed and gotten to this point with flying colors. Now it's more about, if you will. It's like their motor planning, their praxis. It's putting all this information to use and executing what you know we we hope for them to do.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. And there's two different level twos, right? So would you say that there's different expectations for a first level two student and a second level two student?
Akemi McNeil
Some people think that, but because the students have two completely different rotations, they really are. They're not really linked. They're very different. We think that a level a first level two student has less experience versus the second level two student. And a lot of sites will say, Oh, we only take a second level two student. I would say sometimes these students are a little bit more comfortable. They're starting to understand what field work is all about. But their first rotation may have had nothing to do with their second rotation. So I've actually had students be really successful in their first rotation and struggle more in their second rotation because it was just an area they were less familiar in or with.
Jayson Davies
So in general, students don't go to the same area of practice for the level twos. Is that correct?
Akemi McNeil
Yes, a co our accreditation requires all students to be trained in two completely different areas of practice.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And do you mind me asking where you did your two level twos at no
Akemi McNeil
not at all. I did one at Casa clean, it in the pediatric department or unit, and then another one in Pasadena at the della Martin Center for in psychosocial.
Jayson Davies
Oh, okay. Very interesting. And this kind of leads into my next question, did they have you do any project while you were working at those two locations?
Akemi McNeil
Yes, and now you're going to test my memory a little bit. I believe my project at Casa cleana was taking information that my CI had gathered and about riding a bike and putting it into almost like a manual form or instructions form. So, you know, trying to help others learn, or help other OTs learn how to structure activities for other clients to learn how to ride a bike. So I think that was one of them. And I'm not sure if I had a full on project for my other rotation.
Jayson Davies
Okay, yeah, I remember I had a project when I was at the California Children's Services CCS. But then when I was at the VA I didn't have a project. So you're right, it very much depends. So is it pretty common now for Level Two students to take on a project at their field work sites.
Akemi McNeil
I know for our school at stanbridge, we actually assign that they do an in service or a project, and it can be up to the collaboration of the student and the CI or fieldwork educator to determine what that will be. Sometimes I encourage students to take what they've learned as part of a thesis project or a project that they've done in school, or maybe look at the site from a needs perspective, kind of way, and share something or share some kind of knowledge that they feel could benefit the site, almost as a thank you. Some sites require it. Others don't. We just happen to have it as part of our syllabus, and I can't say that all schools would have that as a requirement, so you should always check their syllabus.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Okay, I don't know. I kind of feel like they should have some sort of project, even if it's just something small, there's just so much that they can do and help out in a little ways. So I think it's a good idea to have a project. All right. I know this is a big question. A lot of people want to know, how hands on Can students be level two students, how hands on should they be during their field work, and both for level one or level two.
Akemi McNeil
So level one, that's where I think more people are confused than not. Level one is generally labeled as observation time, and sometimes the students might misconstrue that and misunderstand how much effort they have to put in. So setting expectations from day one is absolutely key, and this goes for students and sites alike. Is if the structure is outlined from the beginning, everybody might Bill stay on the same page easier. And of course, level two is kind of like all hands on deck. You know, learn as much as you can in 12 weeks. I don't think you can teach them enough it should be graded and pushing them to the next level at an appropriate pace for that individual student.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and, you know, I wanted to come on here and ask you, kind of, in relation to that, like, how do you grade? You know, what percentage of your caseload should the student have? Week one, week two, week three and and I just, I don't know maybe you can speak to this, but can you do that? Can you expect something?
Akemi McNeil
Oh, it's absolutely, we should definitely, for every site, have some kind of laid out expectations for all of our students. I found it really helpful at places that I worked that we had a week one through 12 guideline that somebody had sat down and figured out, you know, what should we expect of our students at week one, week four, week six, week 10, whichever week you are in. And when I was a first year supervisor, I thought, Oh, this is really helpful. It teaches me what to expect of my students, but it also kept my students on track. And as I became more experienced, it was something that I just said, Oh, this will help you stay on track, right? I would just tell my students, because I practically had it memorized. And then, as I got into being a busier therapist, and was sometimes, to be honest, lose track of, you know, where we were in the education process when having a student, it even kept me on track, so I couldn't get distracted by my reports or my caseload or whatever else was happening, because I could go through the checklist of what do I need to train my student in this week, and how could we combine it with something that's already happening on our caseload? Or I. You know, what could we look forward to? And maybe switch out something that we think might or should happen in week six, and maybe we need to put it in week four, because that's when our IEP is, you know, we adjust it as we all do with everything else.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, of course, it's just a guideline that you kind of use and manipulate as needed. So absolutely and hey, that could be a potential project for a field work student right there, just putting together some sort of field work guideline type of thing.
Akemi McNeil
It's also something that I think most AFW sees, you know, pick the school you want to work with, pick the AFW see you want to work with. Invite them, you know, have them come to your site for lunch or a in person meeting, and they can bring samples of these week by week guidelines and help you structure it out so that you pick an appropriate set of guidelines for your site.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Okay, so diving a little bit more now into the specific school based side of being a field work coordinator. What can a student in a school based setting do in terms of work that an OT would do? So what can a field work student do?
Akemi McNeil
I think a field work can do just about anything. Of course, you should consider that they're still practicing under your license and check that they can safely and ethically perform the skill that you're asking them to do. But we should be including our students in everything from practice to engaging parents to going to IEPs and anything that an OTR is responsible for. There's a lot of sites out there that once you graduate, you don't get a lot of mentorship. So this is really the time to to expose them, to expose students to anything that you might possibly see out there, and get them mentorship and guidance on how to navigate these situations.
Jayson Davies
And do you have a lot of a lot of school districts that work with you guys to bring on students we do, we actually we do. That's really good. Another big one that people have a question for is, how close or how what in what proximity do I need to be with my level two field work student? As you know, school based therapists were traveling. Some of us have one school, but many of us have multiple schools, so say, say, a level two student, we feel that they're comfortable working more independently. Can they be at a different school site than us, or do they always need to be right there with us?
Akemi McNeil
This is definitely a question that gets asked a lot of the time, and it's hard because there are some gray areas. Now, as we talk to this audience, we should definitely say there are people you need to check in first because, of course, every site or school district or clinic has their own set of policies, and first and foremost, you should be following those policies. And then, of course, you need to look at your state guidelines. California has guidelines that, to be fair, are a little bit vague, but also are that way so that they can accommodate a lot of different settings and students under different supervision styles. And so you need to look at all the different parties involved and work with your afwc to see what is appropriate. Now I can tell you, from experience that it did work really well for me to have a student treating a client in maybe we'll call it the OT space of a school. And while that student was treating the client, I would go grab another client, or I might go check in and do a consult with the teacher. And this might be later on in the field work rotation, where I knew that that student, you know, we had cell phones. We connect with each other immediately, if needed, and I would be back 10 or 15 minutes later at the most. So that's what I was comfortable with. Now there are definitely are situations where we have OTs in the field with different areas of practice, where students are off site at a separate site than the supervisor, but that is definitely collaborated with the school and the supervisor, and we know what's happening. Does the school or the NWC should always know what the structure is at your site and what the supervision limits are?
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. I don't know if I would let a student go into an IEP by themselves at another school, but, you know, maybe treatment, if they're doing collaborative type of treatment or something, I could see them being off a little bit on their own. So okay, the the student completed a treatment. Now comes to the actual part of documenting, taking notes and even billing for. Medi, Cal, Medicaid. How about that? What does that require of both the student as well as the field work educator?
Akemi McNeil
The general rule is that OTs sign off on anything that a student does. Now you should always check with your facility, because there are different rules for different funding sources in the schools, I felt most comfortable with having them do their documentation once they were competent in that and then going back and doing a quick review. Now, occasionally, there might be a wording error that I would go back and train the student on, or a suggestion on how to I would say the wording or how they described a behavior potentially. And so those are simple changes. It might require the student rewriting the entire note, or it might just require a scratch out an initial and moving forward here in the world of doing online documentation and digital documentation, it's very different. Sometimes it has to be the OTR to click that button. So those kinds of things really come down to policies and what you feel comfortable with doing under your license.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, because I know on some of the online platforms, it's hard enough to co sign a cotas notes, and so I can't imagine a school district is going to create an entire account for this student to write up a note, which then gets sent to the OT to co sign in a way. So I can imagine the different the different ways that OTs and their students, as well as the administrative staff, get creative to figure out how to do that. So definitely understand that.
Akemi McNeil
And we're really fortunate. There are some sites that do take that into consideration, where they host students often enough, where they have extra online accounts solely for students to use, but sometimes it also limits how many students they can take at one time. So it's changed the game a little bit in that regard.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, okay. And while we're on with billing, do you feel that it's a field work educators role to explain some of the billing, where the funding comes from for for instance, I mean, we're talking school based, so where the money comes from for school based, is that an important conversation to have with a level two field work student.
Akemi McNeil
I think so, as an experienced OT, I think it's important for me to know when I'm practicing where the money is coming from, because it can affect, you know, how I bill or how I code my treatment, or how I write my note. It can play a large part in documentation. So it is important for us to not take light the concepts or all the dynamics going around funding sources.
Jayson Davies
Definitely. I agree. And I want to ask you this one, which was not on the note, so you're going to have to ad lib this one treatment or assessments first, Which way would you tend to go to when it comes to having a level two student?
Akemi McNeil
trick question, this actually, I had a different concept of this when I was earlier on in my career, but as I've had experience hosting students and now watching students in different types of practice areas. I truly believe it comes down to how your practice setting is set up. I've worked in both types of settings where we did mostly practice and a few evals, maybe a couple a week, to the area of practice where I did multiple evals a week, and there are more eval hours than there were treatment hours. So I actually am in favor of setting the student up with the thing that happens most frequently, getting that thing, getting the thing in, or the action in that happens the most so that they get the most repetition of that. You know, whatever that activity is getting the repetition so that they can start developing some healthy habits, healthy roles, things that they can learn quickly, so that that's their fall back. That's what becomes easy for them, so that they can spend more time learning the harder concepts, or the things you don't do as often.
Jayson Davies
That makes sense. I mean, take a straight, a strengths based approach, and, you know, get, get what is the quote, unquote easy stuff or things that they're going to do frequently out of the way, and then, kind of, like you said, gradually increase the expectation. So makes sense to me. All right. And another one, I don't know, just we're talking about so much stuff with school based that we don't usually talk about, because we're talking about a whole nother concept of having a student with you. And so I just feel like everything's different when you have a student with you. Yeah, you may be great at IEPs, but are you great at IEPs when you have a student sitting next to you? Or you may be great at treatments, but are you great at treatments when you have a student there with you? Yeah? And so when it comes to IEPs, what is, what is the role? What role do we play in teaching students about IEPs?
Akemi McNeil
One of the things that I remember doing when I had students in IEPs was teaching them the process. And I think it took me a year or two of doing IEPs to really understand what my process was, or how I was part of the team. And so if I was able to pass that on, I would make tip sheets for myself that I eventually passed on to students, you know, how to prepare for an IEP, all the different steps that I did before I even walked into the meeting. And those are things that some of our students kind of learn the hard way, or some of the OTs who don't get that step by step guidance, they might miss something along the way. And so I highly encourage the OTs to not only teach those their students how to navigate the IEP once they're in the meeting, but how to prepare for them successfully, because that really does lead to a successful meeting, usually.
Jayson Davies
Very true. And so in that sense, they should obviously attend. Should they be signing the notes or signing the signature page on the IEP then?
Akemi McNeil
Absolutely, they can sign the attendance. I might check with the principal or the people who the person who is running the meeting, just to see, is it okay for a student to sit in on the meeting? You should definitely check that whenever possible. I was very lucky to always have student friendly teams who felt it was important for students to witness some of the things. And then I would have meetings with my student and say, you know, this is a meeting that I'd like you to help in. You can present this portion of it. Or will you tell me how you're going to present it before we go into the meeting? Or I might say, you know, this is probably not the meeting for us to practice in, you know, why don't you take notes while I provide all the information? And, of course, anything in between that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, did you ever have a time, because I can just imagine having potentially some feedback from the parent. Did you ever have a time when the parent was like, Who is this person sitting here? Why are they here and have some trouble with it? Or were they always pretty good about it?
Akemi McNeil
I want to say that because I was so open with my parents to begin with, from day one, you know, I was an OT that often sent messages home, or called the parent occasionally, or called a parent before IEPs when possible, so sometimes they already knew that the student was going to be in the meeting and expected it. Now, of course, if it was unexpected or last minute plans, like I said, I would have already checked in with the team to see, you know, is this an appropriate family to bring a student into? And if they agreed, then we might present to the family say this is a student they'll be sitting in to learn the OTs role and describe why they're there, and to say, you know, it's they're not here to necessarily learn more about your students. Specifically, they're really here to watch the process of what the OT is doing.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, with that every, especially every school district, should have a process in making sure that all the students understand HIPAA, understand fairpa, understand their roles and what they can and can't say whether they're on the job or off the job. So that's another important concept that every school should prepare for if they're going to take on a student. Absolutely correct me if I'm wrong, but they do tend to get HIPAA training right students before they go out to the field work.
Akemi McNeil
I think most schools have adopted this. All of our students do take a HIPAA training and get a certification that they've taken that training.
Jayson Davies
Great. So. That's an easy one. Then to check out the list, all right? So we have the student, they're going to IEPs, they're doing some treatments. I don't think we touched upon assessments yet. Really, should they be doing the full standardized assessments, observations, writing the entire report, providing summary and all that good stuff. By the time they're done with their 12 weeks?
Akemi McNeil
By the time I would like to see students at least have two or three assessments that they know. Well. Now I would say it's impossible to know every single assessment. There are ones you're just going to learn. You know, job by job, potentially depending on the site that you work for or the clientele you work with, but you know, yes, you should be able to check most of those things off. Now, the performance evaluation that you do at midterm, and the final does give you the opportunity to break down that process, and they might score very well in one area and a little bit lower in in a different area. And that's totally okay as well. A lot of the students that I hosted definitely struggled in a couple areas. Of evals, mostly when I had a student, maybe over the summer, times in the school setting where I didn't have as many IEPs or as many evals, and the opportunity just was not there. So yes, you still have to grade to some sense and do the best you can, letting them maybe find appropriate clients to practice with when possible in those situations as well.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, that's a good way to do it. I like that. So again, as I mentioned earlier, I've never had a field work student. I am on a new job at a new district, and there's no students there. And talking to people, it doesn't sound like they've had students there in a long time, or if ever. And so in my role, in my capacity as an OT, you know, I'm interested in taking on a field work student. What? What can I do now to, you know, improve my chances at taking on a student soon?
Akemi McNeil
So I say, let's just get in connection with the people we need to talk to. And that involves you, maybe talking to whoever your supervisor might be, and asking them how you would like them to be connected to a school. Now, maybe it's somebody above them, but really it's all about getting your site or facility connected with the school, because the AFW, see the academic field work coordinator can really facilitate a lot of those conversations and get to the right person once we have a contact.
Jayson Davies
And at school districts, does there tend to be a specific person? Is it principals? Is it vice principals or the special education director? Does it tend to be kind of one person or the other at schools?
Akemi McNeil
I'm still learning a lot about this process, but I would say the special education director is has a big key part in it. We often will meet in with different people at the director level, but then I believe they also push it up to get approved by the board as well, because a contract or an agreement has to be done between the site and the school before we can even consider sending a student to a facility or school district.
Jayson Davies
I guess that makes sense. I know there's a reason that every district has a board, so you know that's what they're there to do, is protect the students foremost. And yeah, all right, so another question, what if I'm absent to work? Can the students still be there? Should they be with another occupational therapist, potentially, if I'm not there, or what about that?
Akemi McNeil
Another really good question, we do we have OTs that get sick, and that's totally okay. Occasionally, an OT who has the day off or a vacation plan, might ask that student to do a makeup day, but they can also shadow somebody else. They can be in a special ed classroom and maybe helping out a teacher that day, maybe implementing some classroom strategies that are not billed by OT. You would never Bill ot without the OT there or present or in some way able to sign off on that. I don't recommend an OT who is sick or absent doing any kind of billing with the student, but they can, or maybe they can help a coda out that day, there's a lot of opportunities for learning without the OT being on site, but there are a certain amount of hours that supervision does need to happen, and you should never leave the student in this with this supervision style without consulting the afwc first. So if you know that you're going to be on vacation, or if you have an illness, the afwc should be the first person you call that morning after maybe your job, definitely connect with them and let them know what's happening.
Jayson Davies
So that academic field work coordinators kind of that go to person, that go to liaison in the middle of all this, so.
Akemi McNeil
Absolutely, and they're the main person that's going to know all these policies backwards and forwards and how they relate to that student and that student's placement.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. All right. So will it also be the academic field work coordinator that's telling us how to grade a student then? Or how do we know? Do we get some sort of form that we follow when we're grading the student. Or how does that work?
Akemi McNeil
You do? You get an academic performance evaluation. And this, there's one for the OTR students and one for the OT a students, and it basically sets the expectations of what the students need to have skill wise by the time that they finish their rotation. And so you do that at the midterm, which would be six weeks for the OT student, and then again at 12 weeks for the OT student.
Jayson Davies
Okay, so twice, good review. At what point? What's the earliest You should probably be contacting the field work coordinator if you have concerns?
Akemi McNeil
Yes, the minute you feel, or even if you have a gut feeling that it's there's a concern, it's worth contacting the coordinator at that point in time, because there's a lot that can be done, and the coordinator might already know that student well enough. Or maybe it's just a strategy that needs to be implemented. Maybe it's a practice setting concern. I've seen a lot of students have difficulty in one practice setting, but then somehow, you know, push through and make it through that practice setting and get to their stronger suit in the next rotation.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, I can just imagine, you know, there's always going to be either one, people that just kind of butt heads a little bit or two, you know, just people that struggle a little bit. And, you know, people are going through life. So it's not like people are trying to do harm. It's not like people are trying to do a bad job. You know, everyone's there trying to learn, and so we just got to keep at it and get the help that we need. So yeah, so getting now toward the toward the end of our discussion today, what's one piece of advice you find yourself regularly giving to field work instructors you work with?
Akemi McNeil
I would say, remember to get to know your students, academic field work coordinator and that hosting a student can really be fun and collaborative process. We're naturally really great teachers. We should probably be using this, you know, anytime we host a student, and know that students go in there really trying to do their best, and usually when they get all the supports they need, all I see is success across the board. Occasionally, a student or two will maybe need a pep talk or have put a different filter on and what they're hearing or help them understand what a CI is saying, I know that sounds strange, but I think students get so wrapped up in some of the details, or get overwhelmed by the newness, that sometimes they miss what is being said. And oftentimes in the coordinator position, we can have those back end conversations and really dive into what a student is thinking, hearing and processing, and we work as again, as a liaison to help everybody get back on the same page so we can have a successful rotation.
Jayson Davies
Sounds good. Sounds like that may be a a fulfilling but tricky job sometimes, because you gotta kind of, I don't want to use this term lightly, but tread water. You know, you have to make sure you're talking to the right people the right time and and, like you said, communication is key, you know, making sure that you get in contact with your your coordinator the second that you feel like there might be something going on and not let it drag on and wait until you're really having some difficulties with a student, or if you're a student with your with your educator. So definitely. So all right, can you think of a story that you can tell us about, maybe a time that you had difficulty hosting a student and how that ended up working out for you?
Akemi McNeil
I have hosted supervisors, a lot of students, but I've really been very fortunate to have hosted many talented students that I had, you know, not too many concerns about, but there were a couple that occasionally in the process I questioned their safety or their clinical reasoning, But usually is creative and use just different teaching strategies to get to get them through these challenging sessions. Unfortunately, I didn't know that there were so many supports on the school side, so I didn't use that. But I generally was in clinics that had a lot of supports when I was hosting these students, I would say more on the side that I'm on now, I usually see that students are struggling for different reasons. It's rarely because of their skills or their skills related to OT and it sometimes takes some digging a little bit deeper to find out what's holding them back. And I find that once I get to that, sometimes we can make the decisions of you know, is this going to hinder their rotations, or are there ways and supports that even the school can do or support them in a way that they can get through their rotations despite what's happening in their lives, or is it time to take a break and take care of themselves before they can continue?
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And you know what? We're all occupational therapists. We know how to how to take all the different sides into consideration and be fair and work together to get stuff done. So.
Akemi McNeil
Yeah. I don't think yeah and an OT should never be fearful of getting the student that's going to be difficult, because in this position, I see that it there's so few of those students. You know, in the last couple years I've had this job, every one of my students has made it through at the end. So occasionally you can hit a little bump in the road, but that's maybe one week out of the entire rotation that was a little bit tough. And once we got everybody on the same page, it was easy again. And so we just have to remember, you know, a majority of the students are the ones that are building bridges and creating pathways for the next student.
Jayson Davies
Definitely. Well, I want to say thank you for coming on to the podcast and sharing with us everything about field work, education and being an educator as well as a coordinator. And yeah, it was a great conversation, and I look forward to more and more talks with you. But for anyone out there who may want to have a chat with you or ask you a question, is there somewhere that they can reach out to you?
Akemi McNeil
Yes, my email is adavies@stanbridge.edu and I'm sure that Jayson will add it, post it somewhere where you can find it.
Jayson Davies
Of course, no doubt. And one last thing, congratulations to Kimmy on your new name a Davies is still your email, but I know you are now, Mrs. McNeil, so congratulations, and I hope you're enjoying that. So alrighty. Well, thank you again, Kimmy, and I'll talk to you later.
Akemi McNeil
Thank you everyone. Thank you, Jayson, bye.
Jayson Davies
All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening in today on episode 12. We much appreciate it. And thank you very much to akimi for coming on and talking to us about how to be a clinical educator, field work educator. I'm looking forward to taking on a student, and I hope many of you out there are as well. After we got done recording, actually sent me some links to different books and different articles. So if you're interested in checking those books and articles out, definitely head over to OT schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 12 for the show notes, so you can see what she recommends reading if you're taking on a student. So with that, I hope you all have a great week and see you next time 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.
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