OTS 186: The Hidden Advantage: Why OTs Hold the Key to School Success Through Self-Regulation
- Jayson Davies
- Oct 6
- 50 min read
Updated: Oct 21
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 186 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
OTs hold the key to school-wide success by grounding self-regulation in sensory-motor regulation—not just in emotions. In this episode, Sherry Shellenberger and Jennie Largent show how the Alert Program provides a foundational layer many SEL programs miss, share practical strategies for piloting change, and explain how to talk with administrators to secure support and funding. Tune in to learn clear steps to expand OT impact from individual support to whole-school change.
Listen now to learn the following objectives:
Identify and effectively communicate the value of sensory-motor self-regulation approaches to administrators and decision-makers by collecting meaningful data through pilot programs and by developing stakeholder-specific documentation.
Identify opportunities to integrate self-regulation programs, such as The Alert Program for Self-Regulation, with existing SEL programs, and discover the foundational role of sensory-motor regulation in supporting emotional regulation.
Identify strategies to be effective change agents within school settings by collaborating with colleagues, applying evidence-based practices, and establishing systems that demonstrate the unique value of the occupational therapy approach to self-regulation; discover approaches to sustain and scale impact.
Guest(s) Bio
Sherry Shellenberger is the co-author of the Alert Program® and an occupational therapist with 45 years of experience. Sherry brings a passionate vision for improving the school experience for children through collaboration among all educational team members, including families.
She is joined by Jennie Largent, training coordinator for the Alert Program® and a seasoned organizational leader with over 20 years of business and change management experience. Jennie champions the power of self-regulation not only in schools - but across all environments and industries.
Quotes
"Your communications and your reporting have to be able to speak on your behalf when you're not there." - Jennie Len Largent, SPHR
“100% increase in teacher confidence in understanding how to manage information with the alert program and what that meant for behavior." - Sherry Shellenberger, OTR/L
"When you're thinking about each individual student, I think it is hard to make larger statements... But at the same time, that's kind of what a principal wants to hear." - Jayson Davies, M.A., OTR/L
"OTs are taught to zoom in. We're taught to look at the granular... When you're getting top-down directives and pushback... that takes tough skin." - Jennie Largent, SPHR
"Sensory-motor self-regulation and emotional regulation are hugely intertwined... But if we leave out the sensory motor supports and just go to the idea of identifying emotions, I feel like we've done a disservice." - Sherry Shellenberger, OTR/L
Resources
Episode Transcript
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Jayson Davies
Hey there, and welcome back to the OTSchoolHouse podcast. It's Jayson Davies here as always, and today on episode 186 I'm joined by two incredible experts in self regulation, Sherry Shellenberger, co author of the Alert program, and occupational therapist with 45 years of experience, along with her colleague, Jennie Largent, who is the training coordinator for the Alert program and an organizational leader with extensive business and change management expertise. I want to highlight that change management piece, because that's exactly what we are going to be discussing today, except within the world of school based OTs therapy. So today we're not here just to talk about the Alert program. Instead, we're diving into why ot practitioners are uniquely positioned to become powerful agents of change within school systems, and how to effectively communicate the value of self regulation to administrators, decision makers, teachers, all of those people who have the ability to make our lives easier if they better understand where we're coming from today, Sherry and Jennie are sharing practical strategies for gathering meaningful data, implementing successful pilot programs and bridging the gap between existing SEL programs and comprehensive self regulation approaches. You'll gain concrete tools for demonstrating the unique value of occupational therapy's approach and expand your impact beyond individual interventions to school wide implementation, something I know many of you want to do, so stay tuned as we dive into this conversation to provide you with a roadmap to become a more efficient Change Agent within your school community.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OTSchoolHouse podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development. Now, to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jayson Davies, class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Sherry Jennie, welcome to the OTSchoolHouse podcast. It's great to have you. It's great to be talking about the Alert program with you, but also talking about how the Alert program and self regulation program that this is can help cause change or help ot practitioners create change within the school setting. So I'm happy to have you here. Sherry, how are you doing today?
Sherry Shellenberger
I am well, Jayson, thanks so much for having me back. It must mean that I didn't mess up too badly the first time since it's now over a couple years ago, but it's nice to be here, and I love talking about school. OT it is near and dear to my heart.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely I've got it up here is episode 119 back on March 6, 2023 so gosh, yeah, it's been a minute, but happy to have you back and and talk more. And Sherry, we have talked to you before, but Jennie, we have not talked to you before. I would love to let you say hey, hello, but also share a little bit about your role within the Alert program. Yeah.
Jennie Largent
Thank you so much, Jayson. I'm really happy to be here with both of you. And my name is Jennie Largent and my background is in HR consulting, and I, where I focus on workplace training and organizational change management, so where Sherry brings in the OT expertise about the Alert program, and is the founder, I help leaders implement and, you know, just essentially apply it to their situation.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. And I love when OTs team up with other people. Like, isn't that great? Like being able to do more with ot by teaming up with someone else, that's awesome? Yeah, yeah,
Sherry Shellenberger
well, and it's, I think it's crucial at this time. We'll get into it later, but I mean, all of us, demands are rising. Our time is feeling strange, so it's a great time to look at, wow. What can we do to keep the good content and the good fun of all the work that we do in the schools. I like to I might have joked with you about this before, Jayson, but like my first introduction, my first job as an OT entry level OT, I'm going out into the world. I'm going to make change by golly. And my first job, it was in the schools, and I get out to the school this very first day of the school year. And I said, you know, can I use the room and data? Because I was an itinerant therapist, as many of the people on the podcast will be familiar with. And they said, Oh no, we had to cancel everything today because we're having a yo yo assembly. So lest we take ourselves too seriously, the work we do is serious. And then there's the gist of or the details that come with working in the school. So a little bit humbling and a little bit just that's what the schools are like. You have to be able to pivot and change and and find new ways to do the important work that we do.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely that's fun, and that kind of leads right into something that I wanted to start with today, because I was, you know, digging around the Alert program website planning for this episode, and I came across something that is definitely a little bit older, but still a lot of fun. And. Super relevant to today. And this is a poster that you all have available there called the top 10 Reasons OTs work in school. And so Sherry, I wanted to give you a moment just to talk about that. You don't need to cover all 10, but be
Sherry Shellenberger
I think I'll rip through a couple that are that are my favorite and and I was telling Jayson before we got on the podcast. The reason we developed this was we were put into Mary Sue and I were put in as speakers, into a very late time slot on a very long day of learning for a lot of people, OTs serious content, and we're like, what can we do? And a big part of what we both believe in is that while the learning that we do is serious. It doesn't have to be done seriously. And that humor can help us lock in a lot, or does for me, anyway, a lot of memory, extra memory, which I can certainly use. So anyway, yes, top 10 Reasons OTs work in the schools. Number 10 was you get to sit and work in those tiny little chairs. Let's see the massive number nine, the massive exposure to runny noses, chicken pox, colds and flu, and then number eight, there's always a pencil sharpener handy. Seven was the staggering weightlifting and motor planning opportunities offered by dragging large equipment in and out of schools and the let's see the cafeteria food, because ketchup is our favorite vegetable, that was number and then number three, at least 50% of the time the student you need to test, whose IEP is scheduled for that afternoon is absent. And then let's see, I will say the number one reason I skipped a bunch. As you can tell to the uninformed observer, it doesn't look like work.
Jayson Davies
Oh gosh, you know, hold on, hold on. We got to talk about that, because that is absolutely true, but I also feel like it is 100% a problem.
Sherry Shellenberger
Yes, exactly. Because when we're good at what we do, it looks smooth, right? When we watch professional athletes do their deal and we see how wonderfully talented they are, we also have a recognition of like, whoa. There's no way I could do that, right? But when we look at what we do as therapists. Oh, my goodness. Mary Sue actually had the wonderful compliment one time one of the little guys that she was working with in one of our schools said to her, so what do you do for work? Because while he did not understand exactly, he knew that we came we played all these great games. We cared about how he was doing in school. He had no idea this was, like, really a job, you know? And so that's very funny, because I thank you for the appreciation on our number one.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, no, it's true. It's like, sometimes I, some of you who listen, you might know this, but like, one of my ambitions is to start a nonprofit simply with a sole purpose of advertising occupational therapy, like simply advertising occupational therapy, and that's part of the reason why, because people see what we do. They see us, and they could see us 18 times, and yet they still ask us that question, what do you do? And that's to me a little, I don't want to say it, but, like, it's almost embarrassing to a degree, and it kind of sucks. I also,
Jennie Largent
and I also see how, you know, people like OTs are getting hired by these, you know, administrators and people that don't just don't have that it's not anybody's fault, it's not their role, but they don't have that knowledge of what the intention behind what what the OTs are doing. So, so even the people that are signing off on these programs, hiring these, you know, leaders, they just don't see what the full value of the leaders are in the reason behind what they're doing. They know that they need them, right? They know that they need them. They know that they can't, you know, replace them with somebody else. But the full insight into what you know, or they would be occupational therapists if they knew that, right?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's funny. Don't think about it from that way, but that's why we have you here, Jennie, to be the HR consultant and HR leader here to kind of have that outside perspective a little bit. And I think this is kind of a perfect sight way, because I wanted to give you both kind of this opportunity to share a little bit about, I mean, it's kind of a perfect sight way that we didn't plan. But like, the problem with school based ot currently, and what some of the expectations and some of the challenges that school based ot practitioners are facing right now,
Sherry Shellenberger
absolutely and first of all, hats off to everybody that is in the systems now, because we need you there, and it's important. It's important work. So I totally get it. And again, demands rising support, somewhat bottoming out here and there. OTs. On on all things related to educational systems. And I think that this is where I just see us as OTs, possessing such an incredibly unique knowledge of self regulation that affects everything that affects our function across the board. And so I guess for me, that's the part that, as we receive people's comments, feedback on the courses, all that kind of good stuff, and the biggest thing I hear is that it's kind of like when long ago, now I'm going to date myself, but first, when I was first going through ot school, there was not information on how to start your own practice if that was something you were going to want to do. I started out in the school systems, but eventually having my own business, and there wasn't that information. We have to seek it out from other professionals. This is not dissing on ot education in any way. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying I feel like the same thing is going on right now that we are in systems that are so diverse and have so many needs, and we don't have training, or I sure didn't, about how to make those kind of system wide changes. How do we go to our bosses and explain what we do and why we may need more funding or more staffing or all those things? So Jennie, I'll have you take it from there, because that's really so much change agent work that I've been excited to do with you that were that we have available to support OTs in the
Jennie Largent
schools, right the course itself, you know, Alert program itself, teaches the framework and gets you really thinking about self regulation The right way, but that's just kind of part of the the ingredients, you know, I've seen, you know, as I've been working with, with Sherry And team, is that, you know, these occupational therapists are being asked to, okay, hey, I want you to come in, create a plan, identify, you know, the solution, the vendors, the whatever the Training is going to look like, and then at the same time, almost in the same breath, they're being requested to prove its ROI, to prove how it's affecting and, you know, changing the bottom line there. So this so from from a communications perspective, a tracking perspective, just just an organizational perspective that can feel very overwhelming. You know, I can feel very informed and very confident and about a topic, but once you tell me, oh, I need to create a whole plan, communicate the whole plan to everybody and then prove that it works, it can make you feel kind of a little bit under pressure. And so we continue to see that. And so that's where this blend of, you know, the OT education world, in the school world, with a little bit of the communications and in the reporting best practices that we've learned from business, kind of merge.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha., Jennie, that's perfect. You know, you use terms like ROI, you use terms like the data. And in my now dozen plus years within school based ot data, like was a thing that was obviously a part of IEPs, you know, a decade ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even. But I feel like within the last 10 years, like data is the forefront of the conversation. It's not kind of like, oh, well, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. How are you going to track data? Okay, cool. It's more like, what's the data behind your present level of performance? What's the data behind this goal? What's the data leading to this goal? What's the data for every single piece? And that is tricky. We're going to get into that in just a moment. But first, here's a word from the supporters of the OT school house. All right, Jennie, I want to dive right back in where we left off with that. And that is some of that data. And Sherry, of course, you know this too. What is that challenge that ot practitioners, you know, mostly school that's that's who's here listening today the school based ot practitioners, what challenges are they facing with data? And you mentioned how hard it can be to kind of build the plane, fly the plane, learn how to do everything with the plane, all at the same time. So I guess I don't know you kind of started to talk about the problem and how you feel about that, but I want to give you a little bit more time to talk
Jennie Largent
about that. Yeah, I would just say that. You know, a lot of times people just don't know where to start with a blank page. And yes, they have their own tools and their own, you know, methods of tracking, but when you have the you kind of have to have the end in mind at the beginning, right, like, what? What report does your boss, your boss and your boss's boss and your boss's boss's boss, you know, need to see to make sure that we're being responsible specifically with our funding, right? That everybody you know is looking for, okay, how are we going to how are we going to fund our next, our next plan and and you know, they don't want to lose that, you know. And when what you I'm sure everybody on this that's listening understands and appreciates. OTs, all of the red tape that goes into that. So you know, what we're doing is we're trying to give that that instead of a blank page, it's okay. You've got this framework that already has been proven that works, that's evidence based, that is baked into the OT world. But then also, let's just use some good basic reporting and communications tips to be able to round that out. And really it just gives them, you know, an OT a place to start. Now, granted, every situation is different, so customization is needed, but that's where I'm able to kind of help, you know, see where those changes need to be made, regardless if they're part of a communicated plan, or if it's something that's more on that data side,
Jayson Davies
yeah, yeah. And Sherry, so I want to lead you in here, because I'm pretty sure just like me, you know, as a business owner, as someone who is constantly talking with ot practitioners, you've probably heard hundreds of times people say, I love the Alert program. It's a great program. I see the benefit of it. How the heck do I get help to get my school on board? And I think that's kind of where we're leading here. So I'd love to hear you know, whether it's a story or kind of what your take on that, how you've helped, or what you've told people, what they should
Sherry Shellenberger
do. Yeah, thank you for that, because it is true that, um, in a way, if I guess I would say this as an OT, if research was my big bent, or proving something was my big bent, I probably wouldn't have started my career in the schools or done that right. But and, and I think as OTs again, coming back to that number one reason, to the untrained observer, it doesn't look like work, is that we have our clinical reasoning in mind. We know why we're doing what we're doing. Explaining that to others is often a huge difference, and it's a bit it's a different skill set, right? And so the cool thing is that now, after this many years of working with the Alert program and having the great amount of literature that we have in all these different settings, most of them being schools or school age folks, in terms of the real peer reviewed, you know, hard driving evidence kind of stuff. Those are on the website. It's just a free page, and you just go look up literature and research on the alert program. I know Jennie and you were going to put that in our notes for the podcast show. I'm really proud of that, because that's where what we see is all these great different ways that some of these systems have measured that kind of a thing. And I don't know, Jennie, do you want to give the example of we had a request from another country? I won't even say where, where the therapist contacted you and said, We're I'm training, we're training our OTs. That's an important part. We as a group. We need to know about the content of the Alert program. But then they're asking me for more information about how I'm going to prove that it was working, or whatever. Do you want to speak to that a little? Jennie, I don't know.
Jennie Largent
Yeah. I just, I just, I think that everybody is, you know, having to prove that what we're doing and what we're investing in time and money is working. It's just, I think that that's just the age we're in. And I think that, you know, businesses have been having to do this for quite some time, where it's all been, you know about, Okay, show me the bottom number, the black and white change. You know, I'm assuming that sometimes that's probably difficult to do in the world of OT, but they're being pushed. We're being pushed to do so and so, you know, I don't know if that's really a perfect answer to your question, but that's just my take well,
Sherry Shellenberger
and I would say too, that while it's important that we prove and articulate what we're doing, we don't want to go down a business only road either, right? I mean, that's the point of why we're in this profession, where, when we do the cool thing to me about self regulation, concentrating on the nervous system, using the Alert program is we do that foundational framework approach, and then we're not really sure where we're going to see the changes. The changes might be that the child is able to take in, all take in, and demonstrate all this knowledge that they weren't able to before. It might be that they're just not having a ton, a ton of behavioral outbursts, that that has decreased, and that they're understanding how to take care of themselves in order to help to prevent some of that like so. So there's a part where we need to measure and there's also a part of when you get in and you work on the brain and the nervous system, we don't really always know where that change is going to show up. We just know it does.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, okay, I want to talk about what I think is not necessarily a problem, but it's what we're seeing in those schools currently, and we're seeing a focus on social, emotional learning content. We. You are seeing a little bit more focus on physical education, but not nearly as much. Obviously, math, reading, like, those are the things that I see districts putting energy into, mostly the SEL writing and reading. But it's interesting because SEL, I don't know anyone want to share when they when they started to see SEL programs come into place like I don't think they were really in place when I started 12 years ago.
Sherry Shellenberger
I don't know, no, no. I mean, in a way, and Jenny, you might be able to speak to this better, because Jenny's done so much of the good research on it. But I think that really in the funding opened up because we knew this was a problem, right? I mean, and I think that my impression, and I could be totally wrong, is that after covid and all the studies of how devastating missing so much school and social time was for so many children, that I think that's where, in my mind, kind of some of the floodgates of the funding opened up. So I may be wrong on that, Jenny, you want to correct me if I am there,
Jennie Largent
yeah, no, I It looks like it really started getting popularized about 10 years ago, but I think you're right. Is that, you know, once we all went through that kind of traumatic experience globally, you know, that's where I think it pushed it a little bit further, where people just knew, and also the lines of education in the curriculum, I think just they kind of bled a little bit more, right? Everything kind of got a little blurry, and I see that there's a lot of, I mean, there's so much good that goes on with SEL because we're bringing attention to things that historically were not brought into the school system that is wonderful. The thing that we just are trying to help people realize is before you start taking a child and saying, Okay, let's talk about your emotions, and start labeling those emotions, which can sometimes be emotions can be labeled as good or bad or different. You know, different alert levels being considered good or bad, that's where you start getting into tricky stuff. And we're saying, Hold on. Before you go there, let's make sure that we're addressing the body mind connection, just as science tells us we need to do.
Sherry Shellenberger
You know, the Alert program really focuses on those lower brain structures. And how do we use I really feel like in the in the New Leaders Guide I call I've just, I just called it sensory motor self regulation. It is different than emotional regulation. Sensory motors self regulation and emotional regulation are hugely intertwined and wonderfully interconnected and interactive with each other. But if we leave out the sensory motor supports and just go to the idea of identifying emotions, I feel like we've done a disservice to all the programs we're running in that sense.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I think that's great, the way that you both answer that, and it leads to this question, and I kind of set you up for this one, but like, we have these SEO programs about 10 years, I think I kind of agree with Jennie and share you with you on that it's been about 10 years that I feel like they've started to have these programs really embedded. And from an OT perspective in the schools, my thought was always awesome. Love. It great. It's there. But what the heck happened to self regulation? We've got, you know, the Alert program. We've got zones of regulation. We've got interoception with Kelly Mahler's work, and we now have autism level up doing a lot of work with this. And it's like, Wait, how do we just focus in on social, emotional learning, but then leave out self regulation, sensory processing, all that fun stuff. And so I guess that kind of leads to the second part of this episode, if not already, third part, I don't know. I'm not giving track, but like, I guess, like, what are we to do about that? Like, should we be trying to learn the SEL program and support the SEL program. Should we be trying to tell our districts? You know what? Hey, it's great you're doing SEL, but there's more. What are you seeing ot practitioners do? What are you advocating for? I know this is a really big question, but I want to get started down that route.
Jennie Largent
If I could just get to take a go first. I just think that it's an incremental, it's an incremental process, you know, and and really self regulation, this body, you know, my mind connection, that we're talking about it, that just goes alongside everything else. So it's not one is better than the other. You know, you can have your SEL program and it be very focused on, you know, whatever the progression in that field is, you can, you can, you know, still have that program. But what we're asking for you to do is, before you roll that out, to just consider this other aspect. Because this is where, if you start with the self regulation the body and a sensory motor self regulation, then your SEL program is going to be much stronger.
Sherry Shellenberger
And I think that that is, in my mind, the strength of the Alert program. I like I give the example, because so many people are familiar with the whole title of the program, which had we had business people involved earlier on, would not have been this lengthy. But the title of the like, the Leaders Guide is, how does your engine run? The leader's guide for the alarm program for self regulation, right? But so like, could you get more lengthy? Oh, my but how does your engine run? Is a question, but the point is that we're giving the information on that before we start asking questions. And that was a common misconception when we originally were training about the alert, right? It's still true now, but fewer people seem to be as surprised by that. But what I think that has gotten confusing is that the self regulation concept made so much sense to our super cerebral people, our social workers, our psychologists, our counselors, all those folks, especially school counselors, right that they decided that self regulation meant emotions, and it's so much bigger than that. That's what we know about the brain and the nervous system. We know that self regulation occurs all throughout the brain stem the nervous system. The brain stem up into the court cortical areas, whereas those folks because cortical areas is what their training is in. I'm not dissing on anyone here, of course, but I give the example in the book, and I'm actually in the second revision here of the leader's guide, is that sticking with the engine analogy, if you took your car into the mechanic and you said, I'm having trouble with my speedometer, you would not the mechanic, who was a good mechanic, would not go ahead and check your oil pressure. So in this analogy, if we say the speedometer is actual arousal level of the nervous system and the oil pressure is the emotional regulation part, they're different. They're separate. They're separate systems, and we want to be neurologically precise as OTs to be able to help people understand that, that I think too much emphasis became happy. My opinion is that self regulation became interchangeable terminology wise, with emotional regulation, and I see them as very separate and emotional regulation as a part of self regulation.
Jayson Davies
Okay, I'm gonna push a little bit further on that, because we often talk within the same vein, SEL self regulation and behavior. And a lot of times we I see the SEL programs being implemented because schools are trying to make an impact on behavior, right? And I think the same often goes for self regulation. So going back to your analogy, if we take our car to the shop and we say we're having a problem with behavior, whatever that might be, the car just randomly doing whatever the heck at once, then we have to know whether or not to look at SEO. We have to know whether or not to look at self regulation. We've got to know whether or not to look at interoception, per se. So I don't even know how I'm going with this question, to be honest. But like, how do we know? Or how do we start to figure out where we should be looking if we just know that behavior is the problem.
Sherry Shellenberger
Well, I would say, now this is just me and Jennie, I'm happy to have you chime in, and I'm just talking off the top of my head, in a way, but from a lot of years of experience, I didn't get these wrinkles for nothing here. And so I would say that we should be and obviously we need to do assessments and decide certain pieces of that. That's not my huge area of expertise. There are plenty of people who have made wonderful assessments. But the other piece is, why don't we do it all to support the individual? Do the emotional regulation supports, do the sensory motor supports, and that, and the chances of that happening and in creating positivity in the in the area of behavior are huge that one of the reasons we actually even started the Alert program was that Mary Sue and I would see that teachers were so frustrated with the amount of time they spent managing behavior in their classrooms, and they didn't even know that the sensory motor piece and that arousal alert level piece, if you will, all those of you work in schools understand why. Would call it the Alert program, and not the arousal program, is that that is so basic and it may underlie what's going on. It's not always the reason for behavior. No. No way would we say, oh, One is and one emotional regulation, or sense of emotional self regulation, is or isn't. But I think that, and in your analogy, Jayson, is you would kind of look at, how do we tune up all the systems and see if the car starts working okay, right? And, and I feel like that as OTs, we may not have been able to be quite as strong in helping people to understand sensory, motor self regulation, and it's important, and its support for those very foundational things long ago, and I know I referenced this in the Alert program online course, but there was a study that was done with math Okay, and how people, how children, learned about math, and there were manipulatives for the math. And what they found is that if there that there was better success in the math program with the minute, with the kids who use the manipulatives. So why would we take out one part or another part and not use all of it? Have the manipulatives available, and then they do better in math. The kids who, for whom it's helpful use it, the kids for whom it's not, don't. Hopefully kids don't throw it across the room. That's what the teachers are afraid of, right? You know? So, so I guess I'm saying, I think that it's like that whole body thing, right? None of us want to just because we're having a problem in one area of our body. Forget that, of course, we have this incredibly intertwined structure of muscles and fascia and nerves and all that good stuff. So I guess I see it as a whole support and that we'll have that'll I like. I just feel it definitely improves effectiveness by supporting it all. I took a long time there.
Jayson Davies
Jennie, one thing, really, and I'll come to you, Jennie, but I want to, I don't know if it was while we were while we've been recording, or right before we were recording, one of you said, what's great about the Alert program is that it's comprehensive, that it can be used independently, but it's also variable to the extent that it can be incorporated within other programs or added to other programs. And I kind of that's what I kind of heard you say in a longer way, Sherry,
Sherry Shellenberger
it is I probably short and sweet has never been my MO I'll just say it. That's just the deal so, but yes, exactly like it's that moment of being a responsible therapist that you would never rule out one piece and just go with something because you thought that's what wasn't required, or maybe the current data was getting very, very excited about right? We want to use all our skills as OTs and all of that support, and the more independent that we're able to make children in their own self regulation, getting them to their most ultimate level, the easier the workload gets on everybody around them, right? And that they get to strut their stuff and show what they know and all those really important wonderful things of being a learner and in a school. So yes, you're exactly right. I just feel like, don't ignore one thing when combined the effectiveness could skyrocket.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, all right. And Jennie, I don't know if you wanted to have, if you had anything you wanted to add, I think that that,
Jennie Largent
that was that, yeah, that was all. I see it too. I just think that it really is more of an and not an or, you know, I kind of think of it like that, because there's so many different like, if you think of just one school systems, well, I'm just gonna call it glossary, for a lack of a better term, okay? You know, every, every school system is going to have their own verbiage, right? Some of it's going to be, you know, just about the school itself and kind of their their own branding or their profile, right? But some of it is going to be okay. This is how we actually work and how we talk to each other. And, you know, everyone's going to have their own custom version of that. Some of it, you know, but what we see is that we can provide this really basic framework that you can bolt on these other, you know, programs and these other ways of communicating and understanding, because we know that it's not all just one and done, like this is not, you know, this is all. We're all evolving together, and this is something that's going to continue to grow, and we're going to, you know, Sel is going to evolve and change, and and OT is good too, you know, we're going to continue to learn more. And so we need to be able to be flexible.
Sherry Shellenberger
And I'll just brag on Jenny here a little bit. She has a three part blog series right now. The first part, the first blog is already up about SEL and how incorporating the Alert program with with existing SEL programs that you might have. So that'll give. People a starting off point, if they're going, Yeah, but how do I explain it? Or whatever. It's a very well done article, and it really does emphasize what Jennie said, we're talking about an and not an or,
Jennie Largent
yeah, it really, it just really, what I did was I went through the research, and I was like, Okay, what? What is actually being, you know, for peer reviewed, you know, research, what is actually being studied and verified, and what's working and what's not, and what we're seeing is just, there's a lot of and this isn't a ding on SEL because you have to start somewhere, but a lot of, a lot of the programs just aren't meeting expectations as they are. And so it's like, okay, well, let's, let's, let's back up and let's combine some things, because, you know, as we're alluding to, and also directly speaking about, is that some of these programs seem to be missing these really fundamental steps.
Sherry Shellenberger
And Jennie, you did a beautiful job, just even on like verbal comprehension and on understanding what different emotions mean. So many of the kid OTs that we may have on our caseloads as OTs, they're not there yet. They're not real. They don't really know what's going on. So they'll tell you an answer, because you're asking them a question, if they're compliant or they'll not, and then you'll say, Oh, this child's being uncooperative and defiant and not enough, which is, of course, not where any of us want to go. So I think that the first blog in this, in that series of three, and it's free on the alert Program website, is, I'm not plugging a sale here. I'm just saying this is the part that I think helps us as therapists to start that change in within the system, to show people what are unique pieces that we have to offer that will help support all the other good work that's being done.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, perfect. And we'll be sure to link to definitely the first one and probably at least the second one, maybe even the third one, by the time this podcast comes out, so be sure to check the show notes for those. We're going to take our final break, but when we come back, I want to really talk to Sherry And Jennie about why ot practitioners haven't always been the best change agents, and what we can begin to do to be better change agents. So we'll be right back as we come back, Jennie, I just want to say I'm so happy to have you here, because it's not often that we have non ot practitioners on the show, and I always like to take advantage of it when we do have non ot practitioners. And with your background in HR and Sherry's background in occupational therapy, I think we might be able to get to some roots here and maybe even come up with some plans for moving forward. And so I guess I want to ask both of you, and I want to give both of you the opportunity to respond to this is, why have ot practitioners? Both of you have varied experience. Why have ot practitioners not always been able to make the changes that we've wanted to make within the school system. Is it organizational? Is it because of our background, you know, not having a business background, or not having that like, to be honest, sometimes not every ot practitioner has like a program background, like how to develop a program and organize a program. What do you see as kind of some of the problems that have led to us being in the situation?
Sherry Shellenberger
Well, I'll go I'll go first, and then I'll let Jennie speak to the real nitty gritty of the of the change agent stuff. But my thinking on this, Jayson, is that we went into our profession to work, oftentimes, to work with clients individually. The schools present this wonderful opportunity to work with clients in a group way. Self regulation is important for every individual on the planet. So now we've really broadened it out in terms of what's required here. But I think in general, I think it's hard for us as OTs to strut ot to strut our stuff. Here I am again, about the strut and our stuff, but there is so much good evidence about the good work that we do, and I think that, because I'm going to come back to that piece of what's going to pop as the thing that was helpful for this individual, isn't always totally predictable, right? That's the point of researchers. When they do research, they tell me they go as broad as they can to try to measure a bunch of things and see where the change happened. So for instance, in the Alert program research, one of the bigger studies, they did functional MRIs. They did questionnaire, standardized questionnaires. They did all these different things. And if you had asked me as an OT would the functional MRI be a good measure, after just a certain number of weeks of Alert program progress, I would think, even as the creator of the program, and I believe in it, and I know it's successful, I would have been like, oh, I don't know, but. But it did. And so that's that part that I think is hard for us as OTs, because when and again, not dissing on PTS, but the PT goal is we're going to strengthen this muscle, right? And they're focused on that muscle, and they're doing the thing, and they just only check that muscle. They're not checking the whole rest of life function, right? And OTs, we want to know is the individual more functional in the world? That's our thing. That's our bag. And so it's much trickier to present that information to our administrators, to our people that develop our programs and systems in a way that is condensed enough, you can see, I can't even talk about it in a super simple way, but Jennie can, and that's a big part of why she's here, is that is that, you know, we have this great, unique knowledge, and we need to find ways to make it manageable for our people in our systems, to understand what it is we're doing, how we're going to measure, how We're going to regroup if we're not getting the results. We want all those good things, and I think that we're trained to be great clinicians, but not great articulators of our knowledge. And so that's my hit of it.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha Yeah, I have a few things to add, but I want to hear Jennie first.
Jennie Largent
I agree with everything you said, Sherry, I just think it comes down to what you said earlier. They're taught to, you know, OTs are taught to zoom in. We're taught to look at the granular, to be very focused on the individual. That takes sensitivity and it takes some senses, you know, that are beyond just sitting down and cerebral, really thinking like we're having, you know, the OTs having to, I think, engage in their own self in a way to, you know, in this self regulation way in order to do their work. But it also so that takes sensitivity, right, and understanding and really focusing on your caseload when you're getting top down directives and pushback, or, you know, hey, timelines, and you know, pressure coming from above that takes tough skin, because that's that, that's not sensitivity, that's being able to beef up, and that's being able to take somebody that might be questioning the, you know, this person for their their own right, no fault on their own. Maybe, you know, hey, I need you to do your great work, and we look forward to you leading us through this, and at the same time, can say, prove that you're the right person and this is the right program, and then it's working. And I feel like those are two very different, you know, ways of communicating and looking at things also, let's just say that. And in the business world, we all know this very well. Communications are not easy. Like, there are so many different ways to relay things to people, so many different, you know, audiences that you're trying to reach. Like, think of just a really basic school system. How do you communicate to everybody that's in that building with the right amount of information for the right person, it can be really, really, almost impossible to it can feel impossible at least,
Jayson Davies
yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I it's you have to talk to kids differently the way that you talk to teachers differently than the way that you talk to assistant principals and principals differently than you talk to the superintendent or anyone in the HR department, like you have to understand the message that you're trying to relay. And yeah, and the other thing that this has been really hard for me, kind of going back to your talking about granular Right? Like you're thinking about each individual student, and when you're thinking about each individual student, I think it is hard to make larger statements. And what I mean by that is, you know, at the OT school house, I've had a really hard time putting out stuff that's more related to, like, overarching treatment ideas and strategies, because in my past, I have, you know, what works for one kid works for one kid, and I think that makes it hard for occupational therapy, right? Like, because we're not going to talk generally and say, you know, this one little, tiny intervention is going to work for all my students, but at the same time, that's kind of what a principal wants to hear. They want to hear that one thing that's going to help everybody. And as OTs, we don't think in that way. We think about one kid as one kid, maybe a small group of kids, as a small group of kids, and I think that really makes it difficult.
Jennie Largent
It's kind of incredible what OTs are being asked to do. So just like I had an OT that was, you know, a consultant for a school district, and you know, this person was doing this exact dance where they're trying to build it, build it, fly it, you know, and judge it all at the same time, right? And, you know, the it was clear to me that the people that were giving these directives still just didn't have the insight that the OTs have. So it's like, it brings us back to we're. Really the big point of all of this is to just expand and shine a light on what the OTs already know and make it a little easier for them to have a guide to know. Okay, now it's time to step back. Let's be intentional, because a lot of times you could just pause and give yourself a little bit of space and go, Okay, so I'm no longer focused on the individual. I'm no longer, you know, okay, now, now let's look at and sometimes materials and communications and assets and visual cues can kind of help you, you know, make that intentional switch. And so that's where I've been trying to fill in that gap, because it just doesn't seem like many OTs have that kind of support.
Sherry Shellenberger
And I would say that self regulation can be your starting point, right? That's to me, that's the road in we're all self regulators. When I would go to talk to an administrator, if they were chewing gum I'm in, they're going to understand what I'm going to say to them in that next little moment, right? Or if I'm going to an administrator who is very primly and formally dressed. It's a different conversation, just like you said, Jayson, right? And so that's where I feel like learning about self regulation, utilizing the Alert program, because it's been evidence based, is going to create those avenues of connection and communication that we can then build on for all these other great skills that we bring as OTs to the to the school setting.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I want to bring up one other challenge that I think comes up and and that is the idea that ot practitioners aren't often a decision maker within the school district, or they haven't been set up to be a decision maker in the school district, they're not invited to to meetings where funds are being distributed or decided on and whatnot. They're not being asked for input. Sometimes their bosses even just say, hey, the OT department is great. I don't have to worry about you. You guys just keep doing your thing, and we're never like asked to be a part of the table. How do you see that as a problem? And have you seen any people that are doing cool things to kind of make that
Sherry Shellenberger
change? Well, interestingly enough, two of the bigger studies that I have seen done on the alert program and self regulation, there was an OT who was in that kind of a position and could say to people, Hey, this is a way that we're going to improve what we're doing. So number one is to see if those people that are interested in those administrative kinds of positions, that they go for it and they try, they try that. That's one thing that's that's a long term change. Yeah, right, you know. But what is very interesting to me, in the shorter term, what these pilot programs were doing is, let's do a pilot, let's get some data, let's kind of see what we had after we do this pilot, and decide what we want to do with it. And I would say in that sense, it was because people were trained in groups that they then, you know, the sum is greater than the whole of its parts, right? They then, having been trained in a group, they kind of have a baseline, hey, for our system, this is how we could do this, because we know that at this school there's limited space, but we know that at that school we can do data. That's the customization that we're required to have as professionals. But what I really have felt is that, and this was true when we were doing the Alert program courses live too, when people came in groups, when a group had their same common language, their same idea of the framework of the Alert program. I'm using that as the example, because that's why we're here, is that is when the change could happen a lot easier, because collectively, then we know what's going to work in this situation or more likely to work in this situation and what might be a disaster in this situation, right? And we still have our disasters. That's how we all learn. But I think we can limit a lot of them by having as a group and a collective coming together and going, Oh, I could see this work in this way in our system.
Jayson Davies
Great, Sherry, thank you for sharing that. You mentioned something super important, the pilot studies, and that is something that I think is so important and we we often overlook. I like to tell people if you've been on this podcast, or if you've listened to the podcast, I've said it many times, like, sometimes I like to ask for forgiveness rather than for permission. And when it comes to a pilot study, like, that's like the perfect opportunity, right, right? A little pilot study, reach out to a researcher who did something and and see if they'll share with you a little copy of that workbook that they created or something. And a lot of times, people are very open to sharing materials, especially if they have an idea that, hey, maybe this could grow into something larger. But do one thing, get that data that we spent like, I feel like it was 20 minutes talking about earlier with Sherry And Jennie. Get that data because, you know, you're. Kids don't care about the data. I find that teachers don't always care about the data, but as I'm sure, Sherry and Jennie will tell you, administrators care about the data. They've already said that anyone above your assistant principal and vice or principal, they care about the data and the relationship from the data to the cost that's going to be implemented. And this is true for self regulation, handwriting, sensor, integration, you name it, it's true. So, yeah, absolutely.
Sherry Shellenberger
And I think that remembering that such a good point that you make Jayson about like the kids don't care about it. The teachers may or may not care about the administrators do, and they don't know how to get the data. So we need to help them, right? Like this is where, by saying, hey, here are these studies, and you can go and look at them. And the nice thing, and the wonderful thing is, so much is online now in terms of abstracts and things right, and people can check that out on our website. But I'm really proud of that, because it just shows, oh yes, they did this in the schools. They did two different schools. They tried, we're working with the activities, and these were the good results, because the through line in I'll just do a little plug on the through line in our Alert program, research, especially related to your school population, is that the latest information is like huge increases 100% the one New Zealand study where they did pilot, they Just did a small pilot in two different schools, okay, but it gave us really good information, and then they could take it further, and 100% increase in teacher confidence in understanding how to manage information with the Alert program and what that meant for behavior, 100% buy In by the teachers and a 95% cultural fit in a population that has a lot of native, wonderful native folks in that country. So like those kinds of things, and that's a through line in much of the research, is that teachers felt positively supported and that they understood more so that they knew how to approach what they're being required to do. Because as OTs, we're not the only ones being required to do more. Our teachers are under the gun bigger and badder than ever. So yeah, I would say that ability to be able to steer people to that evidence, it doesn't mean you have to know it inside and out. That can feel kind of intimidating, but making sure that we make a nice little short list of. Hey, here's this. This is what I want to do. Here's some of the reasons why. Here's some of the results that other people have found. Wow, that is doing the administrator's job for them. And Jennie, you've taught me a little bit about that. Do you want to speak to that at any level there?
Jennie Largent
Well, I would just add on top of it's kind of like a filtering of communications exercise. OTs, you've got so much information and knowledge, and I feel like it's just one big filtering exercise. It's what, what does this you know, administrator, or whoever you're trying to provide this information for what do they need to know and what, what lens are they needing that's going to be effective, because the more that you can help them communicate the job up right, the just, the better they're going to be. They're going to be set up, and they're also going to keep coming back to you, and they're going to trust you. And so it's going to build, I think, a little bit of a of a kind of a muscle in this way, to where there's a trust that gets built, of course, over time. But that's where we're just trying to help, you know, give that starting point so that you know when you're when you're been asked by your administrator, hey, I need you to run with this. You're not just staring at that blank, blank page, you know?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I know one thing that often comes up, especially in the business world, is like, you got to make it a win, win, win for everybody. And you've got to make it a win for you and for the kids and win for your administrator. But you also have to think about, like, in most cases, if you're talking to your principal, your principal has a lot of power, but sometimes not as much power as you even think, or, yeah, not as much power as much power as you think. And they've got to be able to explain whatever you tell them to someone else. And so you don't just have to make it easy for them.
Jennie Largent
Right? Go ahead, right and without, without you being invited that table right, like you're having to allow, you have to have your communications and your reporting be able to speak on your behalf when you're not there.
Sherry Shellenberger
We don't want to trust whisper down the lane, huh? That's really our takeaway there, right? No, I'm serious, right? I mean, we can laugh about it, but I'm serious, right? These are really big concepts, and we have to have concise ways. That's the part we didn't ever know we signed on for as OTs. But it is a part. It's a reality. And so here we go. We got to learn some skill sets. We got to do all that stuff, because, again, to the uninformed observer, it doesn't look like work.
Jayson Davies
Jayson, yeah, so Exactly. So Jennie, really quickly, if I may, if someone reaches out to you an occupational therapist, maybe an OTs. They, you know, say, hey, read a lot about the Alert program. I've used it. It works for my kids. I'd really like to get it, you know, on a larger scale, within my school, within my district, and they reach out to you and say, Hey, how do I do this? Would you mind kind of sharing maybe some of the steps, some of the tips that you would give, you know, to hold their hand the way up,
Jennie Largent
yeah, so really, what it ends up being is, is, you know, you just take what, what's their initial goal? You know, where are they starting from? You know, is this a pilot situation where we're talking about, let's just come up with, you know, a few weeks of a program just to get something started? Or are we in a maintenance mode, you know? You know, just find out where they are and what their initial goals are. Then it you essentially come up with, you know, a group of staff that you want to be trained, and also, usually a communications method to get everybody on board. So you kind of start working on those two things together, where you start assigning, okay, here are the main, you know, leaders, the champions that are going to be taking the full program, you know, the full alert program, online course that's going to understand the OT side, okay, which people then may take the your best self course, which is more intended for, you know, it's the higher level. It's it can be for, you know, caregivers. It can be there for AIDS, you know. And so you start coming up with a way to spread this throughout the entire school or even School District, depending on what their goal is, and so then it just ends up being this kind of personalized support where I provide them templates, slides, communications that are intended for them to customize for their own, you know, setup. And so it's a little bit of a back and forth where we just talk through things, and then I, you know, if I can do something that, you know, for example, if there's a tracking spreadsheet that I've created, if you're, you know, starting up with a completely brand new pilot, you can use this tracking system to start getting some legs on that. And it comes with an already ready to go PDF, able report, high level report. So there's some, you know, the whole it has that end in mind, you know, as far as who you're going to have to communicate to, but, but I work with the I work with the individual so that it's useful for their unique situation.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, I think two quick questions, and then we'll start to wrap up here. When you talk about doing a pilot study, how complicated or uncomplicated is that like? Are we talking about? We need to find a research team to like help us out with this, or is much simpler,
Jennie Largent
much simpler. I come from a communications perspective of, once you say it, and you communicate it, it's it's a thing, you know, create form, and then it's there, right? So it really doesn't have to be complicated. It really can say, here's the test group that we want to start with, the student group that we want to start with. Then you just spread up with, say, Okay, where's their support system? Right? What staff and OTs or school, you know, different teachers and aides who's touching that student? And then you just come up with, Okay, here's the initial goal that we're going to have, the timeline that we're going to give it and and you start naming some, some some expected results. And then as long as you have a way to be able to track that, then you can come out after the end of that, let's say it's an eight week program. After the end of that, eight weeks, you're going to have a pretty good signal of if it was worth the effort or not.
Sherry Shellenberger
And I would say that as OTs, I think we get a little scared about trying to do that kind of data collection, or we just don't know, I wouldn't say scared, that's the wrong word. I think we just haven't been trained how to do that because of the massively comprehensive way that we look at individuals. And what's been so fun for me to learn from Jennie is like just doing some quick checklist things that we check off as we're doing our other documentation while we run a small program with a you know, that that it really does result in good information. And then we get to wow them with the facts of, hey, this is what we saw, you know, and we're not, we're not saying we're not submitting it for peer review anywhere. We're just saying, hey, clinically, this is what I saw, and that tells me I'm on a right track, or it tells me I need to pivot and emphasize something else more right? That's really the intent. It's like clinical reasoning, but done in a data form that I feel like Jenny has been so wonderful to kind of help us to notice and develop to support
Jennie Largent
people. Yeah, and I think we also are helping OT. I think one of the results can be that the leading ot can start getting more comfortable with tracking the outcomes and without, you know, it's because, because there's a little bit of unknown, like. Don't know what the result is, right? You don't know how it's it's a test, so you don't know how the test is going to go. And so it takes a little bit of bravery and confidence, and you need to really believe in the system you're following, right? In order to have that confidence so that you can really do the test worth it, you know, really make the test in the pilot, you know, really work, and it's okay. We don't expect tests for the alert with the Alert program to show that it doesn't it's not effective. I mean, that's the reason why we're doing what we do, because we believe in it. But the reality is, is that, you know the results will be the results,
Jayson Davies
yeah, yeah, okay. And then the follow up to that is, once you have those results, have you found a communication style, a methodology that best works for relaying that to the people who have the powers? Is it best to write up a written report and give it to them? Is it best just to show them the raw data slide shows just verbal. What have you found works?
Jennie Largent
If I knew the answer to that, Jayson, we would have a totally different conversation. Because everybody wants different types of communications. You know, some people want that high level dashboard one page like, give me some good one liners and good data charts. Other people want to know every little detail. So, you know, that's where it really does run the gamut. You know, I start though. What I do? I lead with the assumption that it's always going to be useful to have a simple, high level report that just shows the high impact the places where there was actual, you know, something that's going to be insightful for you to make decisions from, right? So we have the ability to do a one pager report of that, but this not, it's not to say that that's going to solve all of your communication, you know, problems
Sherry Shellenberger
on what their superiors are requiring from them, right?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, very true. Very true. Yeah. I was hoping you'd have the answer to life. Jennie, yeah, I agree. Not quite that good. Well, I agree, right? You've got to have that verbal communication. But it definitely helps. I found that it helps when you put together, you take the energy, the time and energy to put something together. It doesn't have to be perfect. And a lot of times you give them that one pager, I think, and then you get asked for more follow up, and that's where you can write up a little bit more of the details. But yeah, like you said, everyone's a little different. So awesome. All right, as we are wrapping up here. Sherry Jennie, recently, you or the Alert program, you as a team, released an updated version of the alert Program Leader Guide, and just looking at some of the key points that I saw that really stood out to me. The main one was that there's a section for teens, but I would love for you to, you know, share a little bit about it.
Sherry Shellenberger
Well, one of the things that was constant, we were constantly getting asked Jayson, by by people, is okay, well, I know how to do it with children in grade levels. But what about teens? And how about that? So we actually developed some really nice framework for teens, especially so they still go through the activities in the leader's guide, but we have a teen tip in every one of in the activity section there, and then we made a section just for teens, where we encourage therapists To think about having the teen synthesize the information they've learned about the Alert program on themselves or on other people, and either do like an in house, not something for posting online an in house informational video. Or how would they be a reviewer and influencer of some of the activities within the Alert program, or the games or whatever. Or would they like to do a play by play announcer or analyst who interviews people about the Alert program. So we really made it nicely, um, appropriate for teens also, uh, making it that they can even then be observing with or working with younger students with the therapist. Sometimes that's a possibility in the schools. I know our administrators were always really open to having us have, like some of our fifth graders come out and be around some of the groups we did with some of the younger students, that kind of thing. So empowering and so important, I think, and giving them that chance, like saying, Okay, why don't you make a 30 now we're in the age of video, right? And so here we get to go is like, ooh, if you were making a video and you were being an influencer, what would you say about this? And what would you say? Oh, I liked this part. I didn't like that part. Why? What part worked for you? What part didn't work? For you that kind of thing. So I'm actually really excited about the teen section. We had done some of that for a research project that was going on up in Canada, and they had very good results with a lot of the teen information. This was our chance to really get it down in an explicit way, in the leader's guide, updates in the research section, updates in the visuals. Before you know the original Leaders Guide, the last time it was revised was in 1996 it has definitely stood the test of time. And we wanted visuals that represented across age span, across a little more cultural diversity and ethnic diversity and and I think we really succeeded, the guy who is this wonderful artist from Canada. His name is Randy wall. He did all of the graphics within the Alert program. I think anybody who picks up the new leader's guide could find a picture that they go, Oh, I can relate to that kind of thing. So that's and obviously, just in terms of some of the introductory information and updated thinking about SEL, about some of those kind of things, all included there. So that's my short, not so short, short version of I'm really proud of it. I think it's really a worthwhile update and addition. So that's exciting to me. I think it'll support a lot of good therapists.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. Jennie, did you want to add anything?
Jennie Largent
Yeah, I just think that, you know, I'll just add that, you know, the because I came to both the original Leaders Guide and the second edition, relatively in a close amount of time, and so I was reviewing them, and I can see that there is a big difference. You know, there's like, 20% more content. There's a ton more activities in the and the new guide, and there's, you can just tell there's a little bit more of a modern application. You know, as as Sherry was going through and updating the research and making sure that the word choices we're using are modern and updated, you know, there were just a lot of, as you go through that editing process, there was just a lot of new little, little additions that she was able to add. So I think that it's worth it, even for people that have the original
Jayson Davies
Absolutely and it sounds like correct me, if I'm wrong, if you sign up for the course, you get the manual Correct,
Sherry Shellenberger
yeah, in the in the Alert program online course, the leaders guidebook and the and they get a bag of brain breaks that are used throughout as we as we do the course. And they get a handout packet for your best self. It is not included, so I just don't want to mislead anybody. Your best self is really a course for us as adults to learn about our own self regulation. And it's been very effective for even for especially, lots of kids going from, I say kids, because I am of an age here, everyone right? A lot of people going young people going from, like, transitions of high school to college, those kinds of things that and and understand, wanting to understand about self regulation now that they're going into a differently structured environment, those kinds of applications. And then, like I said, in many of the pilot programs, a lot of the adults wanting to learn about their own self regulation, but they may not be as interested in the Alert program, online course, which really teaches you how to take children through the course and gives you tips and tools that way.
Jayson Davies
So Gotcha. Great. Well, Sherry, Jennie, it has been a pleasure having you both on the show. It's been great, not just talking about OT, but also talking about how we can be leaders and change agents within school based OT. It's been a pleasure. And yeah, I think Alert program for all.com is that right?
Sherry Shellenberger
Well, the main website, Alert program com is really where people want to go, and then the other the other links are for the courses themselves, but they'll get directed from the main website. So alert program.com is where you're going to find all your stuff, free resources, and all about the courses and some helpful hints, no matter what aspect or profession you are coming from,
Jayson Davies
perfect Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate having you here, and we'll definitely
Sherry Shellenberger
have to keep in touch. Okay, thank you, Jayson. Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much, Jayson. Take care, and
Jayson Davies
that, of course, brings us to the end of today's episode with Sherry And Jennie on becoming agents of change through self regulation programs. I want to, of course, extend my sincere gratitude to both Sherry And Jennie for sharing their incredible insights on implementing the Alert program and helping us understand how to communicate the value of sensory motor and self regulation approaches to key decision makers. It was especially special to have someone who is not necessarily an occupational therapy practitioner on the episode, who comes with such a such an enormous background on making changes within organizations. That's, you know, something that we learned a little bit about in OT school is how to evaluate communities, right? But to make change is something we could use a little bit of help with. From. Time to time. So thank you so much for all your information. Jennie, as we learned today, bringing self regulation into our schools is not just about working with individual students, it's about creating those systemic changes that benefit the entire school community. And the strategies that we've talked about today, from gathering meaningful data and communicating with administrators and and even implementing effective pilot programs are truly invaluable for all of us as ot practitioners. As always a quick reminder, if you're ready to take your school based ot practice to the next level, I would love to have you join us in the OTSchoolHouse.com, in the collaborative, you'll find additional resources, professional development opportunities and direct mentorship from myself every single month to help you implement what you learned today and every other day inside the collaborative, head on over to OTSchoolHouse.com slash collab To Learn more and become part of our community of change making school based ot practitioners. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode of the OTSchoolHouse podcast.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OTSchoolHouse.com Until next time, class is dismissed.
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