Adapting Practice During a Global Pandemic: How Can “We” Do That?
By Sensory Integration Education, 1 August 2020
Amanda Howard, MSc BSc Dip.O.T., from Therapy Foundations for Education tells us how their practice has adapted during the course of the pandemic and how they are still able to meet the needs of the children and families who access their services. Therapy Foundations is a service that provides occupational therapy and educational support to enable children to become more confident and successful with skills they need to help them play better, perform better at home and at school and to communicate and develop social skills.
As an Occupational Therapist who qualified in the 1980’s there have been times professionally where I have been challenged with the thinking “How can we do that?” This includes the concept of measurable outcomes, using standardised assessment, recording activity online, SIPT Certification, clinical observation and reasoning skills, becoming an independent practitioner and sharing occupational therapy skills with other professionals as a conference speaker.
Thankfully ideas considered novel are now embedded in our practice and in the profession giving us credibility and expanding our capacity to deliver services.
Prior to COVID-19, Therapy Foundations for Education was a busy independent paediatric practice working across Ireland north and south and in conjunction with a number of charities and the NHS. Staff include 3 OT’s, a practice manager and an OT support worker. Two OT’s are qualified in SI and the third has a trauma-based PhD. We are all trained in rhythmic movements and reflex retention and in the Son Rise programme. I continued my CPD in America including mentorship at the Star Centre with Lucy Jane Miller. Such experience equips us to work with a wide variety of children including children with ASD, Developmental Coordination and motor based difficulties, regulation and attention issues, emotional and social delays and those with school based problems including focus and attention, auditory processing disorder, literacy and numeracy challenges, difficulty with handwriting and poor executive functioning.
Additionally, we specialise in sensory processing and attachment issues and work with a number of looked after children both in foster placement and children’s homes who present with regulation, relationship and reasoning difficulties.
The onset of COVID-19 changed our everyday practice dramatically. When it was suggested we work through telehealth, providing remote sessions, my initial reaction was… How can we do that? Yet we did, and this is where we are now.
The transition to telehealth has offered a steep learning curve as we cannot provide hands on therapy or rely on our clinical observation skills, as we are used to. We cannot use physical contact, or adapted physical environments to provide the “just the right challenge” necessary to promote vestibular and proprioceptive engagement.
Priority for telehealth sessions has
