Dear OT recruiters…

Dearest OT recruiters,

If you're going to call us, please, for the love of God, do your best to find out what area the person lives in. And make sure the location is current. I got a phone call at 6am this morning from a rehab company in Florida. Not appreciated. And it's happened at least four times that I've gotten a phone call before 7am by rehab recruiters.

Even though I love my job, even if I didn't, the whole “6am” phone call thing wouldn't be a great start.

Love,
Karen, MOT, OTR/L

How to make a million dollars in OT…..

Just kidding, thought I'd give the spam-bots a little tease. For some reason I am always wildly uninspired when it comes to OT topic subjects. Anyway, here is my plan for the week……post product reviews for PenAgain, Dycem, and Foot Fidget with a few days between in each one. Also post about conference little by little. My floor is covered with conference stuff I want to discuss. The other day two fourth grade girls decided they wanted to know my age. One guessed that I was born in 1890, and the other guessed 2008. Both were serious. And both need math help, LOL. I just couldn't stop laughing at either guess. 🙂 I have four meetings to go between now and the end of this week.  Have some new ideas to try – got one idea from Tonya's “cage” on therapyfunzone.com. We'll see how it goes. I'll report back shortly lol. PS: I was born in 1982!!

Ugh I kind of have a headache so I am going to stop writing now……tomorrow is Weds. My plan is to work, work out in a double whammy of craziness where I may or may not want to throw up, lol, and then rest/relax/do the Dycem product review/conference post. Let's see if it happens.

I heard from a blog reader today who is using lava/worms/bee paper with success. Any of you out there tried it and if so has it been helpful? I want to make some new types soon. So many ideas, so little time! Boo!

Hope you all have great weeks, lovely people 🙂

Daily Living Skills Worksheets: Product Review

I want to review “Daily Living Skills Worksheets: Reproducible resources for teaching independent living skills”, by Linda Harrison. She sent this to me (free) to review and while it has taken me a while to write this up, I am happy to report that Linda’s book of worksheets is AWESOME. 🙂

The book is intended to be used with teens and adults who are (as the title says) learning independent living skills. Speaking of which I need to teach my cat some of those skills, he is driving me nuts walking on the keyboard as I type this.
She has sections on goal-setting, time management, money management, household management, personal care, memory/safety, leisure/productivity, communication, meetings, problem-solving/reflection, and recording thoughts & feelings. Her desire was to be able to have worksheets she could use with adults that were simple to understand/use, and had a simple layout. I also like that the font size is always size 14 or higher with great contrast.

All the worksheets are simple to use – you photocopy whatever is applicable to your client and it saves you from having to write it all up yourself. For example, a check-list of “Things I will need for my new place” broken down by rooms. I think this would be an especially valuable book for therapists working with people with intellectual disabilities and MOST ESPECIALLY, MENTAL HEALTH! Yep I said it, MENTAL HEALTH! Did you hear that, world? Yes occupational therapists can work in mental health. It’s less common these days but OT can rock in mental health when done right. I know when I did my three month psych ward rotation, there were some depressed people I worked with who could have benefited from worksheets like these….and I would have benefited as well with having it all outlined for me.

Here is her blog if you want to check it out: http://www.lindasdailylivingskills.com/

She posts updates regularly with her musings, reflections, advice, thoughts, etc.

The book can be bought on her website, www.dailylivingskills.com, for approximately $45. I think if you work with populations (ie teens and adults) that are working on basic independent living skills, that it is totally worth it as you can reuse the resources and also not have to reinvent the wheel! 🙂 Seriously, this book can save you SO MUCH FREAKING TIME!

PS: I think if I were a student doing a mental health rotation or a rotation involving transitional/independent living skills, I would buy this book and impress my supervisors/co-workers with my awesomeness…just sayin’ 

Insert random OT blog here

I was super productive today…well kind of. Mostly. And I may or may not have accidentally referenced “ball massage” during an IEP meeting. I was referring to using a textured ball on the child's back, but um, it didn't quite come out that way. Whoopsie doodles…I was at just two schools today. Multiple meetings, lots of paperwork, and some unsuccessful attempts at seeing children for direct services. I did get to see some fun stuff though by being in the learning center at a different time than normal. I got a FOOT FIDGET at Expo to review, and I must say so far it seems to be awesome…I will review it quite shortly once a few more days have passed.

I had a 30 minute “boot camp” circuit (6 exercises, 4 sets, 40 seconds each exercise, 20 second rest), augh….and then I checked the oil in my car as it was suspect, worked on cleaning out my car, showered, cleaned my room, watered my adorable baby epiphytes, watered the cats, etc etc….in other words, SUPER PRODUCTIVE FOR ME. A typical day after work consists of me crawling into bed and playing on Facebook till I pass out. Yeah. I know. So I am quite proud of myself today. It's 9pm now and I'm only semi tired….I'm sitting here in the dark with my screen dimmed and a cat purring against my arms under my 30 pound weighted blanket….anyway the whole point of this was to say that I have LOFTY goals for this weekend, when I am not out with friends……for this blog anyway.

I want to: write up my full reviews for Linda's awesome book, Dycem products, and PenAgain; start the write-up of the Foot Fidget; write about conference – share the presentation and details – write about Expo – etc. So….check back this weekend okay? I kind of maxed out my brain power tonight so this is all for tonight. Sorry. And oh yeah. I talked to my grandfather Nacho for a long time, and I talked to Libby, awesome awesome OT, about inventions and presentations etc. I decided me, Libby, and Tonya Cooley of TherapyFunZone.com need to do a google+ meet up as we are all crazy school OTs with lots of inventions and ideas.

Oh, and Libby used the lava/worm/bees paper today with great success… 🙂 If any of you use it will you let me know what you think? Remember the key is DRAMA…it's a GAME!
www.pinterest.com/funkist/ot-ideas to find it and other ideas…

Lava journal paper

Posting it on my blog so I can post it to Pinterest. The Lava/worm/bee paper in journal form.

AOTA Conference in pictures

Hi guys, so here are some pictures I took from conference. I need to write about it in detail soon too eh? But for now, pics.

 My Carry on…my boquet of flowers + my tiara in preparation of being Miss OTPF. I totally stabbed my arm with the tiara and ended up with a bunch of red marks. Only I could stab myself with a tiara.

Hmm these pictures aren’t in order. This was late Saturday night in Erik’s killer awesome JW Marriot room…He wanted to show us the killer view Libby, one of my AMAZING blog readers and also the co-writer on the feature article of OT Practice on Animal-Assisted Technology, is on the left. 

One of Anita’s students, Frankie, who is utterly hilarious, showing us the Tebow pose on the dance floor. 

Wow Libby. Wow. 

Me, Erik, Anita…all part of the social media panel. 

BroOT! Join the brotherly movement, bro. 

 Me, Libby, Libby’s former classmate Erica, and Frankie, on our way to AOTPAC night.

Erik showing us how to do Star Wars on the Kinect during a tech day presentation earlier in the day. 

Me getting Anita getting Erik. 

Libby guarding our stuff…

Huge tech room. It was pretty busy even though I know it looks empty. 

Sweet Erica took this picture of the panel…Anita, me, Erik, Christopher Alterio of ABC Therapeutics, and Cheryl Morris of OT notes. 

Erik’s ingenius use of the water jug as an ipad holder to video the person talking since we were streaming live. 

Anita presenting in her PJs. We were all in character.

SAN DIEGO NEXT YEAR! 

 Me and Cheryl right before it started.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none | Tags: Anita, AOTA, AOTA conf, AOTA conference, Cheryl, Chris, conference, Erik, Karen, Miss OTPF, OT