Frustration with occupational therapy as a profession right this second!

Grrrr

Working on getting my business license with the city, and professional liability insurance, etc, as I become self-employed through my (in process) company Miss Awesomeness! 🙂

For professional liability insurance through HPSO, it asked if I was part of a professional association. I said yes. It gave me a drop-down list only. Guess what, everything in the world but OT was on the list. It was like "American Association of Latte Drinking Paleontologists Who Collect Dinosaur Fairy Wings" level specific otherwise. So I had to say no, I wasn’t part of one, to complete the application. Will call soon to ask them to add it.

For my business license with San Diego, it asked me for my license number, which I provided. Then once again, a drop down list of possible occupations for it. EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD WAS ON IT. But OT. So I couldn’t finish the application, because it was specific enough that I couldn’t find something even remotely similar that was valid. So I threw in physical therapist just so I could save the application to edit later as it wouldn’t even let me save otherwise. I will call the CITY tomorrow to ask them to add OT to the license.

Oh, and when I called my awesome banking/insurance company USAA that I use for everything, to see about their professional liability insurance, they had a policy place they use but they covered speech and physical, not OT. I asked the agent to call their insurance people and find out if that was deliberate or omission or what. He had me wait on the line while he spoke to their underwriter, and alas, it was true. They specifically don’t cover OT, although he couldn’t provide a reason. Speech and PT were on every single one of these options.

Of course I can still make all these things happen, some with using other companies, some with calling and asking them to add OT to the list, but it’s making everything harder when I can’t fully complete any of the tasks. Shocking, too.

Empowering the bystander to prevent cruelty and violence in bullying

Dr. Wexler is amazing and I quoted the below paragraph from the article (linked at bottom), because I had never really thought before about the role of the bystander in bullying.

Since its inception, the Safe School Student Ambassador Program has decreased incidents of violence and referrals by 76%. Dr. Wexler explains “although much focus is given to ‘the bully’ and ‘the victim,’ the focus should be on the 80-90% of ‘bystanders’ with the actual power. The Safe School Student Ambassadors Program “empowers the bystander in order to prevent cruelty and violence,” and the Encinitas Rotary Peace Committee applauds their proactive endeavors.

http://encinitas.patch.com/groups/announcements/p/2014-peace-maker-award-turns-the-tide-of-bullying?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001&evar4=picks-2-post&newsRef=true

Amen to this one

I feel like the author of this one has a school aged child!!! So inappropriate what schools have 4 year olds doing these days.

April 2nd – Apps Free For the Day

I vote that you definitely download Toca Band!!

These apps normally cost money but today are free.

Functional Communication System – https://appsto.re/i66r93j
Functional Planning System – https://appsto.re/i66t6HW
Discovering Emotions with Zeely – Educational Tool for Learning Emotions –https://appsto.re/i66c6dh
EZCOMMA – https://appsto.re/i66c6dd
PICTURE CARD – Can you do it? – https://appsto.re/i66t9dG
Sorthings for Autism – https://appsto.re/i66t6Tq
Sequences for Autism – https://appsto.re/i66c6d2
Toca Band – https://appsto.re/i66c6dp
Sequences for Kids – https://appsto.re/i66t6TT
Teacher’s Assistant Pro: Track Student Behavior – https://appsto.re/i66r93F
ColorSay – Hear the world in color! – https://appsto.re/i66c68R
Gesture camera – https://appsto.re/i66r3vp

This list was copy/pasted from an e-mail by Mark Coppin at Mark.coppin (at) annecenter.org

He is an assistive technology director, and he is awesome. Saw him speak once. He sends out a daily e-mail with free apps of the day. You can email him to ask to be on it.

Make/Print Your Own Grid and/or Graph Paper: Beneficial for OTs

Griddzly and Incompetech’s Graph paper are both great EASY and free sites that let you either customize or choose graph paper to print.

Many of us OTs have clients that need bigger or smaller sizes, or different shapes, or different spacing, etc. Or we have games we want to play or exercises we want to use to teach strategies, and yet don’t have time or energy to reinvent the wheel. Even fieldwork students can use this just to skim for ideas.

http://gridzzly.com/Very easy to make your own grid/graph papers in various shapes or sizes, although semi limited in options. If you don’t want to print then, you can save as PDF. I do like the matrix dot options.

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

Look, incompetech versus incompetent. Love it. Not sure what it says about their quality but…AHAHAHAA

I haven’t played around with this one, but they have a LOT of options to print, including triangular, asymmetric, note taking, square, etc. Best bet if you want something complex.

*I’m finishing up report cards today, and done moving tomorrow! April 1st begins OT month, so I’m hoping to have up a new post and/or resource on my blog, Twitter, FB, etc, every day of that month. 🙂
*That also includes going back to posts like this to add in a pictures and more ideas, etc

How time flies during a move

Wow, it’s been almost two weeks since I’ve last posted. I shake my finger at myself with shame.

I’m wrapping up my former job as a school-based therapist (now I will be an independent contractor), although I’m still doing some hours there. My replacement is fabulous and I’ve learned some great activities from her.

I’m also going to be doing a little bit of private clinic work, and a little bit of home visits.

However, I’m trying to do as little of those pieces as possible for now, for the next few months, because I need to focus on building up the Miss Awesomeness resources and trying to make this a more virtual job (at times). I have several children’s books and one adult book (adult in the sense that it’s for grownups, not in the sense of R-ratings…cough) that I’ve been working on. The children ones are coming along. 🙂 They focus on children under the radar and/or children who have challenges.

This week is report card week and it’s my final week of moving. My hope is that most of April and all of May are really just Miss Awesomeness building. I’m going to try to be somewhat hermit like if possible except for social exercise.

I’m also working on the liability insurances, business licensure, taxes, and other important legalities for the brand. Step by step.

I just wanted to quickly write something up so that you saw I’m not dead, just sleeping. To paraphrase Monty Python.

That reminds me (I guess because of the sleeping part) that I had a dream, and in the dirt along with all the bugs they had these tiny raccoon bugs. Just like a beetle in size, but the cutest little raccoon ever. Kind of translucent and hairless, but those little black eyes. Amazing. Just sayin’.

Adoringly,
Karen 🙂

How to Find the Best OT Job – Infographic

http://www.aota.org/en/Publications-News/AOTANews/2014/Best-OT-Job.aspx

An infographic about how to find the best OT job…I have a tiny quote in it, yay. Seriously, the global network of OTs is one of the best ways to find a mentor…one of my first mentors was in New Zealand, Merrolee Penman! 🙂

There is also an article that goes along with it, for AOTA members only.
http://www.aota.org/en/Publications-News/OTP/Archive/2014/3-10-14.aspx

It’s in the paper magazine, or here digitally. If you don’t have an AOTA membership, I do highly, highly recommend it for the resources available. And lots of other reasons. But that one is my favorite reason.

The only thing I would change, if I could, is to change where I talk about my first job and being scared. It says in there "I had no clue what I was doing." In reality, it FELT that way, but I did know what I was doing. Just that typical "imposter syndrome" where it seems like everyone knows what to do magically, except me. I was safe, I was careful, and I was being supervised carefully enough that my patients were not in harm. I was just really scared. But FEELING like you have no clue is different than actually not HAVING a clue. Just sayin’. That was poorly worded on my part.

Back to reports. 2 to finish tonight. Start looking for more resources around March 19th, I’m excited!

Jumping into new OT role!

I can finally share my "secret"…I had to wait until my fish were in a row… 😉

I’m transitioning out of my position as an elementary school-based occupational therapist. I’m actually only about a week away from being finished. I’m going into independent consulting and also hoping to build up the virtual resources/consultations. A big piece of that is finally getting resources/pictures done like I’ve wanted to for so long and not had the energy and/or time. Including going back into the blog and tidying up things to be more useful.

And now back to a report, so I can’t go into as much detail as I want! Hoping that by March 18th I am getting to do a lot more focusing on online resources, online and local consultations! Big life change!

Volunteer "Cuddler" in the NICU (neonatal ICU)

I was a baby “cuddler” over a year in Memphis at a large hospital, and when I moved to CA I had to spend two years on the cuddler waiting list at a large hospital. Now I’ve been a cuddler here 1.5 years and I love it, especially with my occupational therapy knowledge that helps with developmental play and most of all, calming babies undergoing drug withdrawal.

Obviously due to confidentiality we can’t share pictures or too much information. However, my friend had a baby at “”my” NICU for nearly six weeks, so I got to cuddle their baby when they couldn’t be there. My friends had a small cubicle-room to themselves in the step-down unit, so it was relatively calm. They gave me permission to post this picture of us cuddling! 🙂 Their baby is now doing absolutely fabulous, by the way. It helps when the baby has AMAZING parents. Plus the baby’s parents both work in special education, so they essentially have a black market rehab team available to them at all times… 😉

Many times, people who want to be cuddlers have a vision of gently rocking babies in a quiet room. In reality, you’re often in somewhat chaotic environments (depending on many factors) with a baby screaming in drug withdrawal, or a (stable) preemie covered in tubes/wires. It’s still lovely, it’s still exactly what I want to be doing, it is exactly what the babies need and the parents and nurses appreciate, yet it can be stressful. Every once in a while though, you end up in a rocking chair with a sweet little baby in a cubicle room, and it’s quiet and dim, and the baby only has a basic three-wire monitor cord meaning it’s easy to maneuver, and the baby just wants to be held, and then you can hum and rock and meditate and love, just you and the baby. That’s peace.

Letter Games and More

I was responding to an American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) school list-serv about a child who seems to always add an extra fourth line to the "E" for many possible reasons. I responded with a suggestion and then just kept going, because that’s how I roll, yo!!! I’m slightly editing but just to make it not so personalized as I don’t have a lot of time to mess around with it. I’m hoping to eventually break this up into multiple blogs with pictures, but for now, time wise, just have to get it on the blog. Sometime in middle March I’ll be able to get more of this blog in order!!

1. AN OVERLY ENTHUSIASTIC "E": For an E with too many lines, maybe try having four cool writing utensils that each get to do one line. You keep charge of them so they aren’t lying around. "Each of these pens gets to have a turn at a line so that its fair." Then give one color for spine, then a new one for line 1, another line 2, another line 3. He may actually stop at line 3 when each pen has had a turn at a line with a specific color/utensil for each and he’s not handed a fourth. If you don’t have tons of cool pens around, maybe just switch out a pen, pencil, marker, and crayon (end with his least preferred so he’s less likely to add an extra line), or highlighters or pen colors or whatever. (When I say cool pen, I’m thinking of weird-stick-looking pens, giant pens, baby sized pens, oddly colored pens, etc).

2. TRACING While I prefer imitation, if you do need/want to do some tracing: Letting the child be a teacher for turn-taking can help. For example, you as the teacher, using those large box grids, and you can use the yellow highlighter to write "A" and then he traces with pencil or pen. Then HE writes with highlighter (and maybe gets to choose which color highlighter) and then YOU have to trace his. As long as the letter is carefully done (ie clear effort) even if not correctly formed, just go with it for the time being as the tracer, if you’re trying to build activity tolerance most of all.

3. POWER OF COOL PEN: Some of my kids will write a LOT more when they get to use a cool pen of some sort versus normal pencil. Sometimes getting to use a normal pen versus a pencil is such a novelty that that in itself will get a child to start working. Once I had a kid where writing JUST his name was like pulling teeth. Then I brought in like 10 super weird pens and he wrote his name 10 times without me even prompting, I had just hoped he’d try a single letter with each pen.

4. SIGN-INS/OUTS: For some of my kids, I sometimes have them "sign in" on the grid paper, focusing on each letter being perfect. We make sure I sign in on their sheet too. Or just our initials. (For kids that elope, sometimes I strategically put a little desk in such a way that while they can technically still get out, it will take an extra step or extra dodge so there is a little bit of extra time to intervene. Not to point of fire safety issue of course! That desk is the "sign out" where they have to do their initials or ideally full name, to leave at the end of the session. I also really like some of the older ones having to copy or compose an affirmation of some sort such as "I am powerful." under their sign-in.)

5. "Letter Doctor" – I have a really simplistic barren Sharpie-letter game on a piece of corkboard. It’s just a path of alphabet letters and each person has a push pin as a game piece. You roll dice and whatever letter you land on, your pushpin gives the sick letter a "shot" (with the pushpin) and then you make it better by writing the letter out neatly. Or something like take out all the letter pieces of a puzzle, put on floor, and be like "Oh no they all fell down, which one can we help first? Don’t worry Mr A, we can help you, we’re letter doctors. Here, we’ll make you a little "A" bed." – Draw the letter, place letter on it. Etc. Whatever. Even my children with autism (high-functioning) like being doctors. I treat all letters like little people. Letter piece falls off table? "Hey Mr A! Don’t jump like that! We’re trying to work with you here!" etc. 🙂 Drama, drama, drama.

6. IMAGINATION LETTERS – I love using letters for imagination and silliness – just add a "Mister" or something in front of the letter and you can use them for a lot of your "games" as characters…essentially any motor skill can incorporate these silly letters. Let me know if you’re interested via e-mail or comment or whatever and I will add in more. Again, hope to break down these blog posts into multiples with pictures, soon, versus one long eyebally-painful one.