Our Flexibility Model:
One topic I haven’t addressed it in a while is our flexibility model. Now, you’re probably wondering, “What’s a flexibility model?” Well, we’re unique in the way we approach our treatment. Traditionally, clinics assign a therapist to your child, and that is who will be seeing your child for the length of the treatment. That’s kind of an archaic model, and it was built on the fact that there were stronger therapists and weaker therapists in a facility, and parents wanted to gravitate towards the stronger therapists and stay on their schedules.
Our Training:
When I interview and hire people here, I make sure that before they’re out on the floors treating that they’re at a very high competency level. Even if I bring in a seasoned therapist from home health or the school district, they are not familiar with the model of care we use here. They still go through extensive training before they’re ever out on the floor, and there’s a transition process.
What that means is that every therapist treating children in our clinics is more than capable. You can see anyone here and your child will be fine with them. We actually encourage children to see different therapists because each clinician has an area of specialty or a different focus. If your child is transitioning between different therapists, they’re going to get the advantage of multiple eyes.
We also have students who are training here, which gives you yet another set of eyes on your child! Sometimes you’re getting two therapists for the price of one!
Why We Do This:
The reason we do things this way is because many children who have sensory issues have a lot of transitional issues. When a client comes here, we will not start by throwing them out to 10 different therapists. We will wait until they’re very comfortable with their therapist, and then the therapist will usually request a transition. We try to pair this with a time that the parent’s schedule is changing. But if that doesn’t happen the therapist will initiate the transition, and your child will get the opportunity to work with someone else. Your child will already know that new therapist because they’ve seen them working with other clients here. You the parent might be unfamiliar with the therapist, but your child will not be. Often the kids are excited about the change because they’ve seen the other therapist working with kids. They say, “Oh! That therapist is really fun! I want to work with them!”
Life Outside of Therapy:
But the biggest reason we have a model of flexibility is the generalization of skills. What we’re supposed to be doing is teaching kids skills that they can carry into the community, the home, and all over the place. If they can’t perform skills for the different clinicians here, then they really haven’t learned the skill. It’s very important that they’re able to transition and perform skills for different therapists.
Transitions:
When it’s time to transition, we’ll usually plan a transition appointment and have some sort of transition plan. It’s very important that you are staying consistent with appointments and being here, because if we set up a transition plan and you’re not here, that doesn’t allow us to have that transition process available, and then you may be upset because that process didn’t happen, and your child may be upset, and it creates a backlog. It’s very important that we communicate and keep that transition process flowing.
Please let us know if you have any questions about our flexibility model or the transition process! We’d love to talk with you!
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