Back to the Basics: Updates from the Animals and Aquatics Podcast

 In this catch-up episode, your host Gina returns to the Animals and Aquatics podcast after a summer break, sharing updates on her personal and professional life. The episode dives into three main areas: education in occupational therapy, providing therapy services in a non-traditional setting, and coaching professionals. I will be discussing my involvement in occupational therapy education, including teaching pediatric labs and hippotherapy courses. I will also explore running a private practice that integrates hippotherapy, aquatic therapy, and nature-based therapy. Lastly, the episode touches on the coaching programs that are designed to support professionals in incorporating horses into their practice. 

Transcript

Microphone (3- Logitech USB Headset) & Integrated Camera 0:16

Hi, welcome to animals and aquatics I'm Gina your host and we are glad to be back. It's been a while now, since we have had a new podcast episode and that's because I was dedicating my time to working with our new business barn, raising members, we've completed their eight week coaching program. And now we're ready to get started back with the podcast. It's been a busy summer and we've tried to make some really important decisions about how we want to spend our time, both as professionals and as a family. If you've been listening for awhile, you know that my husband is a certified occupational therapy assistant and I'm an occupational therapist. We work together in our business providing occupational therapy that incorporates hippotherapy, aquatic therapy and nature based therapy. And at this point, we also have three young children that we homeschool and we've had to make some really important decisions about how all of that was going to work together. And one of the decisions that we made. Was that he would take on some travel OT work. While I focused on homeschooling with our children, as well as running our business over the summer. Now that we are coming to the end of the summer. We're able to get back on track a little bit with the podcast. And today is a little bit of a catch-up episode. And maybe laying out a little bit of what the next few months look like with the podcast. So once again, welcome to animals and aquatics. Today, the topics that I want to cover are some of the areas that I'm involved in occupational therapy, because I am involved in a number of different areas of occupational therapy. And to give you a bit of context and background where I'm coming from, and maybe a little bit of information. About some of the topics that we want to include in the podcast going forward. I think that might be helpful. So. If you're like me and grab your favorite drink. Mine is Boba tea and let's get started. The first thing that I want to talk about today. As far as my relationship with occupational therapy is education, probably because it's first and foremost, in my mind today, I wrapped up. My summer field work experience with for absolutely fantastic level one fieldwork students. And you'll be hearing from them soon. In the back to school, September series. So I'm going to be spending some time interviewing our Summerfield Burke students. So you can get an idea of where they are in their occupational therapy education. What they got from their field work experience in a nontraditional community-based setting. And maybe some of the supports you could incorporate into your occupational therapy programming to help support field work students. So as we wrapped up with them today, It's kind of completing a little bit of a chapter, but then also remembering that back to school is starting really soon. So for me, The fall means working in the pediatric lab at an occupational therapy assistant program. I am the professor for the pediatric lab. Part of the course. And for me, that's really exciting because we get to do all of the hands-on activities in the lab. So this is everything from practicing reflexes and the developmental sequence getting right down on the mats, in that baby fetal position, all the way up to practicing what it looks like to be a toddler and how our muscles and bones move. When we create those movement patterns in our own body. We can look at things like NDT, motor learning and sensory integration, as in basic frames of reference where the students get to practice those techniques, both with each other, as well as with myself. And then we really start to work on the intervention side of planning. And in this, they get to plan different interventions each day that we're together in the lab and really focus on what it means to integrate the knowledge that they have. Uh, into meaningful occupational therapy interventions. So I really enjoy the fall semester and teaching the pediatric lab because it is so hands-on. And I'll be dedicating one full day of my week to teaching some new occupational therapy assistant students through pediatrics. And then in the spring semester, I see them for psychosocial occupational therapy throughout the lifespan. So I see them then for a full day of lab and a half day of lecture. And so in the spring time, my teaching kicks up a little bit with the academic side of things, but I also teach in a number of other ways and I've actually found that this is one of the things that I really love the most about my role in occupational therapy. I love to teach, I also teach as a faculty member in the American hippotherapy, association, and I'm really excited with some of the new things that are coming out, that I'm going to be a part of in teaching about equine movement. And revamping the sensory connection course. As well as continuing to teach our foundation courses for the part one and part two treatment principles. And I love teaching those courses, especially because I get to work with OT, PT, and speech language professionals, as well as other professionals that will be teaching about. The benefits uses contra-indications and areas that they may need to know. About equine movement. And I think that will be something. That will be really enriching as well. Other opportunities where I teach are things like webinars and conferences. And I'm hoping that eota reopens their call for papers for the 2025 AOT a conference, which will be held in Philadelphia because I was really hoping to submit a paper. And a presentation for that conference. And somehow I missed the call for papers. So I'm crossing my fingers that they reopened the call for papers. For 2025, because it's going to be so close to me in Philadelphia. So in my realm of teaching, it really is very broad from academics or academia, where it's exactly kind of what you would think it is, right? It's a semester based format. It's, um, grades and papers and final exams. It's working with students who are not professionals yet and helping them work on those professional development skills. To teaching at the post-professional level. And working across disciplines with many multidisciplinary teams and teaching them about the value of hippotherapy, for OTPT and speech. And the value of equine movement for a variety of healthcare professionals to providing educational experiences for parents, for other educators or at conferences. In a short kind of couple hour format. And I really enjoy all of those, whether it's in-person. Online in a webinar format. Teaching is something I find that I'm really excited about through the whole process. Now another area that we talk about a lot, as far as our environment of involvement. In occupational therapy is on the therapy side of things, right? Is running a private practice. Having worked in outpatient, having worked in early intervention, having worked in the nonprofit world for many years, having worked in a for-profit model and being able to share that wisdom and experience when you are in a non-traditional setting, whether that's incorporating horses into a therapeutic or therapy model or working in the aquatic side of things. Or developing a nature based practice. Really from the therapy side of things, we are out there providing direct services to families in our community. And it's always a learning experience, tailoring what we're offering to, what the families in our area need. It's also been a learning process of figuring out who we can best serve in our community and making sure that the way that we communicate our message and our value to our community reflects that because. Because there's a lot of clients that can benefit from the way that we provide occupational therapy and our specialty areas. But for me at this point in my career, Um, coming up on 20 years, not too long from now. Um, You know, I'm at a point where I'm really enjoying working with a lot of clients. That have mental health challenges where we're working alone on a lot of psychosocial. Aspects where we are working with them on creating a trust and rapport and developing an individualized plan, really making activities that are very, very meaningful to them, finding a way to ensure that the therapy is very experiential. And that that experiential piece is actually very important in and of itself. Right. We talk a lot about the carry over and it's not what we do in therapy, but how well they're able to translate it. But the experiential piece for us in our business model is very important and then developing a safety risk component. So that way they do get to experience some controlled risks and. This is an area that we're moving more and more into. We're seeing more and more benefit in the clients that we are working with in this way. And then really figuring out how does that fit in. With our partner facilities because we don't own our own farm yet, but hopefully we will in the next five years. So figuring out, you know, how do we work that in with our partner facilities? How do we. Make it work within our own schedule. So that involves childcare and making sure that we're putting our own children first and making sure that they have appropriate childcare. That they're getting enrichment experiences. If one of us is, or if both of us are working or if we're alternating childcare. How we're maximizing that benefit and making sure that their schedule and their rhythm. Is something that is maintained. So that way, when we are providing therapy and we're in that therapy mode and we're wearing that therapy hat that we really are a hundred percent present. And so that's kind of our area where we're providing direct services. We're combining. Our experience as parents and parents of, you know, multiple young children working in a non-traditional setting and combining our skill sets in those particular areas. And then also focusing on our community needs. Right. So when we think about the therapy side of things for us, it really is, um, a way to keep our feet on the ground, our boots in the dirt. And we always feel like we're learning something new. When we're out there with clients, we might be kind of tweaking something or we may have a really good. Learning lesson that we kind of bring back either to that educational component. Or to the last area that I want to talk about. And that's coaching. And I really kept coaching separate from education because it is different. When I am coaching someone or when I am coaching a group. I am not educating them. Right. I am helping them find their own resources and their own community. I'm helping them look at decisions that they may have to make. And so my coaching program right now is the business barn raising program, which is really focused on those professionals who are looking to start incorporating horses. Into their practice, whatever that may be and helping them take the necessary steps to do that. I also have a coaching program that is more on the clinical side and that's the trailblazers quest program. Where we're really looking at a much broader range of topics. And that again is focused more on the clinical side of things. So. For the coaching model. Right. We're looking at a different way of interacting. I am much more there as a support person to help people talk through things, to help bring people together. Who may be able to work together to find out the answers together. And, you know, it was interesting in this last business barn raising, we had two of us from New Jersey and two people from Georgia. And so it was a way again of that, having that networking and support. And as everyone comes through that program, they go into the alumni. Um, business barn, raising alumni piece. And so any of the workshops that I do. The alumni are always included in that. And so that coaching model really helps. People who are working in one of these non-traditional settings, whether they're looking at it from a business standpoint and they need help getting started. Or if they're an established clinic owner and maybe they're looking at bringing in the horses piece of thing and they really want some support in that figuring out how it's all going to work with the clinic that they already have. Those types of experiences with coaching again is very different than the education side of things, where I have a knowledge set that I am sharing with the people who are more in the student role with our coaching groups. So we're really all working together to find out answers to. Hold people accountable with decisions that they are making or need to make. Helping them really figure out what's important to them and what they want to do with. There. Practice with what steps they're going to take next in their business. And with coaching, I find a lot of value in bringing people together and talking through things and then kind of coming back around and then following up again. So those are the three areas that I find I spend the most of my time and value. In occupational therapy, the education piece, which again, for me is front and center right now because the fall semester is coming up quickly. Therapy. Providing direct services to families in our community because that's where we actually get to do the good work. That I teach about later and with therapy, we're serving our community and we have the opportunity to help families access therapy in a way that maybe they wouldn't get to otherwise. If we weren't here to fill that niche area that we do. And then lastly, coaching and working with people who are interested in having a support partner. Are interested in getting some guidance in an area or a question that they're having, that they really want someone to bounce ideas off of talk it through. And follow back up with right. To make sure. That they feel supported and they feel like they've been heard. So with those three areas. As we move forward in the podcast now. We want to take some time to acknowledge those. So we will be having a back to school. Kind of mini series as we roll into September. Our frequency of. Generating and posting podcasts and YouTube videos is probably going to be a bit slower. So it may not be an episode every week, but we do want to still create some new content. As we complete some of the interviews that are on the table. So we have some really fun interviews coming up. For the fall and we have Sarah, the homeschool OT is going to come and join us and talk about what types of programs benefit the homeschool community. If you hop over to her podcast, you'll see that I was a guest on her podcast. Talking about the benefits of occupational therapy, incorporating horses for people in the homeschool community, how they might be able to. Access and reach out to occupational therapist who are working in a niche area. And we'll also be talking with, um, a couple other people on some business topics. That include different areas. I don't want to give away all of the good stuff yet. Um, but we do have some business podcast coming up. And we also have another guest interview coming up with one of the stars in the canine. Um, Therapy world. Incorporating dogs into therapy. So it's going to be exciting to at least pop some of these interviews up. In the animals and aquatics podcast, a world. We again, want to keep bringing value and things that are important to you as a listener. So if you have been listening for a while and you have some topics that you would like to hear, certainly go ahead and send us an email. And let us know what those topics might be. You can also send us a chat message. If you go to our Buzzsprout page, you can find a way to send us a chat message there and let us know if you're new to the podcast. There's a variety of episodes. You can look back on. As we get back up and running with our new episodes coming for the fall. So once again, thank you for being with us today in animals and aquatics. We look forward to bringing you new content throughout the fall. Uh, some good new interviews coming up and some fun content for R O T N O T a students. Coming up as they go back to school. So thanks for listening and drop us a suggestion or a review would be greatly appreciated. And we look forward to talking with you soon.