Interview with a School Based Physical Therapist

I am continuing the Day in the Life Video series with this interview with a school based Physical Therapist. Today, my guest is Dale. She is a physical therapist in a public school setting.  She has her bachelors in PT and her masters in PT Neurology.  She has extensive experience and has worked in public schools for about 12 years now. You can watch the video interview at the bottom of the post.

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS SCHOOL BASED PHYSICAL THERAPIST

Dale chose school-based PT as a quality of life choice to make it easier to have a better work-life balance with her family and the school hours. Now she loves it!

She provides services from 2.5 years old to post grad students. Her neurology background has been very helpful in terms of providing direct PT services but there was a learning curve for school based practice such as IDEA and least restrictive environment. Mentorship was key and Dale was lucky enough to have a wonderful mentor, did her homework and took continuing education courses.

Her caseload right now is high medical needs students where she works with 8-10 children a day. We discuss medical versus school based model. Most of her caseload is individual sessions. Services are provided weekly and consultations are usually monthly. Due to her student’s equipment needs, she clarifies in the IEP that services may be “front loaded” to help train classroom staff at the start of the school year.

FAVORITES AND NOT SO FAVORITES

Dale’s answer to her favorite part of her job – a quick response “oh my gosh the students!”. She enjoys forming those relationships and seeing her students improve.

She has good communication with parents via email, phone calls, or in person meetings. Her goal is that at IEP meetings “nothing should come as a surprise to a parent.”

“Nothing should come as a suprise to a parent at IEP meetings.”

– Dale, School Based Physical Therapist

Dale would like to see positive changes such as:

• more education to explain school based physical therapy services to pediatricians and parents and how it is different from medically-based services.
• different training methods for 1:1 aides to be able to help all students quickly at the start of the school year.

For IEP goal writing, in her district, service providers have isolated goals. They are working towards a more collaborative model for goal writing. They track goals using data sheets. She also is working in a new building and they have their own therapy space that even includes a sink!

When asked what her best strategy or tip, it was hard for her to choose just one. She did feel it is very important to establish a good rapport with your students because physical therapy sessions can be hard. They need to trust you, especially when working on challenging skills.

WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE INTERVIEW WITH A SCHOOL BASED PHYSICAL THERAPIST FOR THE DAY IN THE LIFE SERIES

Check out all the videos in the Day in the Life Series.