PowerUp for Participation: Ready, Steady, Go!

Course Description:

Increased participation and meaningful engagement in daily life are vital treatment outcomes within occupational therapy and allied health professions. However, from a body-based, sensory integrative approach, prior to participation it is essential to organize the body for engagement. This activities-based course will introduce participants to the clinical reasoning template of “Ready, Steady, Go” which blends theory, assessment, and treatment activities into one approach. “Ready, Steady, Go” serves as a guiding template to structure treatment from the basis of organizing one’s physiology and movement within time and space as a precursor to participation.

The concept of ‘Ready’ will introduce participants to the dynamic affect of the defensive-orienting continuum on our state regulation, as well as, the bidirectional relationship with our respiration and postural tone. Furthermore, ‘Ready’ will outline how early sensorimotor development provides the template for movements related to survival, connection, and engagement. ‘Steady’ builds upon these early foundations and delves into the key contributions of the vestibular, somatosensory, auditory, and visual systems to the development of postural control and body scheme necessary to engage in the world. Lastly ‘Go’ will illuminate how an individual’s ability to coordinate movement with a three-dimensional world, along with the development of agency and self-monitoring, support the highest level of participation, learning, and attention.

Theoretical lectures will be supplemented by video examples and interactive treatment labs where participants will be introduced to assessment and treatment activities that correspond with each of the three components of the model. This course will be appropriate for occupational therapists and other health professionals working in private practice, school, or home environments as discussions will include how to adapt principles for individuals or groups/classrooms.

Course Objectives:

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Identify when an individual is not in a state of readiness to participate in the activity at hand

• Select at least three treatment activities appropriate to support steadiness (postural stability and maintain an optimal range of arousal)

• Recognize how “Ready”, “Steady”, and “Go” activities may shift depending upon the individual in the moment and intended functional participation outcome

• Discuss and adapt “Ready, Steady, Go” principles to suit the needs of a classroom or individual family

PLEASE NOTE: If you would like to pay for this event via direct deposit (no booking fee), please email: mindtomindcourses@gmail.com 

About Sheila Frick

Sheila Frick, OTR/L is a Pediatric Occupational Therapist and founder of Vital Links. Since 1980, Sheila taught internationally clinician, lecturer, and pioneer in Occupational Therapy. Sheila has well over 30 years of clinical experience, having worked in psychiatry, rehabilitation, and home health before specializing in pediatrics. Sheila expertise includes sensory processing dysfunction, sensory integration, and auditory interventions.

Sheila has explored the links between Sensory Integration and developmental movement patterns through many avenues including the teaching of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen at Body Mind Centering, Marcia Monroe and Donna Farhi on developmental yoga training, and Peggy Hackney on Bartenieff Fundamentals.

In addition, Sheila has collaborated with well-recognized leaders in the field of Sensory Integration including Mary Kawar, Patricia Wilbarger, Julia Wilbarger, Patricia Oetter, Eileen Richter, and Mary Fiorentino.

Sheila created and continues to expand Therapeutic Listening®, which has been taught to over 14,000 therapists worldwide. She also lectures on topics such as clinical neurology, respiration, the vestibular/auditory system, and various auditory interventions.

Sheila is the author of Listening with the Whole Body: Clinical Concepts and Treatment Guidelines for Therapeutic Listening, and co-author of Core Concepts in Action; Astronaut Training: A Sound Activated Vestibular-Visual Protocol; and Out of the Mouths of Babes. Recently, Sheila served as a contributing author for her section on Therapeutic Listening in the upcoming 3^rd edition of Sensory Integration: Theory and Practice.

Sheila’s interest in further exploration of the impact of traumatic experiences on sensory processing and overall participation in daily life led her to training and later teaching with the TRE® organization. Her recent work in TRE® has influenced Sheila’s interest in expanding techniques and activities appropriate for children and young adults aimed at reducing stress, tension, and anxiety through movement and auditory based tools (Quickshifts).

Sheila continues to lecture on clinical, practically oriented, treatment focused workshops worldwide along with seeing clients in her private practice in Madison, Wisconsin