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Telehealth Best Practices: Kristin Martinez of PresenceLearning On How To Best Care For Your Clients When They Are Not Physically In Front Of You

Research the best tele-therapy platform for your needs — While tele-therapy is not a different kind of therapy, effective tele-therapy does rely on the successful transition of your in-person therapy skills to an online modality. That said, finding the best tele-therapy platform for the kind of services you are providing is crucial. Speak to other therapists who have used each platform, request a demo, and be thoughtful about how each tool and feature might make your work not only more effective, but easier!

  1. Seek training/clinical support — Tele-therapy is not a different kind of therapy, but it is a different mode of service delivery, so reach out to those who have already made the transition! Set yourself up for success and learn from other clinicians who have successfully made the transition to tele-therapy services.
  2. Set expectations and establish a communication plan — Whether providing tele-therapy services myself, or supporting other therapists who are providing tele-therapy services, I generally find that the “therapy” part of tele-therapy is not the most challenging piece — the most challenging part of tele-therapy is often working and communicating with remote school-based teams and families. Prior to starting therapy, take a little time to meet with those involved with your therapy services (e.g., IEP teams, parents, paraprofessionals) to introduce them to the therapy platform, give them an opportunity to ask questions, and establish an ongoing communication plan. For instance, some school-based tele-therapists like to hold weekly virtual office hours. Establishing a consistent time and method for communication can help to establish strong collaboration with your teammates.
  3. Have a strong tech support plan — While we would all love to believe that tech issues never happen, the reality when utilizing any technology is that problems will happen occasionally. So, particularly when providing therapy services, it’s essential to have a tech plan in-place! PresenceLearning, for instance, has an experienced tech department that can be reached in real-time via chat during therapy sessions, so both the clinician and the student/school are supported and any interruptions to therapy are minimized. Whatever platform you are using, know what the tech resources are and the best way to leverage them during and between therapy sessions.
  4. Ensure appropriate in-person support is in place — I may sound like a broken record, but this point is that important. This also ties back to reaching out for training and support from those in the field with tele-therapy experience: if you’ve done tele-therapy with children, you know the appropriate in-person support, based on the needs of the child, is an essential piece to effective tele-therapy services.
  5. Research the best tele-therapy platform for your needs — While tele-therapy is not a different kind of therapy, effective tele-therapy does rely on the successful transition of your in-person therapy skills to an online modality. That said, finding the best tele-therapy platform for the kind of services you are providing is crucial. Speak to other therapists who have used each platform, request a demo, and be thoughtful about how each tool and feature might make your work not only more effective, but easier!

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Dave Philistin, CEO of Candor

Dave Philistin Played Professional Football in the NFL for 3 years. Dave is currently the CEO of the cloud solutions provider Candor