FERGUS – Families in Wellington County are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with KidsAbility’s new group screening model, which helps children access pediatric therapy faster, easing the burden of long waitlists.
“I can’t believe what we were doing before,” said Brendan Wylie-Toal, director of innovation and research with KidsAbility Waterloo Guelph Wellington.
“Now that we know how to better engage families while waiting, the experience our families have of coming through the door and getting started basically right away with us has completely transformed the experience.”
Pediatric therapy encompasses physical, occupational, speech and psychological therapies tailored to children.
These therapies seek to address developmental, physical, sensory and cognitive challenges, helping to improve motor skills, daily living activities, communication and emotional well-being.
As with most other forms of therapy, children and parents seeking paediatric therapy have been subjected to long wait times, resulting in frustration and added stress for families.
“When we talked to parents on that waitlist, their experience of waiting was really not very good,” Wylie-Toal told the Advertiser.
“They were frustrated. They didn’t know where they were in the queue. They were anxious about their child’s development.”
KidsAbility’s new group screening model utilizes a group “play date” to assess incoming children and streamline the intake process.
After initial intake, six or seven families are invited in for what Wylie-Toal describes as a “play date.”
During this time, the children engage in play with one another as clinicians make observations before pulling each family aside to discuss treatment plans.
Families are typically invited in no more than two to three weeks after the initial intake.
“For young children a lot of the goals that they [parents] have for their child relate to some degree, or in many cases, to social interaction,” said Wylie-Toal.
“The benefit of the play group setting is that you can see the child’s social interactions.
“And so for the likelihood that there’s going to be a goal that has something to do with social interaction, physicians are able to then see those concerns live rather than hear a secondhand account from the parent.”
Wylie-Toal said this model is “highly transferable” and he hopes to see it adopted at paediatric facilities across the province.
“It’s one of my favourite types of innovation,” said Wylie-Toal. “When something is really impactful, but also really, really simple.
“It’s just programming, it’s coordinating, it’s ‘let’s bring them into a play date and then bring some paperwork for afterwards.’”
He added, “From an efficiency and time-use perspective we see three times the number of children in the same amount of time as the prior one-on-one model.
“You want to make good use of money, you want to improve the quality, and you want to improve the experience for doing all three of those.”
For more information, or to seek pediatric therapy visit KidsAbility.ca.
