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Launching online children’s therapy to support families

Pace

Contributed by
Pace

Objective

To allow therapy teams to offer advice and deliver support remotely, allowing children and their parents to continue accessing support in a safe way.

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    Introduction

    Pace is a children’s charity that works to transform the lives of children and young people with motor disorders, such as cerebral palsy. Pace provides education, therapy, and family support for children and young people with sensory-motor disorders.

    The teletherapy project was designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, children had limited or no access to their usual therapy and families were left supporting their children at home.

    Pace looked at how it could provide high-quality therapy and family support to children and young people across the country, in a way that did not expose them to increased risk of contracting COVID-19.

    Pace quickly set up a teletherapy service using video calls to provide goal centred therapy straight into families’ homes. The service also provided parent teaching using webinars.

    Steps

    1. Decide how you will make the switch

    Set up a core team that can look into the key issues you are trying to resolve. For example, this team will consider how families come to you, how will they contact you and what service you are providing. This helps you to understand the pathways that users will have to take when accessing your service. You can then create processes to ensure that each of the steps the user takes is as smooth as possible. The findings from the core team can then be relayed to the wider team.

    Appoint someone from your team who has expertise in therapy or delivering your service but also can work with or on the IT systems you are implementing. This is helpful because they can understand the delivery needs and find suitable software to meet these needs.

    2. Consider hardware and systems

    Choose something that is compatible with your charity’s needs or something that your team is used to, especially if the change is quite reactive, like in the case of moving online due to COVID-19.

    Make it futureproof and think about how the software can help your charity outside of the remote sessions you are holding. You can also enable the software to provide additional support for your users. For example, families who have teletherapy are also able to use Microsoft Teams to chat with therapists and access documents that have been uploaded.

    Having a place where shared documentation is available reduces the difficulties of paperwork getting lost.

    Furthermore, video calls can be recorded and families can re-watch these at any time. User accounts also mean that your charity can help should your user forget their password.

    Make sure your processes and your software are secure so that no data is leaked.

    3. Train your team

    Be aware that not all people learn in the same way, therefore you should be flexible when training staff and volunteers.

    You can start with an initial distribution of a video recording for the introduction of how to use Microsoft Teams. For some people though, 1:1 video support may be necessary. If safe, you can also train your staff in person on how to use different functions of Microsoft 365.

    4. Train the families

    Have introductory calls about how to get service users online. Begin with offering free sessions before the therapy appointment to make sure they are happy with the systems and are set up correctly beforehand, to reduce the chances of issues occurring within the teletherapy.

    Make sure that the software is simple for service users, as you want the session to be the main focus, not technical issues. Make sure you have someone as a point of call in your team for users to contact if they do encounter technical issues, as not having back up procedures in place could lead to drop-off.

    5. Hold session

    As a therapist, you should be open to what a therapy session might look like. If you have in mind a typical physiotherapy session, for example, you will have to alter this dramatically to provide the service virtually.

    Record video sessions so that people can watch the teletherapy back if they have missed anything.

    6. Feedback

    Gather feedback throughout the user journey both from users and also from therapists.

    Organise meetings with therapists to look into what is going well and where the process’ strengths lie.

    7. Reflect on what you’ve done

    Once you feel comfortable with your virtual systems, you can start thinking about the future and the next steps.

    Consider how your service can be made into a hybrid model, where digital can be used alongside physical or in-person sessions.

    For some families who may live far from your service HQ, virtual sessions may be the best option. Equally, additional staff assisting in therapy can be present over a video call, even if the session is in person.

    Software and tools

    Formerly known as Office 365, Microsoft’s suite of office and administrative software includes Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint alongside the traditional programmes of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

    The main benefit of Microsoft 365 is that it is already established in many organisations. Staff may already be used to using it and IT systems may already be set up on Microsoft 365.

    Its various applications interrelate, which can be helpful.

    The security and reliability is often considered better than that offered by alternative platforms, especially when it comes to the handling of data.

    Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams actively update systems to add in new features and functions.

    Frequent updates hinder staff and clients who are not tech confident. Some staff and users may have a bias against Microsoft in favour of other platforms due to personal preference.

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    Microsoft 365 is available through a number of different tiered subscriptions, which vary in price.

    Microsoft 365 Basic is available for free but lacks some of the functionality required to put more complex recipes into operation.

    The most basic paid plan, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, starts at £3.80 per user per month. This includes increased file storage, recordings and unlimited meeting times.

    Microsoft 365 subscriptions are available at discounted charity rates through the Charity Digital Exchange programme.

    You can view more info on Microsoft 365 pricing here.

    Challenges

    • The software not working or not being set up properly. People will walk away and this will fulfil their expectations that teletherapy “isn’t for them”.
    • Some things are not always possible online. Think about some of the limitations of online therapy and draw lines where certain problems with the user have to be dealt with face-to-face.
    • Think about safeguarding concerns if you see a child who may be at harm because they have physical signs of abuse. Here, someone needs to physically inspect what might be happening.

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