Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Diana Dang Emma Wilking Ghelber. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Diana Dang, appreciate you joining us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?
We both relish the fact that we continue to work with children and their families we knew even before becoming Occupational Therapists (OTs). Diana babysat a young girl, then became her OT after starting her career. Ten years later she continues to provide tips and techniques to support her quality of life and functioning in everyday life. Emma worked in a para-professional role with a 3-year-old, then babysat him, then became his OT. Now she continues to help him regulate his emotions and learn life skills as a 16 year old. Developing these strong and lasting relationships is a huge part of why we love what we do.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
We created Foundations Pediatric Therapy in order to provide the gold-standard in therapy services to children with a wide variety of diagnoses and their families here in Houston. Our team consists of Occupational and Speech therapists and we all utilize the Developmental, Individual Differences, Relationship based model (DIR) and Floortime to find out what makes each child tick. We develop trusting relationships and use their interests to help them move up their developmental ladder, no matter the challenges or diagnosis. Each child is an individual and what works for one may not work for another, thus we take a holistic approach and utilize evidence based practices tailored to each child.
Our therapists look carefully at all areas of development, as when foundational skills and processing abilities aren’t functioning efficiently, higher level skills (i.e. attention, regulating behavior, learning, communicating, self-confidence, coordinating movement, etc.) can’t be fixed with a bandaid approach. Our bodies and minds are complex, and it’s all connected! We work very closely with parents to understand their goals for their child, coach and support them in carrying over techniques at home, and always let them know that if their child doesn’t want to come to therapy, we’re not doing our job. If children aren’t motivated to participate in therapeutic activities (looks like play to the rest of us!) then the development and skills they achieve in sessions won’t generalize to the real world. We also pride ourselves on making time to work in conjunction with other members a child’s team, whether it be a teacher, pediatrician, psychologist, or nanny! Not one of us can do it all to help a child reach their full potential. In addition to one-on-one occupational and speech therapy sessions within our clinic, we offer in-home consultations, classroom observations, camps and groups throughout the year, and educational lectures for our greater Houston community.
On top of taking care of our clients, we created a business structure that enables us to take care of our therapists, as our industry has high turn-over, which has negative effects on client outcomes. Our team members have health and 401K benefit options, stipends for continuing education, and are always supported to have work life balance. We are all passionate about the work we do and this ensures we are our best selves for you!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
From the beginning we prioritized creating and maintaining strong relationships with pediatricians in the area, as they’re often the first line of defense in determining when a child is in need of therapy services. Those pediatricians are also the ones who see the child six months or a year down the line and see the progress we’re able to facilitate for children (and their parents)! Seeing that progress as well as parent’s reports on our services, is the best way for them to feel confident in referring to our team. Word of mouth between families has also been a tremendous help to building our reputation. Parents have come to us after years of unsuccessful therapies with their child and finally start to see positive changes, all while their child is happy and having fun! We are so appreciative of them sharing about our therapy services with their communities. School administrators and teachers have also been invaluable to our success. They spend so much time with children and are often the ones who notice when a child needs additional help to function in the classroom and with their peers. So we reach out to teachers and schools, both on behalf of individuals we’re working with but to share information about what we do and how we can help. We’ve given lectures to groups of educators and parents on sensory processing, social-emotional development, picky eating, attention, and physical development.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Maintaining therapists and high morale was one of our priorities when we started Foundations Pediatric Therapy. Both Diana and I had been in a variety of settings as students and as practicing OTs in which we weren’t supported and quickly felt burnt out. Pediatric therapy is a physically and emotionally taxing job! What’s worked with our team is keeping communication open, being flexible, supporting work life balance, showing appreciation regularly, working collaboratively, and having fun as a group. We wouldn’t be where we are without our fantastic team!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.foundationspediatrictherapy.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/foundationspediatrictherapy
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/foundationspediatrictherapy