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In the midst of expanding school closures across the country, school districts are being pressed to transition rapidly from onsite to online learning and service delivery. Continuity is especially important for students who receive special education-related services. The Department of Education confirmed on March 13 that if a school continues to provide educational opportunities to the general student population during a school closure, the school must ensure that students with disabilities also have equal access to the same opportunities, including special education-related services. As the leading provider of live online special education-related services to K-12 schools, PresenceLearning is expanding its offerings to help school-based special education teams deliver services remotely to students at home.
PresenceLearning clinicians are seamlessly working with partner schools to move their remote therapy sessions from school to home to continue to meet student needs. But until now, there wasn’t an equally easy solution for school-based clinical teams to transition to teletherapy. To address this need, we’re making our state-of-the-art online therapy platform available for use by school-based clinical teams for the first time, and we’re training them on how to provide online therapy, so they can continue to maintain progress for their students with special needs through this crisis.
PresenceLearning CEO Kate Eberle Walker describes the goal of the new initiative: “As schools urgently seek solutions to move services online, we want to make sure that students with special education needs are prioritized. Over the past ten years we’ve developed a specific expertise in conducting teletherapy sessions for K-12 students and we have a purpose-built platform that is designed by and for clinicians. We realized that the best way we can help right now is to make our platform available more broadly, and to teach school-based clinicians how to approach teletherapy.”
PresenceLearning’s award-winning online therapy room, and the extensive PresenceLearning library of teletherapy resources will provide school-based clinicians the tools they need to make a smooth transition in serving their students. “Teletherapy for K-12 students with special needs requires much more than a standard video conferencing or online classroom tool can provide,” said Eberle Walker. “Our platform includes extensive features designed with the express purpose of delivering teletherapy to students with special needs.”
Key features of the platform include:
- High fidelity teletherapy sessions with crisp, clear video and audio
- Full therapy command center to help clinicians keep the session on track, maintain remote control of the student’s environment, and refocus the student when necessary
- Dynamic camera and video modes to focus on multiple types of intervention
- Synchronized collaborative workspace
- Evidence-based and user-generated content library with 100K+ items and therapy playlists using PresenceLearning content
- Ability for clinicians to easily and securely upload their own therapy materials
To ensure clinicians are comfortable with providing services in an online environment, we’ll accompany platform access with live training sessions and online office hours with our team of clinical experts, access to our proprietary Telehealth Institute self-guided training modules, parent resources, and daily live technical support during school hours.
