Discharging Students from School-Based Occupational Therapy Services: A Guide for Parents and Educators

As a parent or educator, it can be challenging to navigate the process of discharging a student from school-based occupational therapy services.

Discharging a student from occupational therapy services can be a positive outcome, indicating that the student has made significant progress in achieving their goals.

In this blog post, I will discuss what the discharge process entails and how parents and educators can support their students during this transition.

Key Steps in Discharging a Student:

1. Review of progress: Occupational therapists typically review a student’s progress regularly to determine whether they are meeting their goals.
   
   If a student has met their goals, it may be time to consider discharging them from services.
2. Consult with the IEP team: The Individualized Education Program (IEP) team, which includes parents, teachers, and other professionals, should be consulted before discharging a student from occupational therapy services.
   
   The team can review the student’s progress and determine if the student still requires services.
3. Provide recommendations: Occupational therapists can provide recommendations for continued support and strategies to help the student maintain their progress after discharge.
4. Monitor progress: The student’s progress should continue to be monitored after discharge to ensure that they are maintaining their skills and abilities.
5. Reevaluation: If the student’s needs change, or they require additional support, they may need to be reevaluated to determine if they require occupational therapy services again.

How to Support Your Student During the Discharge Process

1. Communicating with the occupational therapist: It’s important to communicate with the occupational therapist throughout the discharge process to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the student’s needs are being met.
2. Continuing to work on goals: Even after discharge, it’s essential to continue working on the student’s goals to ensure that they maintain their progress.
3. Implementing recommended strategies: Occupational therapists can provide recommendations for strategies to help the student maintain their progress.
   
   It’s essential to implement these strategies to ensure the student’s success.
4. Monitoring progress: It’s crucial to monitor the student’s progress after discharge to ensure that they are maintaining their skills and abilities.

Discharging a student from OT services can be met with excitement, fear, or both.

It can be a time to celebrate a student’s hard work, but it can also be scary for teachers and parents to imagine the student without occupational therapy support.

It may be a relief and well deserved.

All feelings about discharge from a service are OK.

What’s important to remember is how far the student has come and if there truly is a need for continued services.

Occupational therapy in most cases is not meant as a lifelong service.

The best occupational therapists will tell you discharge is part of the plan from the time of the initial assessment.

The goal of occupational therapy is to address skill deficits, build strategies and discharge the student.

It can be hard to let go but it’s important to assess if it’s the right thing to do.

Occupational therapists have the skills and the knowledge to give an expert professional opinion about discharge from services.

It’s important that everyone feels comfortable with the decision to discharge.

Until next time.