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School Based Dysphagia Program . Amber Rodgers-Snyder Spring ISD. Educational Relevance Recap. IDEA - all children are entitled to FAPE. Kids must be alert, awake, nourished, without distress so they can : access their education benefit fully from academic instruction, and
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School Based Dysphagia Program Amber Rodgers-Snyder Spring ISD
Educational Relevance Recap • IDEA - all children are entitled to FAPE. • Kids must be alert, awake, nourished, without distress so they can : • access their education • benefit fully from academic instruction, and • socialize with their peers. Medically Fragile children are surviving and showing up in school at an early age and are eating Day 1.
Dysphagia Team in Public Education • Security in designing a Dysphagia Program for your district lies in consistency and documentation. • “The keys to minimizing liability exposure are planning, procedures, training, and the proper execution of those procedures.” • Robert L. Hammonds, School Board Attorney. • Once a procedure is developed to address swallowing difficulties in school, be sure everyone knows their role. • Procedures will protect your district.
Types of Dysphagia Team Models • Campus Based Dysphagia Team • District Level Dysphagia Team • Combination Dysphagia Team • Other Options • All Teams need a Lead Contact Person – preferably the SLP, or a related professional with a working knowledge of swallowing and feeding.
School Based Team • The campus SLP acts as the Dysphagia Team Lead and coordinates assessment, safety protocols, and therapy with various team members. • Pros – The campus SLP is most familiar with the student, is conveniently located on site, is available for consultation, monitoring of the student, and provides regular therapy. • Cons – The Campus SLP often does not have the training and time constraints on the campus SLP when carrying a full caseload.
District Level Team • A separate team of professionals (SLP, Nurse, OT, and/or Dietician) travel to various school sites to assess, treat, train, and establish safety programs. • Pros – Works well in smaller districts with few trained SLPs, District Level Team allows for more experience and knowledge of working with Dysphagia. Easier to train a smaller number of district level SLPs than all campus level SLPs. • Cons – Responsibility relies primarily on a small group of individuals rather than empowering the campuses to address the student’s needs, Scheduling of the district team is challenging, time constraints of working in a larger district.
Combination Team • A District Dysphagia Team Lead SLP collects student data, establishes procedures, collaborates with district level professionals , campus level professionals, and medical professionals to ensure the student is evaluated and treated at the campus level. • The Campus Dysphagia Contact SLP ensures the day to day services for the student are followed through and is a point of contact for various campus team members.
Other Options per St. Tammany Parish Schools • Contract services with a private consultant. • Referral source – campus SLP, who has experience with dysphagia, receives assessment results of a student having dysphagia and develops a procedure for the student with the campus administrator. • District may provide an outreach center or contract with a hospital clinic to provide dysphagia services: assessment, devise feeding plan, and train school personnel.
Where to begin… Collect Data • Determine number of children who may have dysphagia in your district. • Establish which professionals have experience with dysphagia in your district and have an interest in becoming part of his team. • Refer to districts that have successful Dysphagia programs for support.
Establish Roles and Responsibilities • All Dysphagia Team members will need to understand their role and responsibility in regards to the children and the team. • Referral Source, Case Managers, monitoring student feeding and eating progress, responsibility in keeping the child safe at school, monitoring the health of the child, preparation of foods, etc.
Thank you! • Amber Rodgers-Snyder, M.A., CCC/SLP • Speech Language Pathologist • Spring ISD • arodgers@springisd.org