In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Jenna Meehan, Autistic & ADHD occupational therapist with BE ME Occupational Therapy PLLC.
Jenna Meehan is an Autistic & ADHD occupational therapist and parent & partner of a neurodivergent family. Jenna is a neurodivergent occupational therapist with a passion for empowering the Disabled community. With a master’s degree in Occupational Therapy from James Madison University, Jenna has dedicated their career to working with Autistic clients. They founded the Neurodiversity Book Club and BE MEOccupational Therapy to promote acceptance and inclusivity. Jenna is also actively engaged in leadership roles with organizations like All Neurotypes and Northwestern University’s Early Intervention Research Group. Their unique blend of professional expertise and insights from the Autistic community offers clients personalized support.
Tune into the episode to hear about:
What Occupational Therapy is
Benefits of recognizing and nurturing individual neurodiversity
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
VOICEOVER (00:00:00): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP. You do not need to do it all alone with your host, Frances Shefter, Principal of Shefter Law. You can get more details and catch prior episodes at www.shefterlaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP. Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter: (00:00:36): Hello everyone and welcome to the show. Today’s special guest is Jenna Meehan with BE ME OT, which I absolutely love that name Jenna. And if you haven’t trademarked it, I wanted to recommend that you do. It’s just catchy. I love it. So Jenna, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself to the audience.
Jenna Meehan: (00:00:57): Yeah, thanks so much. I’m really excited to be here. My name is Jenna Meehan. I have been an occupational therapist for 13 years. My mom is actually an occupational therapist as well. So once I went to work with her and saw what OT is, I knew I wanted to be an occupational therapist. So I’ve been an OT for 13 years. My practice was started about two years ago. About five years ago, my own child was diagnosed as autistic and I had just learned about neurodiversity at that time. After she received a diagnosis, I kind of just deep dove into reading from the autistic community and learning about neurodiversity and really then started exploring my neurodivergence. So then realized I was autistic and ADHD myself and had been masking and then recognizing a lot of ways that I was also was supporting masking, which is what I had learned to do as myself. So when this all kind of recognized all this, I realized this is not how I want to show up as for myself personally and then also professionally. So it kind of was during the COVID pandemic break period when it was more isolation and time to kind of reflect. So, I explored starting my own practice and Be Me OT. Thank you. It felt like how it sounded and the “t-t” sound together. And then also there’s a special meaning in it because I have two kids and their first initials are B and E for B and then our last name is Meehan for me. So the B and me.
So, yeah, I’ve been practicing with Be Me for about two years. And I’m just kind of growing, exploring how I’m authentically supporting children, families and adults and then centering a neurodiversity and disability justice framework and then what that looks like, supporting individual clients and then also working in our systems for education, health and our community spaces.
Frances Shefter: (00:03:26): Wow, that is so awesome. Like so much to unpack in there and so many places to go. I love that you are open about your neurodiversity because that’s like the first thing is that. I know when I was younger, which I’m definitely older than you. I know. You know, it’s special ed and neurodiversity. It was like taboo. And now that we’re all embracing it so much, I think it just makes us so much better as people and understanding people’s differences and then being a mom of a neurodiverse child, it’s just, it’s such a different level as well. And I know you get it as a parent and I get it as a parent when we have neurodiverse children and, and how to interact with them. A lot of my listeners are you know, families with kids in the school system and what are like ways that OT can support the children in the schools?
Jenna Meehan (00:04:21): Yeah. So I think starting generally what occupational therapy is and what I try to kind of start with that for families because I think sometimes it might not be explained and there kind of can be a generalization or just, oh, I have someone that I know that worked with an OT and this is what they did. So, having kind of just like, maybe a narrow scope of what OTs can do. But occupational therapists in general are working to support people’s occupations. And that means not just jobs with what we sometimes connect occupation to mean, but things that occupy a person’s time. So all the things getting dressed, feeding ourselves, going to school, going to work, having professional and personal relationships doing things that bring us joy and pleasure, all the things that we do as human beings. If we’re having difficulties, if there is barriers to be able to participate in those things, occupational therapists can evaluate not only what is happening for that person, but also the environment and then identifying in our systems that have been developed with systemic oppression.
Identifying are these things that we can kind of start pushing against that we can see what kind of modifications or start teaching our education spaces and public spaces, how we can grow and making things more inclusive. So there’s not so many barriers for individual people, but then also helping build skills for individuals to be able to access things in a way that is more meaningful for them. So in schools specifically for autistic different neurodivergent students. There’s a lot of sensory experiences in school. So we have different ways that public schools and private schools and different education spaces have been set up. That there’s fluorescent lights, there’s loud bells that ring, there’s echoes.
There’s all these things that we kind of just are part of our school experience because this is the way they’ve been set up. But if we start kind of exploring these and recognizing this is a big barrier for a lot of people and would it maybe even help most people if we changed? Could we eat outside? Figuring out and exploring what barriers are and how things can change. So, occupational therapists kind of see, see the child, see the student, see the space and kind of look to see where the mismatches are and then help figure out how to think of accommodations that might fit into that space, talk to teachers and administration about this might be something that we could explore to just change because it seems like it’s not serving a lot of our students. And then also with that work with advocating teaching that own student how to advocate for identifying their own needs in spaces. And how can I advocate for things that I need when there is a mismatch?
Frances Shefter: (00:07:40): That is so awesome. Thank you. I’m like, oh my gosh. All the years I’ve been in the profession as a teacher before and everything. This is the first time I’ve heard occupational therapy defined like that as the things that occupy your time. And just like, because I know everybody always, at least I know most of the people I know confuse OT and PT in physical therapy. Which one is fine motor and one is gross motor, but it’s such a different, the way you explained it of occupying the time and it makes sense and it connects. I know at least here it’s been very challenging to get schools to agree that there’s educational impact for children with OT. At least now they’re agreeing with the sensory. And so a lot of times even if they’re not eligible for direct services, I can get them to come in and do the sensory, but usually it’s just focused on the child and like fidgets or, you know, the rocking chairs or the things like that. I haven’t heard of looking at the environment which makes sense because so many things that work for our neurodiverse children could work for everybody. It’s including our neurodiverse children and not singling anybody out. What difference does it make if we change the fluorescent lights, which set off, I think epilepsy as well, like there’s so many other things, they’re awful, they’re awful lights. And so if we change them. How much would we not need individual education plans as much because we’re changing the full environment. What are some things like that you can think of? I don’t know. Sorry, that might be putting you on spot of things, like if the teacher is listening because I do have a lot of teachers that listen, you know, what are some little things that they can do in the classroom that could get implemented in general to help everybody?
Jenna Meehan: (00:9:37): I’m in Durham, North Carolina and we have an amazing program that empowers our young people to create voting material and trainings and education systems to educate and provide supportive information for voting and especially for children and young adults. So I’m working with that team and we’re talking through what might be barriers to those resources and being able to access those resources. We have gone through their slides and what their resources look like and then used a kind of zoomed-out lens of trying to look for or what might be a barrier for people and especially people that hold multi marginalized identities that are oppressed by financial resources that might not be able to purchase extra equipment.
So we are looking through how someone might be able to read the information. So if there’s a lot of slides and a lot of texts in something, could we have a more plain language version or just use more plain language? So for things that are digital, we are trying to have more plain language. Some visuals that might just be helpful for people that process things with more pictures or visual information. And then for people that would like to have more details and more specifics and want to read paragraphs to be able to understand it more, have like a hyperlink to be able to like click on or scroll over that if, if you’re not overwhelmed by that much information and you want to learn more, you have that option. As our systems have been set up in white supremacy and ableism, we have centered this specific type of brain and body to be the way that this is how we’ve created things and changing to a neurodiversity and disability justice-centered way of, of providing spaces. We are thinking what are the barriers that people in those communities may have and how can we make that what we’re centering when we’re developing them first rather than having that be an accommodation that someone may or not be able to access.
So now coming back to the classroom, I think things that we talked about just very quickly fluorescent lights. I know that’s not something that a teacher may be able to unplug there. But figuring out is it possible? And do you have access to do natural lighting? And it, it could you turn for at least part of the day, maybe turn down the turn off the lights and have natural lighting or is there a corner in the classroom that could be darker and then having more natural light there? I think the other big thing is there might be students that have different needs. So some children may need bright lights and fluorescent lights do not bother them. So they might need a lot of lights for them to be able to see or to be able to process or to get more visual information to keep them regulated. So I think the flexibility of having maybe sunglasses available or it’s ok to wear your hood if or a hat, if that’s helping you block out visual simulation, that’s too overwhelming. So I think a big piece is thinking through what are options that are just available that people can just choose to take off and put on as they need it without being a formal accommodation that someone needs to have written down. Noise canceling headphones or ear pods if it gets too loud or auditory over stimulating. We talked a little bit about fidgets being able to access. I always keep gum because gum to me is so helpful, especially when I’m working and talking and if I’m in a space where it helps me to sit and to be able to write or something, I need to either fidget with my hands or my mouth. I think those are just some having flexible seating options. If someone maybe just needs to stand or move or rock or having rocking chairs or wiggle cushions or maybe sitting in a corner so that they can feel kind of secure in getting both sides of the wall, kind of pushed against them. I think having that flexibility to be able to have autonomy of your own body and that you’re sharing spaces that this is a space that’s open and here are different ways that you can move. And if it’s not working, if what you’re doing is then not working for someone else, then we can kind of figure out a different way that maybe the teacher or the OT could help figure out how to make those accommodations. But I think the openness and having the general acceptance of everyone probably is going to need different things when we’re working in this classroom. And that’s ok.
Frances Shefter: (00:15:24): So much came up. And the first thing that triggered is both of my daughters had the same kindergarten teacher and she was just absolutely amazing, is absolutely amazing. One of the things she did was she had tennis balls on the bottom of all the chairs and desks because that’s scraping noise. I, and I don’t know if she did this for the children, I mean, it could be for her also, but just in general, it just reduced the noise so much. And then when you said the corners, my daughter sometimes needs those space corners and the kindergarten teacher discovered that early. And so she would let my daughter work underneath her desk because that’s what she needed. She needed a space where nobody could see her and that she felt tight and secured. So it’s interesting that you say that. I do know that other people are the same way but just needing that self secure place and setting it up. Its having a flexible classroom is what I’m hearing. Mostly, you know, like seeing what your kids need. I’m thinking outside of the box of like, you know, first week of school having meetings with the class and like, what do you think are some things that we could put in place to help all of us? You know? So it’s just kind of a team thing. It isn’t like, oh, Johnny has an IEP so we need to have a quiet corner for him and Susie needs this. So we need to sit her there. So it’s more of a community and inclusive.
Jenna Meehan (00:16:48): Yeah. And I think for some children like that might be a whole novel idea like, oh I thought at school an adult’s gonna tell me what to say. I don’t know. That’s a lot of freedom and it’s amazing, but it’s also like so different from I think what our school systems have become in kind of this power hierarchy. So I think it could also be such an amazing opportunity to grow in safety and exploration and autonomy. I know for me laying on the the floor feels really good because you’re getting so much more appropriate reception and you can move around and you’re not like confined or you might not like fall off. So, but I don’t know, as like a young child because I was masking so much. I was just trying to follow what someone wanted me to do. And so I think if it was the whole classroom is exploring this and kind of like if you want to try this and then you can realize, oh, yeah, that did kind of feel good. I was able to read my book for longer when I could move around on the floor. Not feeling like when I’m sitting in a chair, that’s the only thing sitting in the chair and I can’t have my feet just on the ground because it just feels like my legs are like dangling in something. So I either have to put them up or sit on them and then when you’re like that you’re just wiggling around and the person behind you is getting annoyed. So I think there’s s much that I think having your educator and your teacher kind of making that the classroom norms and space that you can explore what feels right for your body and it’s not something that would be shamed or yeah, being stigmatized because we all have different bodies and brains and we’re all gonna need different things. So, yeah, it’s kind of just starting that process of breaking down what we’ve created in our society that isn’t working.
Frances Shefter: (00:18:53): I know you keep coming back to the masking and that’s been such a big thing. Now I’ve had a lot of IEP meetings with getting children qualified for special education because the school is like, well, we don’t see any of that in school, and because they’re masking and holding themselves together for six hours or eight hours, whatever the school day is and then when they come home, they fall apart and that’s what we need to prevent. We want people to be themselves, we want children to be themselves because if not, what are we creating with society? And you know, we’re creating little robots and that just smashes everything like creativity and all the other stuff. And so, what if, I’m sorry were you going to say something?
Jenna Meehan (00:19:38): I was just gonna go a little bit more into the, I think so much of where we are disconnected is with that masking. But also right now for OT we use the sensory processing measure or the sensory profile, which are questionnaires. And typically we might ask a parent or caregiver to complete one to get the home profile and then a teacher, maybe multiple teachers to get , a profile of their view of the child’s experience. And we don’t have really one until a child is an adolescent or adult of their own. So I think that’s it. It, when he said, like we don’t see this at school, I think those, those graphs or those pictures of in the typical range at school and definite just difficulty at home are so parents and then it becomes, well, this isn’t school, this is private therapy and that’s not like we don’t, we do when we are, when we are a whole person. And these are the things that are, our body isn’t able to have the skills to feel comfortable and, and process in a way that feels comfortable for ourselves. This is where we’re needing the support. We’re just seeing the effects in a space that is more safe for them to be able to express their discomfort. So, yeah, I think our school system and our education system, I hope can really grow in that space because I think that is getting blocked most frequently and that conversation and that kind of stop of this isn’t school, this is after school and it’s a separate person isn’t helping anything.
Frances Shefter: (00:21:18): Yeah. And I’ve gotten that a lot and I’ve gotten schools being very well, that’s a home issue. You need to try this, that and the other and very accusatory towards my clients. I mean, there was one meeting that I stood up, I’m like, we will not be putting this all of my clients and the school realized what they were saying. They’re like, no, no, that’s not what we meant. I’m like, well, that’s what you just said. This is where we are and this is where we need to go. And I think it was eye opening for the school because they didn’t think about it when you tell families that it’s a home problem, not a school problem. What do you think parents are hearing? I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing as a parent. I’m failing my child when it’s so not that because it’s, it’s a whole child. It’s, let’s see, you know, all of it together. And so what if like when you, like, if you see a child that’s, that’s, you know, noticeable, like having more challenges or it’s trackable and like, you know, the challenges are more so at home or more so at school or just you’re seeing the difference? What is that like, what are some things you can do? Like, what, what do you think parents should be looking for?
Jenna Meehan: (00:22:25): Yeah. So I actually had this with my own child. So I think I can kind of start with that example of, so both of my children are autistic. The one masks a lot more reminds me very much of myself. And they couldn’t make the whole day at school. They, they would come home every day. As soon we walk across the street our school is very close to us. So as soon, like, as soon as we would cross the street, it would just all come out and their whole like, and it just everything. And so, we, I, I said we, I think we can just try, to leave early at like 11:30 see if that helps. And we just started doing that., the school didn’t want to do officially that because of it’s a public school and that, but I was just like, well, we can’t, this isn’t working. So we’re just gonna leave every day at this time and that truly helped. And I think being, I think just for me experiencing it as a therapist and also as a parent and then also having lived experience, for my own childhood, my meltdowns would be internal meltdowns that it would just everything in my body would shut down and I couldn’t do anything. So knowing that I’m seeing this everywhere and II, I know it’s not something that they’re overwhelmed or stressed out at home because it’s not even we’ve got in the door yet. This is just they, they feel finally comfortable and safe that they have to let go of everything that they’ve held in for so long. So, that was something that we did. I think if, if that’s not an option for a family and I know that comes with a lot of privilege if that’s a, a family is not able to pick their child up or they need the child to be there for the full day because they’re working or whatever other reason. I think seeing what other spaces you can kind of be curious and explore of what are the demands being put on this child and what is the mismatch that it’s too much for them? And in what ways can we start lowering that? So it’s, they’re not having to use more than they have every day where it just becomes, they’re needing to melt down just to, to let go of everything that they’re building up. So, I think for, for therapy too, for, for families that I’ve been supporting that this was also a similar thing and they didn’t have the ability to do a half day at school or, or change as much with school. Thinking about therapy and seeing is having private therapy after school just another thing that is, that is kind of adding demand. Could, we switch to a consultation to see, what other ways could we support the being at home and seeing if there’s anything else that we can communicate with the child’s teacher, that could brainstorm what other demands riding the school bus that we could see that are, that we could take off the child’s plate because we know it’s too much. And so starting to kind of curiously, explore what can we remove because we’re seeing that it’s too much for this child.
Frances Shefter (00:25:51): Getting back to the individualization of the IEP. Two different clients came to mind. One of them, we gave her two resource periods for middle school, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. That gave her 45 minutes to just chill if that’s what she needed or to catch up on homework if that’s what she was okay with. It was just giving her the time. Another one, we’re still working on it, but hopefully, we’ll get it. Just prioritizing and scheduling, we know that if you put math, science, social studies, and he has to keep it together for three periods in a row, he’s not gonna be available for learning by social studies time. Whereas if you put PE and then math and then maybe art or do it sporadically, you know, do it sporadically. And as I’m saying it and thinking about it, I’m like, that should be for all kids though. And I know, trust me, I know for the teachers that are listening. I used to do scheduling, and I was at an alternative middle and high school. So it was even harder because we had fewer staff members. But it’s, you know, it’s something to take a step back and look at like, how are we scheduling our children? What are we expecting of our children? And, you know, one of the things I always look back at is like as adults, what do we do? You know, at three o’clock in the afternoon, we all need a break, you know, cup of coffee, go for a walk, whatever it is, it’s, you know, the day is long. So what can we put in place for our children that give them that natural break? And I know so many school districts are getting rid of recess, but that’s a whole another thing of like, I think middle school and high school should have recess too, like have the downtime. It’s so important.
Jenna Meehan (00:27:41): Yeah, I mean, I’m making this the schedule too. I think also thinking through like, oh, my child really likes science or they really like this. So that’s okay there. But I think also, like, it might be thinking through of like science is right next to the gym or, and there’s a lot of echoes when I go through that. So I feel like also, like thinking through all the different pieces where we might not recognize like, oh, doing, going in the gym first thing in the morning when I have a lot and I haven’t heard all the echoing yet. I might have enough for this, but having it at the end of the day. So I think that’s where it can be really helpful to have a deeper understanding of the individual’s child’s needs, sensory, socially, physically, the whole child, of what things that we might not have really considered are a barrier because in the morning, there might, it might not affect them as much as it did in the afternoon. So, yeah, exactly. I think what you said of really exploring and being curious and then what can we do as the adults and the education team to provide, a plan that has the least amount of barriers and the most support for each child.
Frances Shefter (00:28:55): Right. And the teacher at me, I’m like, I’m hearing all the teachers going, are you kidding me? Scheduling is hard enough. How are we going to individualize it? But it’s not individualizing. It’s like you said, it’s just thinking about it like when, how we’re scheduling things. And it’s, I mean, it starts with the principle of like when they hire and, and do breaks and stuff, but it’s like to think through the kids, not necessarily having to look at each individual kid, but in general, what do the kids need? You know, as educators, we all know developmental milestones, we know where kids are, let’s really look at those and make, you know, make sure we’re optimizing the use of our time in the school so that our children are fully learning what they’re capable of learning and being available. And so I know like there’s lots of neurodiversity affirming support and stuff. Like, what are some things like? What does that look like in school?
Jenna Meehan (00:30:04): Yeah, it makes, it’s, I’m first of all, I’m so excited to like talk about this. So I’m really excited, but I also feel super emotionally connected to the projects that I’m working on in our public school. So I’m gonna kind of talk about that and then I can connect it more generally. So in Durham, North Carolina, in Durham Public Schools, we have the Durham Public Schools Foundation. It’s a wonderful organization that is doing a lot of great work for equity and just supporting our public school system. So I’m actually co-leading the Alliance for Equitable Disability Inclusion and Education and that is composed of our EC Director of Durham Public Schools. And then we have disability rights NC AC which are advocacy groups and then a lot of other disability advocates in our local community. But it’s a really unique space because I think typically when disability rights are an advocacy or lawyers also with our EC director, there’s, it’s already in due process or we don’t have that many set spaces that like let’s talk because we all are trying to get to the same thing. So we really have found so much value in this space and our group is centering disability justice and neurodiversity. So we are actually in the process of applying for grants to fund a disability justice position within the equity department in Durham public schools. And yeah, it’s really exciting. And so what that could look like is basically connecting our equity department and our EC department with I don’t think is unique to Durham, but I think in a lot of spaces don’t have a lot of connection or communication. It’s that when there’s a child with a disability or when there’s an EC or special disability-related issue, it goes to EC and then if they can’t figure it out, it goes unfortunately, figuring it out through mediation or due process.
There hasn’t been a lot of connection of the equity piece in it and specifically students who are multi-marginalized. So the only data that we had that we could find when we were writing this was the suspension rate for disabled and black and brown students. And that is a very shocking statistic in itself. But there’s so many other pieces of how are we not centering neurodiversity and disability justice. So having this position and kind of doing the work to figure out how this could look has been really exciting. So, some of the projects that we’re thinking about doing are we’ve had presentations with our board of Ed and our superintendent to talk about kind of moving from disability rights, which is the system that we’ve been in to shifting to disability justice and how that is centering neurodiversity and also the intersection of disability as an intersection, as well as all other identities that have been oppressed and that are marginalized. So we are currently working on a grant that is going to have disability justice ambassadors that are gonna be supported by Stipends through the DPS Foundation. And then these ambassadors are going to be supported and doing trainings about disability justice and neurodiversity affirming work and then picking a project that they want to bring to their schools or the system or space that they’re in and kind of sharing it. So we have book clubs that we’re thinking about trainings. We have a kind of a, a running list that we’ve already kind of started to create. But I think our biggest piece that is our first step is really understanding how to connect EC and equity because there is such an obvious strong connection that has been siloed for so long. So bringing the awareness and how to bridge those two things so that our students with disabilities are also part of our intentional equity work that our schools are working really hard to do.
Frances Shefter (00:34:25): And when you say EC, what is that abbreviation for?
Jenna Meehan (00:34:30): We use the term EC or exceptional children’s for it. Sorry. Yes, I forgot that North Carolina.
Frances Shefter (00:34:38): Thank you. No. And it’s so funny how it’s all changed because like it used to be ESE, exceptional student education, you know, like it’s changed so much and it’s so different. So thank you for clarifying that exceptional children. But it’s, you know, like it’s interesting, like our society like starting to include and include and include which I love and it is great. It is, you know, like we just finally like, you know, working it and pulling in the disability. It just, I don’t know, I like, I’m just thinking like, I wish we would just like, we’re all people but there needs to be, I mean, there needs to be this equity in bringing it in because like, you know what it like, yes, it’s supposed to be an individual education plan but we shouldn’t be single, single sickness. All right, I can’t get the word out. So these people out like, you know what I mean? These children shouldn’t be like, put out on their own. you know, like they should be included and it’s all inclusivity and inclusivity is so much more than just putting them in a classroom. It’s like, let’s get the ed classroom in a way that they, all of the students feel part of the classroom, you know, get the right books in place, get the right everything. And then with training, like, of course I’m, you know, the teacher and me and I know all the teachers going great, more training. What do we need more training for? But if the training is right. And like the book club, you know, I like the book club, you know, that it’s just more of an interactive training, it can help make everybody’s life so much easier because then you don’t have to think of this stuff.
Jenna Meehan (00:36:05): Right? And I think that’s where it kind of as we’re doing. I think the social justice work, it’s, it’s really such shifting work of, we need to unlearn so much of the things that we’ve learned because we’ve learned in systems that have upheld these ableist and racist and all these things. So, so much is yes, I could do this thing and that would maybe not do this. But unless I’m really understanding and kind of shifting more and understanding the ways that we are all, each of us upholding these systems, it’s not going to really shift in the way that’s going to include everyone because the people that are in the most oppressed multi-oppressive spaces. So that’s why I think disability justice, there’s the 10 principles that really help clearly define what it means and what the framework is. But one is that we are moving together and there’s we are all individuals with our own identities. But what we’re shifting in the systems is acceptance and value and wellness for everyone. So I think that kind of shift from where current school systems are is pretty big. So I think the work is work that kind of is incremental, that needs to kind of move at a pace that we can start opening rather than just making maybe smaller changes that are still going to not be equitable for most students.
Frances Shefter (00:37:52): Right. And so what, but what does that look like in school? Like, so what can schools do? you know, and I think we touched on a lot of this like, you know, with getting rid of fluorescent lights, do you hear that everyone? Get rid of fluorescent lights? I don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon, but maybe in the new buildings that they’re building, they’ll get rid of them because they’re not good on so many other levels as well. I guess more of what, like what are some IEP goals? Because I know that’s a big thing that schools sometimes ask parents like I, I know I’ve had this before. It’s like the school will be like, well, what goals are you looking for? When we’re talking about eligibility and when I was able to or my clients were able to articulate what goals we’re looking for. It’s amazing how the school is like. Oh, ok. And so are there like goals and accommodations in general that you could recommend?
Jenna Meehan (00:38:44): So I think kind of going to that what we were talking about, the principle of first what neurodiversity means is that all brains are different, neuro brain diversity different. So all brains are different. So if we are if we are having a neurodiversity-affirming framework, that is just a foundational piece that we are believing that all brains are different. And there isn’t one way that’s a good brain or not a good brain that we know everyone needs different things. So kind of our focus of how we’ve learned to write goals and how we’ve learned is that in a medical model, there is this, there is a right kind of brain and if you have a different type of brain, then you need to have these things. So I think it’s, it’s tricky because I think our education system is still using those definitions. So I think it is challenging to be able to use neurodiversity-affirming language in a way that’s also qualifying for the need in a system that uses different language. But I think overall, I think neurodiversity affirming goals can look like what are ways that can be supporting a student for their individual strengths and also in a way that they’re able to be themselves and not so things that are not neurodiversity affirming, eye contact, forcing the child to make eye contact, we’re not. So I think maybe that might be a better way to start off. So things that are setting that this is how we’re expecting children to be seated on the rug, crisscross applesauce. They should be looking with their eyes at the teacher. They can’t move their hands. They have quiet hands. I think all of those things we have learned are abelist because they are assing that there is a right way that you should be. So, those would not be neurodiversity-affirming. So instead, I think we can think of this child, their brain needs to have something that they’re moving and to be able to attend and listen. But the child also a child in the classroom gets really distracted when there’s a lot of movement. So we could figure out, ok, the child can, can one child be in a different part of the classroom or can we figure out can this child be hat, wearing a hat, figuring out what kind of accommodations, depending on how shared space looks like. But I think when we use that general framework of we’re not trying to have a, they have a child or a student act like what we, what we have learned is the typical student and what would be considered, the way we’ve learned, sitting still putting, facing the teacher, all those things do not work for everyone. And I think that’s like a principle of neurodiversity affirming. So with that, as we’re, as we’re thinking about how to support a child. If our goals start following that, I think we need to stop and then step back of this is not where we’re trying to go. How can we support the child in a way that they can feel themselves in the way that get what they need in a way that is not, is a way that everyone can share the space in the classroom.
Frances Shefter (00:42:08): Right. Get out of our old school thinking, you know, because if you look at it as, as careers and jobs as adults, how many professions are truly sitting at a desk for eight hours a day, you know, doing one thing, not a lot, you know. And so why are we expecting that of our children? That we all learned differently 100%. I mean, I’m thinking back to high school way back and there was a student on my softball team and I remember we were reading about something. I don’t even remember what it was, but we’re in the locker room and she was just rocking, sitting there rocking and everybody’s looking at her like she’s whack-a-doodle. And she’s like, I can’t concentrate unless I’m moving and that’s what worked for her. And I love that. She was open to it and was able to express that. And I’m thinking like outside of the box again, of IEP goals of helping me a child identify what they need to be successful. And I think you said it before to advocate for themselves. But a lot of times when we’re, especially when we’re talking about our younger children, they might not know what they need, you know, whereas if we help them identify what they need, then they are able to ask for it and what a different world it would be for them.
Jeena Meehan (00:43:20): Yeah, that, exactly what you just said. Sorry. There was a lot of things I think, I think kind of going back to thinking about myself as a child and just how I like was constantly scanning things and just tried to do what I thought was making everyone else happy. So there was never a reflection of, do I like this or does this feel good to me or is this uncomfortable? It was just looking back at childhood. I’ve realized like I was just uncomfortable all the time and I didn’t know what was making me uncomfortable. It was just because I like, didn’t even have that self-awareness to or, or think it was a valid thing to what do I want because I thought I was just supposed to make all the other people comfortable and happy around me.
I don’t know if that’s the experience for every child, but I think that’s, is I don’t think I would have ever been identified as a child that needed more support or needed because I, you know, was very people-pleasing and did all the things. But yeah, how that really affected me was something that I needed to deal with after and I think being able to explore the things and giving kids that just made me think of like even just a child saying no, I don’t wanna do this can be very triggering for adults or like when a teacher has all these children in a classroom and we just need to get outside get the day going. We’re, we’re putting so much pressure and demands on teachers and educators that it’s not, it’s not fair at all and not right and not sustainable.
But then when that gets pressure, then we’re pushing it down on the child that just has to whatever they, are saying, no, I’m not comfortable or no, I can’t do this or no, I’m not ready. They’re the last ones that kind of have to just get pushed through. So I think also figuring out how, how are we responding when a child is sharing their needs or saying this is what they are able to do right now. And how, how are we able to kind of grow in that? Because I think if we don’t have the capability to support autonomy for children, we’re teaching them that you don’t have autonomy and then find what that looks like later on when a child is, doesn’t know how to express themselves or advocate. There can be a lot of situations where that it can be really unsafe or a lot of things.
Frances Shefter: (00:45:55): Yeah. No. And that, that makes so much sense. It’s just like why is the child saying? No. You know, because that’s, you know, but the why is so important and so many things with education because as children, like as you said, you masked all the time to be a people pleaser as children, I think naturally most children are people pleasers. But so if they, if they’re saying no, there’s a reason there’s something behind there and being able to find out. And as you said, I know teachers are overwhelmed, they’ve got too much and so much. But like maybe we need to get more behavior support into the classrooms and, and more, you know, extra aids into the classroom to give the teachers the support where they need, but also to give the children, the support and to, to minimize the demands. All I know is that as good as our education system is in the States, it’s still got a long way to go and we do need some changes. But I mean, like, that’s part of the reason for the show also is like letting parents know, like, hey, these are some ideas. Here’s what’s out there, here’s what you can do. Here’s some recommendations. Like, no, you don’t have to hire an attorney. No, you don’t have to hire an advocate all the time, or private, you know, people. But like, here’s some different things that you can do, but you can also consult outside people to help you plan for inside. You know, because it’s just, it’s hard, you know, like we all know it takes a village to raise a family, we all know that. but it’s, you know, there’s that meme out there. I don’t know if you’ve seen it or not, but like it takes a village, you know, everybody says it takes a village to raise a family. What does that mean? Do they just show up? Is there a number we call, you know, like it’s been 21 years and I haven’t seen my village. Well, it’s, you know, no, it’s, we need to create our village and see what’s out there, see who’s out there. It has been so awesome and so wonderful. I was, like, got my brain going all over the place with things we need to do what it like. So, if people need to want to get in touch with you, like, wanna learn more about what you’re doing in North Carolina or privately, what, you know, what’s the best way for people to reach out to you?
Jenna Meehan: (00:48:00): Yeah. So my website is www.bemeot.com And then if you want to email me, it’s Jenna@bemeot.com. And then also another organization that I co-lead is called All Neuro Types. And we’re also in North Carolina and we have trainings neurodiversity affirming trainings for all different community members. We have a YouTube channel. We have created a disability justice centered summer camp that we’re hoping to grow. And then we also offer adult neurodivergent affirming discussion groups that are available on Zoom that anyone is welcome to email us and we can add you to the list. So that is all www.allneurotypes.com. And the email for that one is hello@allneurotypes.com.
Frances Shefter: (00:49:06): That is awesome and we’re gonna have all the links in the show notes below. This has been so wonderful and so educational Jenna. Thank you so much for being on the show and letting us all know what else is out there for people.
Jenna Meehan: (00:49:17): Yeah. Thank you so much. It was really great.
VOICEOVER: (00:49:22): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP® with your host, Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through ShefterLaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube, LinkedIn Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more.
Stress-Free IEP® with Frances Shefter and Jenna Meehan
In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Jenna Meehan, Autistic & ADHD occupational therapist with BE ME Occupational Therapy PLLC.
Jenna Meehan is an Autistic & ADHD occupational therapist and parent & partner of a neurodivergent family. Jenna is a neurodivergent occupational therapist with a passion for empowering the Disabled community. With a master’s degree in Occupational Therapy from James Madison University, Jenna has dedicated their career to working with Autistic clients. They founded the Neurodiversity Book Club and BE MEOccupational Therapy to promote acceptance and inclusivity. Jenna is also actively engaged in leadership roles with organizations like All Neurotypes and Northwestern University’s Early Intervention Research Group. Their unique blend of professional expertise and insights from the Autistic community offers clients personalized support.
Tune into the episode to hear about:
Learn more about Jenna Meehan:
Visit Jenna’s business websites:
Stress-Free IEP®:
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
Watch more episodes of Stress-Free IEP®:
https://shefterlaw.com/blog
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCff0foIeCETrWbtsQSDwckQ
Connect and learn more from your host, Frances Shefter:
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
VOICEOVER (00:00:00): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP. You do not need to do it all alone with your host, Frances Shefter, Principal of Shefter Law. You can get more details and catch prior episodes at www.shefterlaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP. Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter: (00:00:36): Hello everyone and welcome to the show. Today’s special guest is Jenna Meehan with BE ME OT, which I absolutely love that name Jenna. And if you haven’t trademarked it, I wanted to recommend that you do. It’s just catchy. I love it. So Jenna, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself to the audience.
Jenna Meehan: (00:00:57): Yeah, thanks so much. I’m really excited to be here. My name is Jenna Meehan. I have been an occupational therapist for 13 years. My mom is actually an occupational therapist as well. So once I went to work with her and saw what OT is, I knew I wanted to be an occupational therapist. So I’ve been an OT for 13 years. My practice was started about two years ago. About five years ago, my own child was diagnosed as autistic and I had just learned about neurodiversity at that time. After she received a diagnosis, I kind of just deep dove into reading from the autistic community and learning about neurodiversity and really then started exploring my neurodivergence. So then realized I was autistic and ADHD myself and had been masking and then recognizing a lot of ways that I was also was supporting masking, which is what I had learned to do as myself. So when this all kind of recognized all this, I realized this is not how I want to show up as for myself personally and then also professionally. So it kind of was during the COVID pandemic break period when it was more isolation and time to kind of reflect. So, I explored starting my own practice and Be Me OT. Thank you. It felt like how it sounded and the “t-t” sound together. And then also there’s a special meaning in it because I have two kids and their first initials are B and E for B and then our last name is Meehan for me. So the B and me.
So, yeah, I’ve been practicing with Be Me for about two years. And I’m just kind of growing, exploring how I’m authentically supporting children, families and adults and then centering a neurodiversity and disability justice framework and then what that looks like, supporting individual clients and then also working in our systems for education, health and our community spaces.
Frances Shefter: (00:03:26): Wow, that is so awesome. Like so much to unpack in there and so many places to go. I love that you are open about your neurodiversity because that’s like the first thing is that. I know when I was younger, which I’m definitely older than you. I know. You know, it’s special ed and neurodiversity. It was like taboo. And now that we’re all embracing it so much, I think it just makes us so much better as people and understanding people’s differences and then being a mom of a neurodiverse child, it’s just, it’s such a different level as well. And I know you get it as a parent and I get it as a parent when we have neurodiverse children and, and how to interact with them. A lot of my listeners are you know, families with kids in the school system and what are like ways that OT can support the children in the schools?
Jenna Meehan (00:04:21): Yeah. So I think starting generally what occupational therapy is and what I try to kind of start with that for families because I think sometimes it might not be explained and there kind of can be a generalization or just, oh, I have someone that I know that worked with an OT and this is what they did. So, having kind of just like, maybe a narrow scope of what OTs can do. But occupational therapists in general are working to support people’s occupations. And that means not just jobs with what we sometimes connect occupation to mean, but things that occupy a person’s time. So all the things getting dressed, feeding ourselves, going to school, going to work, having professional and personal relationships doing things that bring us joy and pleasure, all the things that we do as human beings. If we’re having difficulties, if there is barriers to be able to participate in those things, occupational therapists can evaluate not only what is happening for that person, but also the environment and then identifying in our systems that have been developed with systemic oppression.
Identifying are these things that we can kind of start pushing against that we can see what kind of modifications or start teaching our education spaces and public spaces, how we can grow and making things more inclusive. So there’s not so many barriers for individual people, but then also helping build skills for individuals to be able to access things in a way that is more meaningful for them. So in schools specifically for autistic different neurodivergent students. There’s a lot of sensory experiences in school. So we have different ways that public schools and private schools and different education spaces have been set up. That there’s fluorescent lights, there’s loud bells that ring, there’s echoes.
There’s all these things that we kind of just are part of our school experience because this is the way they’ve been set up. But if we start kind of exploring these and recognizing this is a big barrier for a lot of people and would it maybe even help most people if we changed? Could we eat outside? Figuring out and exploring what barriers are and how things can change. So, occupational therapists kind of see, see the child, see the student, see the space and kind of look to see where the mismatches are and then help figure out how to think of accommodations that might fit into that space, talk to teachers and administration about this might be something that we could explore to just change because it seems like it’s not serving a lot of our students. And then also with that work with advocating teaching that own student how to advocate for identifying their own needs in spaces. And how can I advocate for things that I need when there is a mismatch?
Frances Shefter: (00:07:40): That is so awesome. Thank you. I’m like, oh my gosh. All the years I’ve been in the profession as a teacher before and everything. This is the first time I’ve heard occupational therapy defined like that as the things that occupy your time. And just like, because I know everybody always, at least I know most of the people I know confuse OT and PT in physical therapy. Which one is fine motor and one is gross motor, but it’s such a different, the way you explained it of occupying the time and it makes sense and it connects. I know at least here it’s been very challenging to get schools to agree that there’s educational impact for children with OT. At least now they’re agreeing with the sensory. And so a lot of times even if they’re not eligible for direct services, I can get them to come in and do the sensory, but usually it’s just focused on the child and like fidgets or, you know, the rocking chairs or the things like that. I haven’t heard of looking at the environment which makes sense because so many things that work for our neurodiverse children could work for everybody. It’s including our neurodiverse children and not singling anybody out. What difference does it make if we change the fluorescent lights, which set off, I think epilepsy as well, like there’s so many other things, they’re awful, they’re awful lights. And so if we change them. How much would we not need individual education plans as much because we’re changing the full environment. What are some things like that you can think of? I don’t know. Sorry, that might be putting you on spot of things, like if the teacher is listening because I do have a lot of teachers that listen, you know, what are some little things that they can do in the classroom that could get implemented in general to help everybody?
Jenna Meehan: (00:9:37): I’m in Durham, North Carolina and we have an amazing program that empowers our young people to create voting material and trainings and education systems to educate and provide supportive information for voting and especially for children and young adults. So I’m working with that team and we’re talking through what might be barriers to those resources and being able to access those resources. We have gone through their slides and what their resources look like and then used a kind of zoomed-out lens of trying to look for or what might be a barrier for people and especially people that hold multi marginalized identities that are oppressed by financial resources that might not be able to purchase extra equipment.
So we are looking through how someone might be able to read the information. So if there’s a lot of slides and a lot of texts in something, could we have a more plain language version or just use more plain language? So for things that are digital, we are trying to have more plain language. Some visuals that might just be helpful for people that process things with more pictures or visual information. And then for people that would like to have more details and more specifics and want to read paragraphs to be able to understand it more, have like a hyperlink to be able to like click on or scroll over that if, if you’re not overwhelmed by that much information and you want to learn more, you have that option. As our systems have been set up in white supremacy and ableism, we have centered this specific type of brain and body to be the way that this is how we’ve created things and changing to a neurodiversity and disability justice-centered way of, of providing spaces. We are thinking what are the barriers that people in those communities may have and how can we make that what we’re centering when we’re developing them first rather than having that be an accommodation that someone may or not be able to access.
So now coming back to the classroom, I think things that we talked about just very quickly fluorescent lights. I know that’s not something that a teacher may be able to unplug there. But figuring out is it possible? And do you have access to do natural lighting? And it, it could you turn for at least part of the day, maybe turn down the turn off the lights and have natural lighting or is there a corner in the classroom that could be darker and then having more natural light there? I think the other big thing is there might be students that have different needs. So some children may need bright lights and fluorescent lights do not bother them. So they might need a lot of lights for them to be able to see or to be able to process or to get more visual information to keep them regulated. So I think the flexibility of having maybe sunglasses available or it’s ok to wear your hood if or a hat, if that’s helping you block out visual simulation, that’s too overwhelming. So I think a big piece is thinking through what are options that are just available that people can just choose to take off and put on as they need it without being a formal accommodation that someone needs to have written down. Noise canceling headphones or ear pods if it gets too loud or auditory over stimulating. We talked a little bit about fidgets being able to access. I always keep gum because gum to me is so helpful, especially when I’m working and talking and if I’m in a space where it helps me to sit and to be able to write or something, I need to either fidget with my hands or my mouth. I think those are just some having flexible seating options. If someone maybe just needs to stand or move or rock or having rocking chairs or wiggle cushions or maybe sitting in a corner so that they can feel kind of secure in getting both sides of the wall, kind of pushed against them. I think having that flexibility to be able to have autonomy of your own body and that you’re sharing spaces that this is a space that’s open and here are different ways that you can move. And if it’s not working, if what you’re doing is then not working for someone else, then we can kind of figure out a different way that maybe the teacher or the OT could help figure out how to make those accommodations. But I think the openness and having the general acceptance of everyone probably is going to need different things when we’re working in this classroom. And that’s ok.
Frances Shefter: (00:15:24): So much came up. And the first thing that triggered is both of my daughters had the same kindergarten teacher and she was just absolutely amazing, is absolutely amazing. One of the things she did was she had tennis balls on the bottom of all the chairs and desks because that’s scraping noise. I, and I don’t know if she did this for the children, I mean, it could be for her also, but just in general, it just reduced the noise so much. And then when you said the corners, my daughter sometimes needs those space corners and the kindergarten teacher discovered that early. And so she would let my daughter work underneath her desk because that’s what she needed. She needed a space where nobody could see her and that she felt tight and secured. So it’s interesting that you say that. I do know that other people are the same way but just needing that self secure place and setting it up. Its having a flexible classroom is what I’m hearing. Mostly, you know, like seeing what your kids need. I’m thinking outside of the box of like, you know, first week of school having meetings with the class and like, what do you think are some things that we could put in place to help all of us? You know? So it’s just kind of a team thing. It isn’t like, oh, Johnny has an IEP so we need to have a quiet corner for him and Susie needs this. So we need to sit her there. So it’s more of a community and inclusive.
Jenna Meehan (00:16:48): Yeah. And I think for some children like that might be a whole novel idea like, oh I thought at school an adult’s gonna tell me what to say. I don’t know. That’s a lot of freedom and it’s amazing, but it’s also like so different from I think what our school systems have become in kind of this power hierarchy. So I think it could also be such an amazing opportunity to grow in safety and exploration and autonomy. I know for me laying on the the floor feels really good because you’re getting so much more appropriate reception and you can move around and you’re not like confined or you might not like fall off. So, but I don’t know, as like a young child because I was masking so much. I was just trying to follow what someone wanted me to do. And so I think if it was the whole classroom is exploring this and kind of like if you want to try this and then you can realize, oh, yeah, that did kind of feel good. I was able to read my book for longer when I could move around on the floor. Not feeling like when I’m sitting in a chair, that’s the only thing sitting in the chair and I can’t have my feet just on the ground because it just feels like my legs are like dangling in something. So I either have to put them up or sit on them and then when you’re like that you’re just wiggling around and the person behind you is getting annoyed. So I think there’s s much that I think having your educator and your teacher kind of making that the classroom norms and space that you can explore what feels right for your body and it’s not something that would be shamed or yeah, being stigmatized because we all have different bodies and brains and we’re all gonna need different things. So, yeah, it’s kind of just starting that process of breaking down what we’ve created in our society that isn’t working.
Frances Shefter: (00:18:53): I know you keep coming back to the masking and that’s been such a big thing. Now I’ve had a lot of IEP meetings with getting children qualified for special education because the school is like, well, we don’t see any of that in school, and because they’re masking and holding themselves together for six hours or eight hours, whatever the school day is and then when they come home, they fall apart and that’s what we need to prevent. We want people to be themselves, we want children to be themselves because if not, what are we creating with society? And you know, we’re creating little robots and that just smashes everything like creativity and all the other stuff. And so, what if, I’m sorry were you going to say something?
Jenna Meehan (00:19:38): I was just gonna go a little bit more into the, I think so much of where we are disconnected is with that masking. But also right now for OT we use the sensory processing measure or the sensory profile, which are questionnaires. And typically we might ask a parent or caregiver to complete one to get the home profile and then a teacher, maybe multiple teachers to get , a profile of their view of the child’s experience. And we don’t have really one until a child is an adolescent or adult of their own. So I think that’s it. It, when he said, like we don’t see this at school, I think those, those graphs or those pictures of in the typical range at school and definite just difficulty at home are so parents and then it becomes, well, this isn’t school, this is private therapy and that’s not like we don’t, we do when we are, when we are a whole person. And these are the things that are, our body isn’t able to have the skills to feel comfortable and, and process in a way that feels comfortable for ourselves. This is where we’re needing the support. We’re just seeing the effects in a space that is more safe for them to be able to express their discomfort. So, yeah, I think our school system and our education system, I hope can really grow in that space because I think that is getting blocked most frequently and that conversation and that kind of stop of this isn’t school, this is after school and it’s a separate person isn’t helping anything.
Frances Shefter: (00:21:18): Yeah. And I’ve gotten that a lot and I’ve gotten schools being very well, that’s a home issue. You need to try this, that and the other and very accusatory towards my clients. I mean, there was one meeting that I stood up, I’m like, we will not be putting this all of my clients and the school realized what they were saying. They’re like, no, no, that’s not what we meant. I’m like, well, that’s what you just said. This is where we are and this is where we need to go. And I think it was eye opening for the school because they didn’t think about it when you tell families that it’s a home problem, not a school problem. What do you think parents are hearing? I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing as a parent. I’m failing my child when it’s so not that because it’s, it’s a whole child. It’s, let’s see, you know, all of it together. And so what if like when you, like, if you see a child that’s, that’s, you know, noticeable, like having more challenges or it’s trackable and like, you know, the challenges are more so at home or more so at school or just you’re seeing the difference? What is that like, what are some things you can do? Like, what, what do you think parents should be looking for?
Jenna Meehan: (00:22:25): Yeah. So I actually had this with my own child. So I think I can kind of start with that example of, so both of my children are autistic. The one masks a lot more reminds me very much of myself. And they couldn’t make the whole day at school. They, they would come home every day. As soon we walk across the street our school is very close to us. So as soon, like, as soon as we would cross the street, it would just all come out and their whole like, and it just everything. And so, we, I, I said we, I think we can just try, to leave early at like 11:30 see if that helps. And we just started doing that., the school didn’t want to do officially that because of it’s a public school and that, but I was just like, well, we can’t, this isn’t working. So we’re just gonna leave every day at this time and that truly helped. And I think being, I think just for me experiencing it as a therapist and also as a parent and then also having lived experience, for my own childhood, my meltdowns would be internal meltdowns that it would just everything in my body would shut down and I couldn’t do anything. So knowing that I’m seeing this everywhere and II, I know it’s not something that they’re overwhelmed or stressed out at home because it’s not even we’ve got in the door yet. This is just they, they feel finally comfortable and safe that they have to let go of everything that they’ve held in for so long. So, that was something that we did. I think if, if that’s not an option for a family and I know that comes with a lot of privilege if that’s a, a family is not able to pick their child up or they need the child to be there for the full day because they’re working or whatever other reason. I think seeing what other spaces you can kind of be curious and explore of what are the demands being put on this child and what is the mismatch that it’s too much for them? And in what ways can we start lowering that? So it’s, they’re not having to use more than they have every day where it just becomes, they’re needing to melt down just to, to let go of everything that they’re building up. So, I think for, for therapy too, for, for families that I’ve been supporting that this was also a similar thing and they didn’t have the ability to do a half day at school or, or change as much with school. Thinking about therapy and seeing is having private therapy after school just another thing that is, that is kind of adding demand. Could, we switch to a consultation to see, what other ways could we support the being at home and seeing if there’s anything else that we can communicate with the child’s teacher, that could brainstorm what other demands riding the school bus that we could see that are, that we could take off the child’s plate because we know it’s too much. And so starting to kind of curiously, explore what can we remove because we’re seeing that it’s too much for this child.
Frances Shefter (00:25:51): Getting back to the individualization of the IEP. Two different clients came to mind. One of them, we gave her two resource periods for middle school, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. That gave her 45 minutes to just chill if that’s what she needed or to catch up on homework if that’s what she was okay with. It was just giving her the time. Another one, we’re still working on it, but hopefully, we’ll get it. Just prioritizing and scheduling, we know that if you put math, science, social studies, and he has to keep it together for three periods in a row, he’s not gonna be available for learning by social studies time. Whereas if you put PE and then math and then maybe art or do it sporadically, you know, do it sporadically. And as I’m saying it and thinking about it, I’m like, that should be for all kids though. And I know, trust me, I know for the teachers that are listening. I used to do scheduling, and I was at an alternative middle and high school. So it was even harder because we had fewer staff members. But it’s, you know, it’s something to take a step back and look at like, how are we scheduling our children? What are we expecting of our children? And, you know, one of the things I always look back at is like as adults, what do we do? You know, at three o’clock in the afternoon, we all need a break, you know, cup of coffee, go for a walk, whatever it is, it’s, you know, the day is long. So what can we put in place for our children that give them that natural break? And I know so many school districts are getting rid of recess, but that’s a whole another thing of like, I think middle school and high school should have recess too, like have the downtime. It’s so important.
Jenna Meehan (00:27:41): Yeah, I mean, I’m making this the schedule too. I think also thinking through like, oh, my child really likes science or they really like this. So that’s okay there. But I think also, like, it might be thinking through of like science is right next to the gym or, and there’s a lot of echoes when I go through that. So I feel like also, like thinking through all the different pieces where we might not recognize like, oh, doing, going in the gym first thing in the morning when I have a lot and I haven’t heard all the echoing yet. I might have enough for this, but having it at the end of the day. So I think that’s where it can be really helpful to have a deeper understanding of the individual’s child’s needs, sensory, socially, physically, the whole child, of what things that we might not have really considered are a barrier because in the morning, there might, it might not affect them as much as it did in the afternoon. So, yeah, exactly. I think what you said of really exploring and being curious and then what can we do as the adults and the education team to provide, a plan that has the least amount of barriers and the most support for each child.
Frances Shefter (00:28:55): Right. And the teacher at me, I’m like, I’m hearing all the teachers going, are you kidding me? Scheduling is hard enough. How are we going to individualize it? But it’s not individualizing. It’s like you said, it’s just thinking about it like when, how we’re scheduling things. And it’s, I mean, it starts with the principle of like when they hire and, and do breaks and stuff, but it’s like to think through the kids, not necessarily having to look at each individual kid, but in general, what do the kids need? You know, as educators, we all know developmental milestones, we know where kids are, let’s really look at those and make, you know, make sure we’re optimizing the use of our time in the school so that our children are fully learning what they’re capable of learning and being available. And so I know like there’s lots of neurodiversity affirming support and stuff. Like, what are some things like? What does that look like in school?
Jenna Meehan (00:30:04): Yeah, it makes, it’s, I’m first of all, I’m so excited to like talk about this. So I’m really excited, but I also feel super emotionally connected to the projects that I’m working on in our public school. So I’m gonna kind of talk about that and then I can connect it more generally. So in Durham, North Carolina, in Durham Public Schools, we have the Durham Public Schools Foundation. It’s a wonderful organization that is doing a lot of great work for equity and just supporting our public school system. So I’m actually co-leading the Alliance for Equitable Disability Inclusion and Education and that is composed of our EC Director of Durham Public Schools. And then we have disability rights NC AC which are advocacy groups and then a lot of other disability advocates in our local community. But it’s a really unique space because I think typically when disability rights are an advocacy or lawyers also with our EC director, there’s, it’s already in due process or we don’t have that many set spaces that like let’s talk because we all are trying to get to the same thing. So we really have found so much value in this space and our group is centering disability justice and neurodiversity. So we are actually in the process of applying for grants to fund a disability justice position within the equity department in Durham public schools. And yeah, it’s really exciting. And so what that could look like is basically connecting our equity department and our EC department with I don’t think is unique to Durham, but I think in a lot of spaces don’t have a lot of connection or communication. It’s that when there’s a child with a disability or when there’s an EC or special disability-related issue, it goes to EC and then if they can’t figure it out, it goes unfortunately, figuring it out through mediation or due process.
There hasn’t been a lot of connection of the equity piece in it and specifically students who are multi-marginalized. So the only data that we had that we could find when we were writing this was the suspension rate for disabled and black and brown students. And that is a very shocking statistic in itself. But there’s so many other pieces of how are we not centering neurodiversity and disability justice. So having this position and kind of doing the work to figure out how this could look has been really exciting. So, some of the projects that we’re thinking about doing are we’ve had presentations with our board of Ed and our superintendent to talk about kind of moving from disability rights, which is the system that we’ve been in to shifting to disability justice and how that is centering neurodiversity and also the intersection of disability as an intersection, as well as all other identities that have been oppressed and that are marginalized. So we are currently working on a grant that is going to have disability justice ambassadors that are gonna be supported by Stipends through the DPS Foundation. And then these ambassadors are going to be supported and doing trainings about disability justice and neurodiversity affirming work and then picking a project that they want to bring to their schools or the system or space that they’re in and kind of sharing it. So we have book clubs that we’re thinking about trainings. We have a kind of a, a running list that we’ve already kind of started to create. But I think our biggest piece that is our first step is really understanding how to connect EC and equity because there is such an obvious strong connection that has been siloed for so long. So bringing the awareness and how to bridge those two things so that our students with disabilities are also part of our intentional equity work that our schools are working really hard to do.
Frances Shefter (00:34:25): And when you say EC, what is that abbreviation for?
Jenna Meehan (00:34:30): We use the term EC or exceptional children’s for it. Sorry. Yes, I forgot that North Carolina.
Frances Shefter (00:34:38): Thank you. No. And it’s so funny how it’s all changed because like it used to be ESE, exceptional student education, you know, like it’s changed so much and it’s so different. So thank you for clarifying that exceptional children. But it’s, you know, like it’s interesting, like our society like starting to include and include and include which I love and it is great. It is, you know, like we just finally like, you know, working it and pulling in the disability. It just, I don’t know, I like, I’m just thinking like, I wish we would just like, we’re all people but there needs to be, I mean, there needs to be this equity in bringing it in because like, you know what it like, yes, it’s supposed to be an individual education plan but we shouldn’t be single, single sickness. All right, I can’t get the word out. So these people out like, you know what I mean? These children shouldn’t be like, put out on their own. you know, like they should be included and it’s all inclusivity and inclusivity is so much more than just putting them in a classroom. It’s like, let’s get the ed classroom in a way that they, all of the students feel part of the classroom, you know, get the right books in place, get the right everything. And then with training, like, of course I’m, you know, the teacher and me and I know all the teachers going great, more training. What do we need more training for? But if the training is right. And like the book club, you know, I like the book club, you know, that it’s just more of an interactive training, it can help make everybody’s life so much easier because then you don’t have to think of this stuff.
Jenna Meehan (00:36:05): Right? And I think that’s where it kind of as we’re doing. I think the social justice work, it’s, it’s really such shifting work of, we need to unlearn so much of the things that we’ve learned because we’ve learned in systems that have upheld these ableist and racist and all these things. So, so much is yes, I could do this thing and that would maybe not do this. But unless I’m really understanding and kind of shifting more and understanding the ways that we are all, each of us upholding these systems, it’s not going to really shift in the way that’s going to include everyone because the people that are in the most oppressed multi-oppressive spaces. So that’s why I think disability justice, there’s the 10 principles that really help clearly define what it means and what the framework is. But one is that we are moving together and there’s we are all individuals with our own identities. But what we’re shifting in the systems is acceptance and value and wellness for everyone. So I think that kind of shift from where current school systems are is pretty big. So I think the work is work that kind of is incremental, that needs to kind of move at a pace that we can start opening rather than just making maybe smaller changes that are still going to not be equitable for most students.
Frances Shefter (00:37:52): Right. And so what, but what does that look like in school? Like, so what can schools do? you know, and I think we touched on a lot of this like, you know, with getting rid of fluorescent lights, do you hear that everyone? Get rid of fluorescent lights? I don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon, but maybe in the new buildings that they’re building, they’ll get rid of them because they’re not good on so many other levels as well. I guess more of what, like what are some IEP goals? Because I know that’s a big thing that schools sometimes ask parents like I, I know I’ve had this before. It’s like the school will be like, well, what goals are you looking for? When we’re talking about eligibility and when I was able to or my clients were able to articulate what goals we’re looking for. It’s amazing how the school is like. Oh, ok. And so are there like goals and accommodations in general that you could recommend?
Jenna Meehan (00:38:44): So I think kind of going to that what we were talking about, the principle of first what neurodiversity means is that all brains are different, neuro brain diversity different. So all brains are different. So if we are if we are having a neurodiversity-affirming framework, that is just a foundational piece that we are believing that all brains are different. And there isn’t one way that’s a good brain or not a good brain that we know everyone needs different things. So kind of our focus of how we’ve learned to write goals and how we’ve learned is that in a medical model, there is this, there is a right kind of brain and if you have a different type of brain, then you need to have these things. So I think it’s, it’s tricky because I think our education system is still using those definitions. So I think it is challenging to be able to use neurodiversity-affirming language in a way that’s also qualifying for the need in a system that uses different language. But I think overall, I think neurodiversity affirming goals can look like what are ways that can be supporting a student for their individual strengths and also in a way that they’re able to be themselves and not so things that are not neurodiversity affirming, eye contact, forcing the child to make eye contact, we’re not. So I think maybe that might be a better way to start off. So things that are setting that this is how we’re expecting children to be seated on the rug, crisscross applesauce. They should be looking with their eyes at the teacher. They can’t move their hands. They have quiet hands. I think all of those things we have learned are abelist because they are assing that there is a right way that you should be. So, those would not be neurodiversity-affirming. So instead, I think we can think of this child, their brain needs to have something that they’re moving and to be able to attend and listen. But the child also a child in the classroom gets really distracted when there’s a lot of movement. So we could figure out, ok, the child can, can one child be in a different part of the classroom or can we figure out can this child be hat, wearing a hat, figuring out what kind of accommodations, depending on how shared space looks like. But I think when we use that general framework of we’re not trying to have a, they have a child or a student act like what we, what we have learned is the typical student and what would be considered, the way we’ve learned, sitting still putting, facing the teacher, all those things do not work for everyone. And I think that’s like a principle of neurodiversity affirming. So with that, as we’re, as we’re thinking about how to support a child. If our goals start following that, I think we need to stop and then step back of this is not where we’re trying to go. How can we support the child in a way that they can feel themselves in the way that get what they need in a way that is not, is a way that everyone can share the space in the classroom.
Frances Shefter (00:42:08): Right. Get out of our old school thinking, you know, because if you look at it as, as careers and jobs as adults, how many professions are truly sitting at a desk for eight hours a day, you know, doing one thing, not a lot, you know. And so why are we expecting that of our children? That we all learned differently 100%. I mean, I’m thinking back to high school way back and there was a student on my softball team and I remember we were reading about something. I don’t even remember what it was, but we’re in the locker room and she was just rocking, sitting there rocking and everybody’s looking at her like she’s whack-a-doodle. And she’s like, I can’t concentrate unless I’m moving and that’s what worked for her. And I love that. She was open to it and was able to express that. And I’m thinking like outside of the box again, of IEP goals of helping me a child identify what they need to be successful. And I think you said it before to advocate for themselves. But a lot of times when we’re, especially when we’re talking about our younger children, they might not know what they need, you know, whereas if we help them identify what they need, then they are able to ask for it and what a different world it would be for them.
Jeena Meehan (00:43:20): Yeah, that, exactly what you just said. Sorry. There was a lot of things I think, I think kind of going back to thinking about myself as a child and just how I like was constantly scanning things and just tried to do what I thought was making everyone else happy. So there was never a reflection of, do I like this or does this feel good to me or is this uncomfortable? It was just looking back at childhood. I’ve realized like I was just uncomfortable all the time and I didn’t know what was making me uncomfortable. It was just because I like, didn’t even have that self-awareness to or, or think it was a valid thing to what do I want because I thought I was just supposed to make all the other people comfortable and happy around me.
I don’t know if that’s the experience for every child, but I think that’s, is I don’t think I would have ever been identified as a child that needed more support or needed because I, you know, was very people-pleasing and did all the things. But yeah, how that really affected me was something that I needed to deal with after and I think being able to explore the things and giving kids that just made me think of like even just a child saying no, I don’t wanna do this can be very triggering for adults or like when a teacher has all these children in a classroom and we just need to get outside get the day going. We’re, we’re putting so much pressure and demands on teachers and educators that it’s not, it’s not fair at all and not right and not sustainable.
But then when that gets pressure, then we’re pushing it down on the child that just has to whatever they, are saying, no, I’m not comfortable or no, I can’t do this or no, I’m not ready. They’re the last ones that kind of have to just get pushed through. So I think also figuring out how, how are we responding when a child is sharing their needs or saying this is what they are able to do right now. And how, how are we able to kind of grow in that? Because I think if we don’t have the capability to support autonomy for children, we’re teaching them that you don’t have autonomy and then find what that looks like later on when a child is, doesn’t know how to express themselves or advocate. There can be a lot of situations where that it can be really unsafe or a lot of things.
Frances Shefter: (00:45:55): Yeah. No. And that, that makes so much sense. It’s just like why is the child saying? No. You know, because that’s, you know, but the why is so important and so many things with education because as children, like as you said, you masked all the time to be a people pleaser as children, I think naturally most children are people pleasers. But so if they, if they’re saying no, there’s a reason there’s something behind there and being able to find out. And as you said, I know teachers are overwhelmed, they’ve got too much and so much. But like maybe we need to get more behavior support into the classrooms and, and more, you know, extra aids into the classroom to give the teachers the support where they need, but also to give the children, the support and to, to minimize the demands. All I know is that as good as our education system is in the States, it’s still got a long way to go and we do need some changes. But I mean, like, that’s part of the reason for the show also is like letting parents know, like, hey, these are some ideas. Here’s what’s out there, here’s what you can do. Here’s some recommendations. Like, no, you don’t have to hire an attorney. No, you don’t have to hire an advocate all the time, or private, you know, people. But like, here’s some different things that you can do, but you can also consult outside people to help you plan for inside. You know, because it’s just, it’s hard, you know, like we all know it takes a village to raise a family, we all know that. but it’s, you know, there’s that meme out there. I don’t know if you’ve seen it or not, but like it takes a village, you know, everybody says it takes a village to raise a family. What does that mean? Do they just show up? Is there a number we call, you know, like it’s been 21 years and I haven’t seen my village. Well, it’s, you know, no, it’s, we need to create our village and see what’s out there, see who’s out there. It has been so awesome and so wonderful. I was, like, got my brain going all over the place with things we need to do what it like. So, if people need to want to get in touch with you, like, wanna learn more about what you’re doing in North Carolina or privately, what, you know, what’s the best way for people to reach out to you?
Jenna Meehan: (00:48:00): Yeah. So my website is www.bemeot.com And then if you want to email me, it’s Jenna@bemeot.com. And then also another organization that I co-lead is called All Neuro Types. And we’re also in North Carolina and we have trainings neurodiversity affirming trainings for all different community members. We have a YouTube channel. We have created a disability justice centered summer camp that we’re hoping to grow. And then we also offer adult neurodivergent affirming discussion groups that are available on Zoom that anyone is welcome to email us and we can add you to the list. So that is all www.allneurotypes.com. And the email for that one is hello@allneurotypes.com.
Frances Shefter: (00:49:06): That is awesome and we’re gonna have all the links in the show notes below. This has been so wonderful and so educational Jenna. Thank you so much for being on the show and letting us all know what else is out there for people.
Jenna Meehan: (00:49:17): Yeah. Thank you so much. It was really great.
VOICEOVER: (00:49:22): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP® with your host, Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through ShefterLaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube, LinkedIn Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more.
Categories