NEW YORK, March 16, 2020 – As the need for social distancing is prompting extended school closures across the country, schools need to find new ways to connect with students online. Continuity is especially important for students who receive special education-related services. The Department of Education confirmed on March 13 that if a school continues to provide educational opportunities to the general student population during a school closure, the school must ensure that students with disabilities also have equal access to the same opportunities, including special education-related services. PresenceLearning, the leading provider of live online special education-related services to K-12 schools, is expanding its offerings to help as many school teams as possible with the delivery of remote special education services.
PresenceLearning clinicians are seamlessly working with partner schools to move their remote therapy sessions from school to home to continue to meet student needs. But until now, there wasn’t an equally easy solution for school-based clinical teams to transition to teletherapy. To address this need, the company is making its state-of-the-art online therapy platform available for use by school-based clinical teams for the first time, and is training them on how to provide online therapy, so they can continue to maintain progress for their students with special needs through this crisis.
“As schools urgently seek solutions to move services online, we want to make sure that students with special education needs are prioritized,” said PresenceLearning CEO Kate Eberle Walker. “Over the past ten years we’ve developed a specific expertise in conducting teletherapy sessions for K-12 students and we have a purpose-built platform that is designed by and for clinicians. We realized that the best way we can help right now is to make our platform available more broadly, and to teach school-based clinicians how to approach teletherapy.”
The new package includes access to PresenceLearning’s award-winning online therapy room, as well as access to PresenceLearning’s extensive library of teletherapy resources. “Teletherapy for K-12 students with special needs requires much more than a standard video conferencing or online classroom tool can provide,” said Eberle Walker. “Our platform includes extensive features designed with the express purpose of delivering teletherapy to students with special needs.”
Key features of the platform include:
- High fidelity teletherapy sessions with crisp, clear video and sound
- Full therapy command center to help providers keep the session on track, maintain remote control of the student's environment, and refocus the student when necessary
- Dynamic camera and video modes to focus on multiple types of intervention
- Synchronized collaborative workspace
- Evidence-based and user-generated content library with 100K+ items and therapy playlists using PresenceLearning content
- Ability for clinicians to easily and securely upload their own therapy materials
To ensure clinicians are comfortable with providing services in an online environment, PresenceLearning will accompany the platform access with live training sessions and online office hours with its team of clinical experts, access to the company’s proprietary Telehealth Institute self-guided training modules, and daily live technical support during school hours.
To learn more and set up a consultation with PresenceLearning, visit https://www.presencelearning.com/schools/covid-19-teletherapy/.
About PresenceLearning
PresenceLearning, Inc. is the leading provider of live online special education-related services to K-12 schools. The company connects speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and behavioral and mental health professionals with students through its proprietary online platform, and has delivered more than 2.5 million teletherapy sessions to hundreds of K-12 schools and districts across the U.S. through its network of nearly 1,000 certified clinicians. For more information, visit www.presencelearning.com.
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Christine Lynch, Public Relations for PresenceLearning
410.975.9638
