As we look forward past the pandemic, where does telehealth actually fall within the realm of some people love it. Some people do not care for the idea of it. But if we can take our emotions out of the equation and actually look at this from a scientific point of view, as heart centered professionals, what could be the result? How can we make things easier for ourselves and increase the independence of the learners that we so care for? That's exactly what we're diving into, in this episode all about telehealth and O&M.

In this podcast episode:

• Introduction

• Who is Joe Nemargut

• How Joe got into O&M

• Joe’s Publication

• Balancing O&M

• Teleheath and O&M

• Taking A Step Forward with Joe

• Outro

Links mentioned:

Telerehab Survey

Transcript of the Episode:

Introduction

Oh my gosh, 2022. And the symposium right around the corner. The symposium is happening January 26, through 28th 2022. So if you have not registered yet, you gotta register. We will be having a webinar on January 13. So follow me on social media at Allied independence for more information on that or join our email list. You can just send me a DM at Allied independence on either Facebook, or Instagram. And I will get you onto our email list to get more information about the free webinar that is coming up.

It's always such a special time of the year, because while the rest of the world is in the beginning of the year, like goal setting, and we get to experience that as well. We're also in the middle of our work here. And that can be like a sluggish, slow, like okay, I'm just counting down the weeks until spring break, and then spring break. We do it all over and go down the weeks until the end of the year. But what if we could lift ourselves up and feel inspired? What if we could be excited about work again? What if we could gain more knowledge and have more ideas and insight so that we could develop strategies that really work for our learners? That's exactly what we are doing at this symposium. And one of the presentations that I'm so excited to bring you is this idea on telehealth and O&M. And how can we take the emotional aspects out of this is the way we've always done things versus I'm going to continue to throw spaghetti at the wall. And just keep trying and trying and trying new things. So that way we can move forward as a profession, and take what was working, and how our lives actually got easier. decrease our travel time, reach more people all around the world with visual impairments. 

That's exactly what we dive into in this very fascinating conversation with Joe Nemargut. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He is a practising orientation and mobility specialist and Assistant Professor at the School of Optometry at the Université de Montréal. Side note, I cannot say that better, I have tried multiple times. Let's continue on. He works as a clinician researcher and teacher at the University. His research currently focuses on remote rehabilitation practices, the use of 3d tactile maps for navigation and virtual reality and rehabilitation. He works extensively with optometrists, vision scientists and rehabilitation specialists to develop and integrate innovative approaches in the field of orientation and mobility. Whether or not you agree with the idea of telehealth and O&M, this conversation is 100% worth listening to, to hear how he got to where he is, the different perspectives that he gets to take now because of his background, and where we're going as a feel. It's really fascinating. Come on up. Let's get to the show.

Who is Joe Nemargut

Kassy:
Hey, welcome Joe to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you here. I have so many questions.

Joe:
Ah, thanks, Kassy. Yeah, I really enjoy being invited. Thanks for inviting me to be on the programme.

Kassy: 
Oh, you're so welcome. So, I have a lot of questions about telehealth for you. But first of all, will you just give us a little rundown about who you are? And how you got to where you are? And then I'll dive in and ask you more questions.

Joe: 
Okay, yeah, so I'm an O&M professor here, in Montreal, the University of Montreal. And originally, I would say, I was not really an O&M-er. My background was actually in neuroscience research. I started off doing that, working with rats and mice, looking at visual impairments and those and I said, Hey, look, maybe it's time that I started looking at the people that actually have the visual impairments, rather than just looking at the animal models. So I decided, after my second postdoc, I said, Hey, look, I'm going to go ahead and change careers. I'm gonna become and O&M. Maybe, to the surprise of my wife at the time that okay, you have all this background, you've done all this work, why are you gonna leave all that behind? But I said, Hey, look, you know, I'm really passionate, I want to work with people, I want to work with disabled people. So I decided to go ahead and leave that and studied to be an O&M here at the University of Montreal in a language that I didn't know either. So I had to do that in French. And then after that, it became an O&M. And the universities came calling back and said, Hey, look, we see your background would you'd like to teach? And then kind of as the story goes on, then from there, I've kind of developed my research projects here in O&M.

How Joe got into O&M

Kassy:  
Gosh, that is the most interesting story I've ever heard. So you were… were you already a professor of neuroscience, or you were just you were a scientist? And then you need to become an O&M?

Joe: 
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I was a scientist. And then I was getting discouraged a little bit, with being an area where, okay, I'd like my colleagues and all that, but not really being on the terrain, not really seeing the people with visual impairments. And actually, what happened is the people I was working with, she said, Hey, did you ever know about this? I'm going to study to be an O&M. Like, I have no idea what this is. Granted, I'd been in visual impairment field for a while, know what it is. And then so I kind of met with her observes her doing, I was like, Okay, this is what I want. This is what I want to do. And now I've kind of morphed that into being half time clinician and half time a professor over here, yeah.

Kassy:
Oh, my gosh. So before, when you were a scientist, you were studying, what were you studying? It sounds like you're studying something about visual impairments?

Joe: 
Yeah. So what I was looking at, I was looking at light signalling and the red map back to land in New Orleans, and then I went to Seattle. We’re studying ways to restore the vision. So we looked at different ways to restore vision after people had retinitis pigmentosa, those kind of diseases. And then I went on to McGill, where we're studying glaucoma. And that's where I decided, hey, look, enough is enough time that I work with actually people that have these impairments.

Kassy: 
Wow, as a scientist, did you have to work with people who had the visual impairments, like at all? Did you have to have like an orientation? Did they even give you like those goggles to put on or anything like that?

Joe:
No, I didn't really have much of a sense of what it meant. So I, you know, learn about okay, what is the acuity? What are the fields, so we have kind of the, you know, the vision reports that we would see, but I wasn't working with the individuals directly. And it was kind of vague. I knew and from a theology standpoint, okay, what's going on with the cells, what's going on with the eye, sometimes it's going on the brain, but not actually seeing, trying to get their experience living with a visual impairment. So that's one of the big differences, understanding what's like living with the visual impairment versus what it's like medically. So that was a big change.

Joe’s Publication

Kassy: 
Yeah, but now you have both, which is so cool. When you're a scientist, what publications did you guys publish to? Can I ask?

Joe: 
Yeah, so we are publish there is one in neuron. We published also in different ophthalmology journals, so IOVS. So yeah, we had some publications and those journals. I'd say it's hard work. It's hard work both being an O&M, it's hard work, being a researcher as well. But really, my passion is really kind of what's motivating me a lot in O&M and especially, one of the things that I've seen in O&M is I think, there's a lot of room also in the research front to kind of develop research. So that's where I'm trying to be on the forefront of that developing kind of new, innovative research and I want to… because I know a lot of the guys out there that are working with the clients don't have the time don't have the money don't have the resources to do that. So that's why I'm trying to develop projects where you can kind of develop more innovation at work with the university work with the O&M out in the field, to make sure that those things that research that I bring goes directly to the people that need those services.

Kassy: 
Yeah, I bet that's so needed. I'd asked that question because I wanted to see if there was like an overlap of what we're reading, and then the work you're doing. And it seems like, there's a huge gap, because we're not always even reading the ophthalmology papers, we're reading things like JPIV, so then when you transitioned. What was like one of your first memories that kind of stuck out at you, when you finally went on blindfold, and got to have a little bit more of an empathetic experience.

Joe:
It was scary. I mean, I have to admit, it was scary. And I kind of coming with the sense of Okay, can I really do this? I guess having that additional gut saying that I can't, this is a lot. This is a lot mentally, I think that's the thing. I think I don't want… I'm just gonna understand, you know. This is a lot mentally, and how am I gonna be able to teach somebody? And then also, I think in the back of my mind, always having that little bit of worry is if I don't do it, right, there's big consequences, right? I wish I didn't have as much of that perception during research, you know, if it doesn't go, well, we don't publish, right. But nobody's life is at stake, nobody's habits are going to be ruined. So yeah, that was definitely a worry, when I started.

Balancing O&M

Kassy: 
That is so cool. And that is something that I think a lot of O&Ms do take into consideration, we can make light of it. But sometimes I find the balance of O&M being this beautiful, beautiful dichotomy of common sense, right, you have one job, don't die, and then intricacies of how that works and how that happens. And how detailed we can get in just everything down to the positioning of your wrist and, and you know how far wide your cane arc is going versus what's happening on the street and the traffic engineers and all of that. And meanwhile, a lot of it, most people can cross the street without the training or without the book knowledge. But when you go in and you're teaching somebody, then you also bring in the book knowledge to it. And it does kind of make it more well rounded. So I think that's really interesting that you have that realisation like, oh, right, these are people's lives, and I can accidentally instill bad habits in them that they may never catch, or may have to unlearn later.

Joe:  
That's always a worry. And I think the way I look at it is I don't think it should ever kind of leave my mind. Always the worry is if I do not do it, right, there are risks that are associated with it. Because when I'm not there, what's happening, right? And so people have instilled a certain level of trust in us. And then if we do not teach something, right, really, that breaks that trust relationship that we take so long to build. So it's something that I think I've kind of had to really develop quite a bit as time was going on. And really always take, I guess, really just take the time to develop it. So this is something I teach my students as well is, if you're ever not sure you do it again, if you're not sure what the client if they understood if they're doing it properly, always take the time to make sure that it's well done. So I think that's what's kind of helped me get over that is to say, look, this isn't something that needs to be done tomorrow, we can always take the time and work with the client and make sure they're able to develop the right habits and be safe be independent drop.

Kassy: 
Right? I used to have a peer or coworker who would say their independence is not on your bell schedule. Sometimes they just, she would just say like sometimes I'm going to need to stay out a few minutes later. Because we don't have a full week of them practising the skill incorrectly. If we just drop it and say, oh, sorry, the bell's gonna ring we have to get you back. And so that's something that she always it was like a work boundary that you couldn't cross with her and I always admired that. Because although you know she might be late to her next student and of course it depends on the student and what you have going on. And your next student right where they are maybe even on the spectrum, if they can even handle you being late without them becoming physical things of that nature that we also have to think about. But I always found it really admirable that she just stuck to her guns and say, Look, sometimes we're gonna be late, and it's gonna have to be okay. Because I cannot leave them hanging with this skill, or fall into a concept gap and not close it up. Because you're right, we only spend 1% of their waking life with them, what happens the other 99% of the time, we are not there. So when you're teaching, and you're also you're teaching them, and you're also a professor, how do you, I guess, strike the balance with maybe even your day and what that looks like, but also, in staying on the forefront of what you're teaching both your clients and your university students.

Joe: 
So as far as the balance, that's difficult. We're gonna lie, it's difficult as far as balancing because it's a lot of work. But I think each one kind of feeds off the other, and each one benefits the other. So really, for me, to work with the clients themselves. I think it's extremely beneficial as far as for me, this isn't just what's coming out of the book. I'm not teaching you, this is what the book says, Okay, this is how to do this technique. Okay, this is how to teach somebody across the street, because what we'll see from the book is the perfect case scenario. Okay, so somebody, all they have is a visual impairment. And now you're teaching them for instance, the alignment skills, you're teaching them, you know, how to analyse the intersection and all of that. And the reality is that not everybody, actually, nobody is going to be a perfect class. So I think that's one thing that I can give to the students, it's really, really beneficial and say, okay, look, this is I understand, this is the perfect way, for instance, somebody supposed to sweep the cane, and the rally, not everybody's going to be able to sweep the cane perfectly. Look at it, as far as what are your goals? Okay, if your goals is this person is going to be a safe traveller. Maybe the person needs to sweep, you know, perfectly, but maybe they don't. Right. So look at what your overall goals. Another thing I always bring to it, with the students that they seem to enjoy is bring the cases. So I talk about cases, especially when they're later on in their training, they've learned all the basic skills, and then they say, Look, this is a difficult case. How would you address this? Okay. So if you take somebody with an intellectual disability, you take somebody with a neurological visual impairment, how would you address this? Okay. And also, not only how would you address this by yourself, but who are the other team members that are involved? Because working in a team, I know myself, it's not you alone that needs to handle everything, there's certain things that we're trained to handle that we have the expertise in handling other things, that it's better off that other members, or how do you speak with the family about these issues? So I try to, I think I give them that perspective, it's maybe more of the real life perspective, rather than just the book perception, of course, they need to have that fundamental learning. But then when it comes down to it afterwards, okay, how does that work in the real world zoo, essentially, to prepare them for their internship later on, when they're going to be working with real people, not just other students? And say, Look, these are the types of situations are going to counter and be prepared for this. Okay.

Kassy:
Yeah, I think that's really good. And the fact that you are willing to balance that day to day because I'm, we just talked before the recording or like, things going on, I was like, Oh, well, I just got back from two assessments. And now I'm doing podcast, and like the you know, of talking to vendors and planning for a conference, and you kind of joked about how I was doing a lot and it's, it's the same, sometimes you have to switch your brain, like you have to on some days, you can't only work on one project, some days, it's just kind of the nature of scheduling and O&M and one of the things that I've not met an O&M or who doesn't like the fact that we don't really know what's gonna happen, our schedule, but it's kind of the fun of it, of not knowing, but also learning how to balance all of our different hats. And your students are doing that too in their own realms. They're learning how to balance what the textbook says versus what they come to know in real life. And as they make the jump from the textbook to real life, it really is Like a jump, sometimes you really do have to just trust that you have learned enough or that you understand the student enough or that you have a good enough relationship to say, okay, the book said this. But what's really happening in real life is not what I learned about. And so I'm going to try something new. And I'm going to do it a different way. And it seems like leaning into innovation in that way, and really trusting yourself. And using those cases, along with the science seems to give you a really good foundation for what you're doing. Is that, am I hitting the nail on the head a little bit?

Joe:
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean and I think I just like anybody, you have to be passionate about the work that you do. And I mean, for sure, there's some weeks that are very, very busy. But as far as to see the the improvements that can be made in people's lives, whether those are my students, whether those are the clients, really, that's what makes it worthwhile. And that's something I didn't see before and the research. I mean, the results are not very immediate, right? Sometimes you see as you go on. And so I think that's what keeps me going too is to kind of see how these things evolve, to see how you can see these improvements. So some make somebody that's, you know, not an independent traveller, make them independent in a matter of months. Okay, it may seem like, okay, that's long in O&M. But when you look at it in somebody's life, and it's very short amount of time, to really make a huge difference in life. And I think that's a lot of what keeps me going. And also for my students to see somebody that had no idea what O&M really was. They kind of took the chance to start the programme, and then they end it, and then they're off on their own. They're really like showing these clients new skills, they get comfortable in the field. I mean, it's really, really rewarding to see those kind of differences that are being made.

I mean, as far as my personal life, to make a balance, I think the thing is you got to set your limits, there's only so many hours in a day, there's only so much that you could do. And I try to you know, limited as much as possible to make sure that I can do both. But I think there's a definite benefit to doing both. I'm not kind of just a professor that's out there that’s saying, Okay, I'm reading the chapter of the textbook to you, or Okay, we're gonna do a quiz on Chapter Two. I'm like, I want you to take what you've learned and I want you to be able to apply this. As I tell all my students, honestly, if I didn't have to give them grades, I wouldn't give them grades. I’m required to give them grades. Really, what I think is everything is just for them to be an excellent O&M at the end. You know, and whatever that takes, everybody has their own path to that. But really, I look to train that to be excellent. What else and what I think is really critical is understanding the difficulties that the person is living with. So that's something that you can’t just see in a textbook. You have to be able to be there out with a person to really experience the difficulty, to see how you can overcome. And you have to do that in a split second as an O&M. You can’t come back to your book, you know, study it for a week, and then go back and said, this is what I'm going to do, and you need to really react quickly.

Telehealth and O&M

Kassy: 
For me, that's the fun of it. It’s that heart centred approach that you seem to have with both your university students and your clients alike? Because there's no real linear path in O&M anyway. We can have curriculum that we're following, but we're going to find that every client, I know I'm using yours interchangeably, you guys, I'm sorry, every O&M client or learner, as well as your university students, they have their own unique path and the fact that that's the way that you look at it, instead of saying, Oh, you're not following this one curriculum that was written, so therefore you fail, and I'm going to push you off to the side, because that's not what we as O&Ms do. We say, Okay, this isn't working for you, what is going to work for you? And how can I teach you in a way that will get you to that end result, and ultimately, like, make the world a better place.

So I want to bring up the topic that we are supposed to be talking about today, which is telehealth and O&M. And I think that this is something that's really important for us to talk about. And I love the fact that you also have like a clinician scientific point of view, you're also a practitioner O&M and a professor. It just… man… makes it so much, it just elevates your expertise so much because I can say all I want to say but I'm I don't have that level of expertise. As far as telehealth an O&M, can you share kind of your journey and your background by ideas? And then I can ask you some more questions because I love the idea of telehealth an O&M. I think because of who I am in my beliefs, I don't value doing the same thing that we've always done just because we've done it that way. That's just not part of my value system. And I think anybody listening to this podcast already knows that. And so when we get to step into something that's new, and or we're forced to because there's a global pandemic, can you tell me about your journey within that and why you decided to learn more about it and to pioneer some of the things that you're doing?

Joe: 
Yeah. Thanks. So basically, what I would say is, this is something that it's funny, I was actually… one of my students that he's a PhD student, something we had talked about, actually, a couple of months before the pandemic. And one of the things that came up was, I think there was a debate about that Iris system saying, okay, look, should O&M be working with this? Should this be professionals that are working? And to think there's something there, there's some kind of way that O&M could be better provided and where the approach we're taking is more these regional areas. So that, because essentially, there's a lot of areas in Canada, and I'm sure in the US as well, where there's no law and services be provided. And, I mean, there's no doubt that a lot of people that can benefit from those services. So this is before the pandemic and thinking, Okay, well, the technology we have, nowadays, why are we not using it to provide services to these individuals? Okay, we have O&Ms and one of the big constraints is the time takes. So the way I look at it is we can never train enough O&Ms or even if they were out in these regional centres, they wouldn't have enough jobs to be out there full time. So if you want to go in the middle of Arizona, or something like that, or you know, if you want to go in Montana or Wyoming, you may not have enough people that would be there to really warrant to say full time, or that O&M would have to drive six hours out one way to see a client and all that, well, maybe there's some way that we can offer services remotely to those people that would allow them to travel more safely.

I’m not saying it's gonna replace in person learning, it'll be perfect or anything like that. But I was like, There's something to be done. And then after that pandemic, then when I saw it being done is there was essentially, communications from several places that I saw that said, we're not allowing any virtual O&Ms. So it was funny, because I saw that there was kind of a leaning in towards that before the pandemic, but then there's a reaction post pandemic, to say, we're going to stop all of this. Because there was a worry that that was kind of overtake all of the in person meetings and all of that.

So the way I always look at it, like everything, rather than black and white, there's a little bit of grey, okay. And I'm like, well, there's some things that I think could be done really, really well, virtually, there's some things maybe not so well. And rather than myself getting my own take on this, what I want is the take of other O&Ms. So there's essentially a couple of different things I wanted to see, what are people doing? Okay, so there are people out there doing telehealth, and O&M. Okay, it's happening, whether people agree with or not, it's happening, right. So what are the people doing? And then what is the level of success? Okay, because we're kind of forced into it through the pandemic. So we are forced into doing these kind of tele rehabilitation services providing because we can't go with them, right? And then so after that, it's kind of like anything in science, it's trial and error. You try something out, you're like, oh, this didn't work out, too well. Oh, I'm not so sure I'm going to do this again. But that's honestly, that's how we develop great new methods. That's how we develop protocols to set up and to develop innovative ideas.
So this is kind of what I looked at as a first step. It's let me go out and survey the O&Ms in North America and see what's being done and what their success is. And I often felt like when people when the topic comes up, that they jump all the way to street crossings. Okay, we don't want or going for that or we don't want them doing that. But that's very limiting is saying that's all that one of us do. There's so much more than I want to do. So rather than just kind of saying, Okay, is it good to telerehab? Is it not good? Say look, what is the job of an O&M? And essentially what I went through is categorise what's the job and all that. So again, me being an own I'm kind of I think helps me to kind of understand that to say some of our job, for instance, is meetings, okay. We meet with the parents, we meet with the teachers, we meet with other professionals. So physical therapists, occupational therapist, all of that we do now we do it virtually. How is that kind of thing? Right? Okay, we have another element where, for instance, somebody may be teaching a human guide. So you have another person that's present virtual? How does that work for teaching those kinds of techniques, when maybe a loved one is present on the other side of the screen? What, you know, if you, for instance, have something where you're teaching them, the more dynamic conditions. Okay, in those dynamic conditions, how much success are you getting? How are you trying? Or, and what I wants to go even if you're not trying, okay, say, look, you're not doing street crossings? Why are you not doing it? Is it because you as a professional don't feel comfortable? That's important to know, that's important for other people to know versus, okay, I, for instance, could be your centre that not allowing you to do it.

So I want to kind of demystify a lot of this, and to figure out what things are being done, what things are being successful? What things are being done, that are less successful? To kind of come to… it won't be a consensus, obviously, people have varied opinions. And then the idea is we take this information to share that with the centres. So rather than them just deciding that this is too dangerous, or this shouldn't be done, this could be done. That really comes from the professionals themselves, to help make the decisions to say, Look, these are the things that professionals are saying that it is safe to do, that we think we can do if we have the right equipment, for instance. So that I think is really a component that rather for myself, to make a decision on this, I really want to understand what's out there, what's being done, and where we can go in the future.

So this is kind of the first step, okay to say, Okay, what's being done, what's being successful, and those successful interventions virtually, maybe we can expand on those. And we can go a lot further. And we can develop the field even further. So now maybe we can offer those services out in those remote areas? Maybe we can offer services to people that aren't able to come to the centre, or maybe we can even offer and other countries, maybe we could, you know, there's a number of different possibilities that could be open, if we're just doing it the right way. And we're not just… we're taking more of a scientific approach, rather than an emotional approach to these types of interventions.

Kassy: 
You mentioned, O&Ms having opinions. I don't know where you got that or how many O&Ms you talk to but we, as a group, do not have opinions about anything. Super go with the flow. Just kidding. Right. So when we're looking at O&M, as far as telehealth, I kind of saw the same thing, where it was like agency by agency or district by district. And it's nice when we can elevate, and all come together to say, okay, look, here's our white paper, here's what we're actually going to do. And be able to take that information to admins to help them feel a little bit more secure with it. Instead of it just being the O&M kind of advocating, because that just depends on the personality style of the O&M and the personality of the admin, which doesn't always get us as far as we need to go.

But I'm thinking about two specific people. And you guys, I'm gonna call you guys out, I love you. Because I really look up to these O&Ms. Sarah Moreau in Alaska was doing a lot of really great things virtually. And then through the pandemic, she exploded with her offering. And my student wasn't really eligible for it. But I thought that oh my gosh, it's so amazing what she's doing, because she actually fly between places. And then one of my other friends in Australia, Jeremy Hill has spoken about how he goes to remote locations. And he's also talked about how great it has been to increase the O&M time of some of his clients through telehealth. And I don't know exactly what they're doing, you know, I can't talk about it, but I really admire how they have broken the mould. And simply because of the remoteness of their locations, and how rural they really are. And I think that that can definitely be done when we look at doing this correctly.

And you're right, it's not just about street crossings. And I'm not saying that you can't like review or preview street crossings in a way but there's so much more that we do. One thing that I saw with the pandemic that happened a lot that was so great with telehealth is the collaboration with the O&Ms and the parents and the team model of what I noticed, all around the world went from a multidisciplinary team model where everybody kind of does their own thing to a lot more co-teaching to where the parents might be in the lesson as well virtually. And we have an O&M, and maybe a VI or a PT is coming together to teach the lesson. And then the parents know exactly what the O&M is saying, the PT knows exactly what the O&M is saying. And then they can transfer, even just the phrases that they use, so that the student gets more simulation, and better results. So that happened a lot.

And then also, on my end, I have a student with low vision. What we ended up doing was focusing a lot on the foundations of like bus travel and stuff like that for a year. And I was like, Man, I hope this works. Man, I hope this works. But this year, he hasn't needed any foundational lessons at all. He's like, literally got on a bus, rode the bus cross the street. And I was like, Oh, well, this is day two. Okay, that was it. We caught right back up to where we would have been now. But he also has a much better understanding of the foundations, which I don't know that it would have slowed down in that. Know what I mean.

Joe: 
So that's interesting what you're saying, Kass, because also another thing that I'm looking at here, the kind of the next step that's coming up soon with this. Because now we have the survey out, so any of the O&Ms in North America, they can go ahead and respond to the survey and talk about what they're doing what's successful. And another step that I want to look at is, again, these kind of developing a focus group of experts. So the ones that have been working with telehealth, they've been doing it for quite a long time, that it may be even… especially the ones in these rural communities where it's a big part of their job, that would be essentially a group of experts. And then so I get more to the specifics, even beyond the type of intervention, but even the type of clients or you know, the type of student that it works with to say, Okay, well, this, for instance, this is the difficulties I encountered working with a deaf-blind students. Okay, these are the type of difficulties with somebody with cognitive client. This is the type of difficulties they see with somebody with a wheelchair. So we can kind of even go further to say, these are the types of interventions that were successful when I was working with somebody wheelchair.

For instance, it may be that, okay, well, I had a student in the wheelchair, had the teacher that was present that was holding the iPad, that was, you know. There may be certain types of techniques. Again, I don't know all of the techniques are that that's what I want to hear from everybody out there to see what's being done. Because I know there's tons of innovative techniques that are out there that O&Ms out there in the field are applying now. And then they love and they would like to share. And this will give them a way to share that and not just share that amongst their group and their centre, but potentially make this into the guidelines that will go forward to be more national and international guidelines when we're talking about providing telehealth. And kind of make this a little bit less scary for the administrators to go for we're doing this so we can say, Look, these are the type of things that we recommend, of course, again, always start the lower risk, right, and then go to, you know, slowly to higher risk, but maybe then we talk about higher risks, we can say look just in these specific cases. But I think that's the thing is don't need to know… help them kind of to guide things rather than having, again, this emotional or this reactive approach. And I think it's really going to help expand the field.

And one thing that you mentioned, Kassy, that seems really interesting. It's talking about the communications with the OTs, the PTs and IT professionals, because I don't know for yourself, but for myself, I find a lot of these people don't know even who or what O&Ms are and what we do. And having these virtual meetings, a lot of times that makes it a lot easier for people to be available and meet up with us. And we can talk about what we do, we can talk about our profession sensitise them a little bit to visual impairments. And I think it's easier than trying to organise around everybody's schedule, trying to drive over there. And I think there's a lot of room for improvement using these same kind of platforms in the future.

Kassy:
Yeah, I would 100% agree. I was really lucky that I knew and had been using zoom for years before even the first symposium in 2018. And when I was like listen you guys you literally just click a button. At first they were like no, what do I do? What do I do? I was like, oh no contact your IT but you just click a button. That’s all I do… I don't really know why it's so hard. Just like at one point, you might have to say like install but that's it. But you're right, because there's so much drive time and if you think about like O&Ms are not just like a school teacher is going to teach in a school, right. And there are, there are different kinds of schools. But basically, you go to a school, that's your setting. But for us, there are so many different types of settings, we could be at a residential school, we could be at a large school district, where we have coworkers who understand what we're doing, but we're still itinerant, but we might share like the same boss as the OTs or PTs. Or you might be contract and like, sometimes I don't know that a student has a VI teacher until I see it on the signup sheet. Nobody tells me anything like that, like, Oh, can I get that person's email address, cause I need to talk to them.

And there's so many different levels, and each team has its own dynamic, even for each learner. So you're right, like, just being at your desk, and being able to hop into a meeting with people all around the district, or it here we have counties and what you guys have maybe regions, whatever it is, is so much easier. And it takes so much less time that if people just started implementing that one thing. Think about driving half an hour there half an hour back, that's an hour out of your seven hour day, you could see a client.

Joe:
And I have a feeling. I mean, if this is the thing that we see that O&Ms are doing, and if it's successful, if it can be done virtually, and it's as good as the real thing. Well, then probably they're gonna go towards that, again, because they're reducing the driving time, right? So even if you say there's an intervention that, okay, look, I can do everything, but I could do part of it virtually, still, you're saving that driving time, okay. So rather than when you… when you go over there, rather than taking two hours, now you can say I already did one hour of this. So I'm only going to have one hour that's left to do, because I already did some of it online. And I think most likely, that's what we're gonna be seeing in the future is kind of this hybrid model. We’re gonna be doing some of the things virtually, some of the things in person. And I think it's just it's important to take an approach that it's not just the opinion of the O&M versus the opinion of the administrator, that we're taking an approach that this is really scientific approach to say, this is what works, this is what doesn't work. So I'm not doing it because I like to do it because oh, I don't like travelling, I like working at my home so I'm going to do this off from my home. But okay, this I can do from my home. And this other thing if I do it from my home, it's not going to be successful. So it doesn't make sense. So I need to be there. And I think that's the point we need to start making those kind of critical decisions at this point.

Taking A Step Forward with Joe

Kassy:  
Yeah, I think that's definitely our next step as a profession. So I want to honour this amazing conversation. Thank you so much! And honour everybody's time. One last question for you, if you could give our listeners in our community, one tidbit as far as how to take their next step forward into becoming a better O&M. What would you say?

Joe:  
I say, try it. Test it. Don't be afraid to try something new. So you have something that you're like, I don't know, if this new game, I don't know if this new technique is gonna work. Try it. And then always you can go back, you can do it again, trying to, but don't be afraid to try.

Kassy: 
Leaning into innovation, or failure sometimes is really key and critical. Well, thank you so much, Joe. This was an absolutely amazing conversation. I cannot wait to hear more about what you have to say during the symposium at your presentation. I am personally really, really, really looking forward to learning so much more from you.

Joe:
Thanks so much Kass. It's been a pleasure.

Kassy: 
Me too. Alright everybody we will see you I guess hear you… No, I won't hear you, you'll hear me in a few weeks.

Outro

You know that feeling when you've been rushing around all day. Your kids need food your students need to be scheduled. It's five minutes before your next lesson, and you have no plans. Teaching during a pandemic has had many challenges. Wouldn't you agree? One of which being it takes so much longer to plan for a remote O&M lesson, then he did to plan for a face to face lesson. But that's not a problem anymore because my friend we have got you covered. Your Allied Independence community stepped up. And we've bundled together eight remote O&M lesson plans that can be taught virtually or distance all created by your community and customizable to your individual students unique needs in five minutes or less. You want ‘em? I know you do. All you have to do is go to Allied Independence online.com forward slash remote R E M O T E and grab your copy. Eight free O&M lesson plans so you can start spending your time doing what you do best and that my friend is teaching.