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 Whatever the age and diagnosis of your client or your work setting, as a therapist, you should at least know how to address driving in your assessment and treatment program. The client or the family may need counseling, direction or just information on how to go about having driving skills assessed. For example, you may be a school therapist and need to answer students’ questions who have cerebral palsy, spina bifida or muscular dystrophy regarding his or her driving potential. You may be a hand therapist with a workers comp client who has carpal tunnel in both wrists or who has RSD and needs direction regarding driving. You may work with a student who has a learning disability, autism, Aspergers syndrome, ADD or ADHD and who have been turned away from typical driver education programs. The family is looking for a medical-oriented driving assessment or resource professional.
 You may work with individuals with a psychiatric diagnosis who are striving to re-integrate into the community. You may be working in a nursing home, assisted living or independent residential setting; and have older clients who have Alzheimer’s, dementia or age-related issues that may impair their driving skills. You may work in a rehabilitation center with persons who have had a spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury and need to know if he or she can drive again. In each of these settings, the therapist should be capable of providing answers, supplying information and resources, or providing evaluation and intervention for performance skills related to driving.
The success of a therapist being able to address driving issues at various levels depends upon his or her education, training, and working knowledge and skill in the specialty field of driver evaluation or driver rehabilitation. Adaptive Mobility Services, Inc. believes that a driver rehabilitation therapist can understand the client’s diagnoses (both obvious and hidden), evaluate the person's contextual factors and performance skills, understand how deficits that exist have implications for driving, and provide appropriate intervention as needed to insure the person can be as independent as possibe in driving or community mobility.
The professional knowledge and skills taught in our courses are universal and so we have had the extreme pleasure and opportunity to work with therapists from every state in the United States, as well as from Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, Africa, Italy and South America.
 Our Instructors
Our courses are taught by occupational therapists with many years of experience working as clinical therapists and driver rehabilitation therapists. Our instructors teach an industry approved process for a driving evaluation within the structure of the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework. They bring the Framework alive with discussion of real client cases and demonstrate the importance of critical reasoning and professional judgment in making final decisions about driver safety. They stress the importance of looking at the occupation of driving for each person rather than just the act of operating a personal vehicle.
Susan Pierce, OTR/L, CDRS, SCDCM & Carol Blackburn, OTR/L, CDRS are the primary instructors for our courses. They have a unique collection of slides, videos and pictures of former clients over the past 29 years. These are used throughout all our courses to allow participants to see the therapist’s skill and expert work in real life examples. It is also a proven method for enhancing the therapist's individual problem solving skills and analysis of the occupation of driving. Susan and Carol are enthusiastic about their work and have a genuine passion for increasing the number of qualified allied health professionals who can properly address the critical issue of driving and community mobility for individuals with disabilities. In 2006 we added a new workshop focusing on low vision and bioptic drivers tfor the experienced driver rehabilitation specialist. We are proud to announce Mary Ellen Keith, OTA, CDRS and Eva Richardville, OTR, CDRS as the primary instructors for this unique and exciting course. See the link to the right for more information about this course.
Adaptive Mobility Services, Inc. has offered unique, specialized courses for over 27 years. Our courses were the first to be developed in the field of driver rehabilitation and the first to offer a professional development series of educational workshops with a primary focus on driver evaluation and driver rehabilitation. Please see past participant's comments of our courses on the link to the right.
You may want to learn how to address driving as an instrumental ADL with your clients and family members or you may be wanting to get into the specialized field of driver rehabilitation to provide more direct services in this area. Adaptive Mobility Services, Inc. has made learning in the area of driver rehabilitation easy with graded courses organized in a progressional series that is comprehensive, understandable and helpful as one transitions into this specialty area of practice. By examining your current work setting and clientele served, you can plan your progression through the series of course that are appropriate for you.
WORKSHOPS LEVELS:
LEVEL ONE: Steering Your Client in the Right Direction - Addressing Driving as an IADL.
This course is designed for the OT Generalist who needs to learn how to address driving as an instrumental activity of daily living in their occupational therapy program for intervention planning. (NOTE: There are no 2008 or 2009 dates scheduled for this course.)
LEVEL TWO: Building Blocks for Becoming a Driver Rehabilitation Therapist.
This course is designed for therapists who would like to transition into the driver evaluation field. Level One would not be necessary for a therapist to attend Level Two. This course provides all of the information for starting a new driving program or updated an existing program. It also provides the information for the therapist who wishes to provide the clinical assessment for a client to determine readiness for an in-traffic assessment. In this course the therapist will learn the knowledge and skills required for developing an occupational profile, evaluating performance skills, evaluating adaptive equipment needs, writing a mobility prescription, supervising or assisting another professional with the on-road assessment, understanding the client-vehicle-equipment interface, the importance of a final fitting and inspection and how to manage risk and liability of the therapist and the driving evaluation program.
LEVEL THREE: Take the Wheel: A Driver Education Course for the Therapist.
For those wishing to provide both clinical & in-car assessments, the Level Two and Three Courses would be necessary. Participation in Level Two is required for registration to be accepted in the Level Three course; however, you may register for Level Three in conjunction with a registration for Level Two.
 Take the Wheel: A Driver Education Course for the Therapist is the only course offered in the United States by occupational therapists and driver rehabilitation therapists that provides real, in-car training. Each participant is given 1 and 1/2 days of classroom instruction on how to organize an in-car assessment, how to adapt an evaluation vehicle and how to set up a specific driving route per client. Then 2 1/2 days are spent in a real evaluation vehicle training with our therapists and practicing the skills learned in the classroom. The purpose of this workshop is to give an appreciation of the driving task, an understanding of driver education principles and terminology and knowledge, and practice in the three skill areas that every therapist should have with in-vehicle work.
Level Two and Three courses are only offered in Orlando due to the need for our evaluation vehicles, evaluation equipment, access to our clients and our instructors' knowledge of the driving environment in order to make the learning safe for the participants. You can chose to attend Level Two and come back at a latter date for Level Three or you can chose to attend them both back to back.
 LEVEL FOUR: Getting a Green Light for a Van Evaluation Program.
This course is for those interested in providing driver evaluation services for a person who must ride their wheelchair or scooter into a modified mini-van or full size van. We do strongly believe that the person performing this work should have a medical background and a good working knowledge of disability, diagnoses and wheelchair issues. We do recommend that the person registering for this course have one year full time (or equivalent in part-time) work experience as a driver rehabilitation therapist. We encourage anyone interested in registering for this course to be competent with car evaluations and car adaptive equipment before attempting van evaluations with more complex equipment and vehicle knowledge.
 Each registrant must send proof of his or her allied health background for every course (except for Level Four) by providing a photocopy of applicable license, certificate or degree with the registration form and registration fee.
CERTIFICATE OF PARTICIPATION WILL BE PROVIDED
Adaptive Mobility Services, Inc. will provide each participant who stays until the end of each course with a certificate of completion for the number of contact hours appropriate for the particular course being attended.
CONSULTATION SERVICES
If you do not find a workshop that is right for you, please call or e-mail us. If our schedule allows, we can plan a one-on-one consultation period outlined just for your needs at our office or yours to assist in your individual growth or your program’s development. We have provided on-site consultation for assisting programs in getting started or in moving through an analysis for updating old, existing program policies, procedures, evaluation techniques and vehicle adaptations. We can evaluate your clients in your own clinic so that you could learn from shadowing us and we can then observe your abilities in evaluating other clients with feedback and recommendations given. Finally, our resourceful and helpful staff is available to you for personal consultation time either on the telephone or through e-mail. All you need to do is purchase one our Consultation Key Cards for a pre-paid period of time. Our staff can then assist you with individual cases or questions as they arise and you need guidance or advice.
REGISTRATION CONFIRMATION AND HOTEL INFORMATION
LEVEL THREE AND FOUR WORKSHOPS HAVE LIMITED ENROLLMENT. There is NO on-site registration for any of our courses.
Due to the popularity of our Level Two and Three courses, space cannot be held for any potential registrant without receiving the fee payment first. After receiving your registration form, fee, and proof of professional background; we will confirm your registration by letter or e-mail and at that time provide meeting location and hotel information. The workshops are held at a hotel where we attempt to reserve guest rooms at a reasonable rate for the Orlando area. We make every attempt to use hotels within a night room rate range of $79 – 120.00. You will receive specific hotel information for the course and dates that you are registering for with the confirmation letter.
REFUNDS
A refund is not offered for the Level One course but is available for Level Two through Four less a $75.00 administration fee. A written letter on formal letterhead must be received within 15 working days of the workshop date that you are registered for in order for a refund to be available. The letter must state the person’s name who is registered, who the check must be made out to and what address it should be mailed to. Adaptive Mobility Services, Inc. reserves the right to cancel any workshop with due cause and refund in full.
FOR MORE COURSE OBJECTIVES AND DETAIL, CLICK ON THE WORKSHOP YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BELOW:
Level One:
Steering Your Client in the Right Direction - Addressing Driving as an IADL.
Level Two:
Building Blocks for Becoming a Driver Rehabilitation Therapist
Level Three:
Take the Wheel: A Driver Education Course for the Therapist
Level Four:
Getting a Green Light for a Van Evaluation Program
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