Patricia Motus, OTR/L RYT: OT in Community-Based Mental Health settings and more
In this post, we will be learning about Occupational Therapy in community-based settings and more. You will hear from the professional experiences of Patricia Motus, OTR/L, RYT a Filipina-American occupational therapist, a native New Yorker and a registered yoga teacher with 20 years of direct care experience working in community-based mental health programs in New York City focused on serving those impacted by trauma, domestic violence, homelessness, lack of access and resources, and individuals diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, and co-existing health conditions. Patricia’s clinical experience includes work with clients with mental health concerns in a variety of settings, models and programs such as hospitals, vocational rehabilitation settings, homeless and domestic violence shelters and programs, sheltered workshops, the school-based settings, adult and geriatric home care services, group homes, and other supported residential settings. Her experience and passion also extends to academia where she is currently an Adjunct Instructor at Stanbridge University’s OTA program and teaches weekly healing yoga classes at Wholistic Transitions, her Holistic OT private practice.
Show Key Points:
· Patricia gives us a glimpse of her background and interests
· Patricia describes The Uncommon OT work that she has done over the years, the settings and populations she served
· Patricia acknowledges and names OT pioneers in each setting
· Patricia describes how each position led to the other
· Patricia describes OT treatment activities and types of groups
· Patricia discusses what she’s taken away from each position
· Patricia discusses the thriving OT internship program
· Patricia discusses her Uncommon OT transition to Los Angeles
Show Notes w/ Time Stamp:
0:01 Hello OT friends and all and welcome to the uncommon OT series. Welcome to the first episode, my Episode, the episode that's going to allow you to get to know me a little bit, I'm going to be sharing with you my uncommon OT story, stories, maybe is a better way of putting that. And I thought that was a really good way of launching this particular podcast. I've been an uncommon ot for most of my career, maybe some of you have heard me actually say that, when I've had multiple uncommon ot jobs over the years. So I've had to think a little bit about how to present this to you in the most organized way. So I took my resume out, and I thought I'd kind of just talk you through it, but in a more engaging way, hopefully.
0:53 So here we go. So my uncommon, well actually, let me start a little bit by just telling you a little bit about my background, and a little bit about me. My ethnic background is Filipino American, my pronouns she/her. Although I currently reside mostly in Los Angeles, I consider myself a native New Yorker, I went to OT school in New York and was actually have been in New York since junior high school, I grew up in Queens. And Miss New York very much. I very much enjoyed travel, most of my friends and family will see that I love food. I love spending time with my people. And I also love to teach yoga for healing. I'm a yoga teacher on the side and actually had that as one of my ot entrepreneurial pursuits on the side. Some current favorite occupations of mine include gardening and learning a lot about that since the big shift to California. I love cooking. I love being a French Bulldog mama to my retired therapy dog Nino, who I'm sure you'll hear me talking about, or name dropping from time to time during the series. I also love exploring Los Angeles and New cities. I'm pretty new here and the COVID I haven't had the chance much to really explore so happy that Well, let's see, things were getting better. Not Not so much. But I was excited to begin to explore a little bit more of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. And just because I love to do that also really into design, renovations, real estate and that stuff and, you know, that sort of really excites me those particular topics. Yeah, just a little bit myself. And you know, hopefully, you'll learn a little bit more about me as we get to know each other. Through this series. I made the big move from New York City to Los Angeles right before COVID exploded and you know, was was really seen as a major threat. And that made it really difficult for me to find work or even that work. In Los Angeles, I was fortunate enough to find a position teaching the mental health course at Stanford University, I connected with an amazing OT, Jordan major, who I really enjoyed meeting and you know, really made me feel like academia might be the thing for me. And sure enough, the instincts for right I actually have taught two terms at Stanford University and look forward to returns to come. But that's a little bit of a segue. That's what I've one of the things that I've been doing since I arrived in Los Angeles. But prior to that I practiced in New York for many, many years. And many, many, I mean, 20 or so. And most of it was really working as an independent contractor for non for profits. And I'll get into a little bit of that in a bit.
4:10 My uncommon ot story began while I was still in ot school. I'm proud to say that I'm a product of the City University of New York's York College Occupational Therapy program. It was doing my level two fieldwork replacement where I was assigned to Mount Sinai Medical Center's vocational services program, where I think I really found my calling. You'll hear later that I eventually ended up working there as a licensed ot. But before that, my first job was actually just for three months right out of ot school, I was hired by a really inspiring organization called United Cerebral Palsy, where I learned so much about empathy, about communication, the importance of relating to your clients and building programs from scratch, occupational therapy was a bit unstable at that particular facility at the time. And it really required the work of another OT, who was my supervisor and myself, to set up a department and really provide a lot of services for the clients that we served. I was there for three months only because three months into the job, I got a call from Mount Sinai, asking me if I was interested and accepting a position which my field work supervisor, then possessed. She was moving or decided to she was the longer interested in that position. So he was moving on, they were interested in me, I jumped at the chance, left my job and was in heaven. So here I was at my dream job surrounded by amazing clinicians, clinicians who were social workers, vocational counselors, clients, the program believes very much in peer work and pure empowerment, and empowering individuals who are going through struggles to pursue their vocational goals, and then to employ them within the program. So it was great model, which was again, very empowering and uplifting to everyone. This particular program served individuals with severe and persistent mental illness, who are interested in pursuing vocational and educational goals. This may have involved going back into the workforce or getting training in a specific field in order to be employable, or obtaining a volunteer position out there in the community. The OTS role in the setting was to help our clients really develop skills that were centered around obtaining work, obtaining volunteer positions. So you can imagine groups, such as interviewing groups, groups, where we talked about dressing for work, actually role playing an interview at role playing, asking for a raise, individual sessions might involve, you know, helping someone build their resume, or again, roleplay, the role playing certain scenarios at work, perhaps So just to give you a couple of examples of some ot interventions within that setting, including medication management, and really, you know, making sure that your symptoms are managed, because that's a big factor in one success in the workplace is making sure that when symptoms are managed. So again, just to give you some examples of that, one of my roles was to be a job coach to some of my clients, which really meant either going on the job with them to help them learn a skill, depending on what they were comfortable with, to helping them understand the Americans with Disabilities Act and their rights and requesting for accommodations to perhaps sitting with them at a Starbucks just to talk about how the date went in managing stressors in the job, so it really did vary. Again, just wanted to highlight that was another one of my roles working in the vocational program.
8:23 The next Uncommon OT chapter led me to New York Presbyterian Hospital's IPRT program, IPRT stands for intensive psychiatric rehabilitation treatment. Another uncommon setting for occupational therapists, however, I was fortunate enough to be blessed with two other full time OTS working alongside me in this setting. I would just like to highlight Joan fader and Sarah Hertzberg spieler, as amazing mentors during during this time, both recently retired, but both really devoting themselves and their work as mental health, occupational therapists for however many years they practiced 30 maybe more, I'm not sure, but they're both valued assets to my professional growth and you know, foundational learnings as an OT, so I just wanted to make a special shout out to them. Hopefully, they will listen to this. So which brings me to New York Presbyterian, I worked for the IPRT program. Again, that stands for intensive psychiatric rehabilitation treatment. And that's a community based program funded by New York Presbyterian Hospital and I say community based because we were actually not located in the hospital. We were off site to empower the client to really explore community related things and not feel like a patient while they were getting the services that they were getting. So love that model immediately. This was a program where we offered again clients Who had severe and persistent mental illness. And ot his role was to help clients set realistic goals towards their vocational plans and create creative plans in order to achieve those goals. That meant many different things. So with a lot of role playing at work, we fit a lot of informational interviews. Encourage them to acquire resources, acquire skills, acquire experiences, that meant looking into what skills what needed to acquire or learn or develop, which really meant a lot of introspection and a lot of counseling to help one prepare for the work world. This uncommon ot job unfortunately ended due to funding loss, I believe it or not, was laid off as an OT working at New York Presbyterian Hospital, I was shocked, I couldn't believe it. I was fortunate enough to get a severance and was able to have the time that I needed to terminate with our clients who were our long term clients for a long time clients that we had relationships with clients who we had plans with. So we were at least provided with ample time to terminate with everyone and that time also afforded me the opportunity to really think of Okay, what are the next steps for my career.
11:23 So although sad, I will move on to the next chapter, which really brings me to Barrier Free Living (BFL). My third uncommon ot job venography living is special and dear to my heart. I call it my baby, but I probably should call it my adopted baby or adopted child. I inherited this amazing program from two incredible OTS named Hanna Diamond, and Tina Barth. Some of you might know, it's remarkable OTs developed an occupational therapy program with in a homeless shelter for individuals with disabilities in NYC (in the 90's, so very progressive), the first of its kind in the country. And thanks to their pioneering work because I had the platform to really develop and expand on the occupational therapy services that we were able to offer within the transitional housing program, as well as the future programs that error free living would develop over the years which I will get into more. Coming up. BFL's mission is to support individuals with disabilities to live dignified lives, free of all forms of abuse and biases. Occupational Therapy was part of all of its programs. For in total, I already mentioned the homeless shelter for individuals with disabilities. The second program is called Secret Garden. This was my second adopted child. Secret Garden is an outpatient program, where individuals with disabilities could also come in on an outpatient basis. So this was considered the non residential program. The third program where we developed ot services is called Freedom House. Freedom House is a domestic violence emergency shelter. Again, for individuals with disabilities. This was a temporary residential program for our clients. So most stayed somewhere between three to six months, which really meant that ot goals had to be tailored to that particular timeframe. So some goals involved. life skill related goals such as creating a budget, financial management, vocational exploration, parenting routines, and household management or chore charts, anything to help the household run fluidly and the beautiful things that we were able to work with these families within their temporary residential situations. The last and the latest program of barrier free living that I will talk about is BFL Apartments. After so many years, BFL was finally able to build from scratch, a permanent residential program for survivors of domestic violence with disabilities. So most of our clients from our other programs were able to really take advantage of this particular situation, as well as other domestic violence survivors and victims out there of New York City. So this was amazing. And, again, very proud to be able to build an OT program there, which I will talk about next. So working with clients in their permanent residential situations was just really quite refreshing to be Be honest at the time be able to explore other goals with clients such as, you know, career options or just other goals. Other than where are you going to go next housing, how to find housing, etc. It was really refreshing. And that brought another dimension to the types of ot goals that we were able to work on with clients in this particular setting was with BFL for 15 years. These amazing programs were developed throughout that time. I'm not sure if I mentioned that this is a part time position for me.
15:42 And this was actually the time when I embarked upon my independent contractor years, my 1099 years. In order to supplement my part time income at the time, I delve into so many different things I delved into homecare, I delved into working as a school based ot working with a couple of elementary schools in the neighborhood. I delved into working in group homes, which I actually did for many years, enjoyed very much until they closed too, housing models were changing and eventually I landed an amazing job. And I have to give again, props to Holly Wasserman, who was the person who said to me, you know, Patricia, I think you would be perfect for this job. And you know what she was right. So, Holly, thank you so much. for that. I ended up with another amazing organization called Village Care, Village Care of New York, which is what it was called, at the time, served individuals with HIV and AIDS diagnoses. And I was fortunate enough to be employed within one of their mental health day treatment programs, again, part time, but again, another uncommon ot position, I would like to also give credit to this ot position to a previous OT, who paved the way and again, gave me the platform to expand upon and develop the OT programs that were already existing. So her name is Linda Gutterman. So Linda, thank you to you for starting the Occupational Therapy Program at village care. Working at village care as an OT was an eye opening experience, to say the least. I think the work that I did there complemented the work that I did it barrier free living, which really helped me grow as an individual. And as a therapist. I think at village care serving the clients that we served, I really learned a lot about compassion, not that I wasn't compassionate before, but even more so I learned a lot about diversity. I learned a lot about inclusion, or a lot about access, rights. I learned a lot about advocacy, and preference, which again, also complemented all the things that I've learned working as a clinician at therapy, living and serving the clients that we served. Again, I would not trade these experiences for the world because I wouldn't be the therapist that I am today. If it weren't for everything I've learned working alongside the clients as well as the amazing clinicians who were a part of these teams. So at village care, we've followed a little bit more of a holistic model. And when I say holistic, we were very holistic, where the presence of a doctor or nurse practitioner and a nurse is visible, as well as holistic clinicians alongside the complement the care that they were receiving. So you found occupational therapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, art therapy, music therapy, and dance therapy, as well as nutrition as part of these dynamic teams that were working alongside these clients to help them really work on life management goals, staying healthy, being in charge of their illness and how to manage it, using a variety of ways to express themselves as we all know that that particular diagnosis carries giant emotional toll as well as helping them develop goals for the future, right again, staying healthy and having a community to go to every day as this was a day treatment type of setting.
19:45 So over the years that I was with village care, we were able to develop another occupational therapy program following the exact same model at their sister location called Rivington house, Rivington House was a residential facility and it's actually well known in New York City as well. It's closed since. But it was really a skilled nursing facility. It was a long term residential program for individuals who again were diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. So it was located in the lower east side and on the first floor of rebated house was an outpatient day treatment program. Typically, individuals who were discharged from the inpatient programs would be referred to the outpatient the treatment programs in order for them to continue to have the structure, develop goals for the future, and again, manage their lives as best as they can, and the healthiest way possible. In this setting. As OTS we met with individuals or our clients individually, and mostly through groups. Examples of some groups that we offered were wellness groups, he talked about stress management, developing coping strategies, we had group centered around cognition and cognitive remediation. That was a consequence of the HIV diagnosis. And oftentimes, we develop a group centered around cognitive strategies and helping our clients strengthen their cognitive skills in order for them to function more effectively within their everyday life. With vocational exploration, helping individuals manage their dual diagnoses. A lot of our clients also had substance abuse disorders, which made it difficult for them to manage their HIV diagnoses. However, we also explored coping strategies and really ways to help them manage their homes more effectively, by building routines and creating balance within their lives.
21:57 To my second heartbreak, I'm sad to report that this particular post also ended due to funding changes, and specifically lack of funding. This is the time history where we're seeing lots of cuts when it came to HIV, funding for HIV programs and services. So very sad to report. But again, another silver lining as far as my career is concerned, because it brought me to the next chapter. My next chapter is project renewal coming up next. I truly believe that my years at beer fee living prepared me for my role at Project renewal, I had the opportunity to work within two men shelter in Brooklyn, New York setting was part of Salvation Army's men's shelter in Brooklyn. And this was a general shelter for men of all ages 18 and above, who needed shelter for the evening. The second setting, and the second shelter is a little bit more specific. This particular shelter housed men who were 55 and over who had disabilities. So as an OT, and coming from an OT lens, it was a bit easier to identify needs for that particular population. Whereas at the other shelter, again, having such a wide array of needs and the age group, just being so large, became a challenge to really identify the specific needs or the more priority needs that we needed to address at the moment. So at the second shelter that made it a little bit more easier, just in terms of again, programming, we offer individual services, as well as groups, individual services centered around vocational planning, perhaps, development of coping skills, just helping individuals manage their stress. Living in a shelter was no picnic and really involved, you know, really effective emotional regulation skills, if I were to say it more bluntly, a lot of individuals that I had the chance to work with, were not equipped with these skills. So a lot of our interventions centered around that. So a lot of grounding, a lot of stress management, relaxation, we offer yoga offered recreational groups, as well as interventions centered around helping them just integrate back into society, perhaps into their new living environments, helping them plan for those environments, help them secure jobs so that they can have some financial security, helping them talk about budgets, helping them manage their illnesses, if any alongside all of the other goals that we're working on. So again, just to give you some examples, and some of these goals are worked on either in groups or individual sessions, I would also like to give kudos to another pioneer ot by the name of Robin Kahan-Berman, who was really monumental and instrumental and developing these ot roles within project renewal, these roles where we have the opportunity to work within the homeless population and serve their needs. So Robin, kudos to you for creating these positions. I was one of her first OTs at Project renewal. And I believe that by the time that I left, we were up to 11. So such remarkable success for the OT profession and also an incredible service to this underserved population. So Robin, kudos to you for working with Barrier Free Living and Project Renewal fueled my passion for being an OT, seeing the relevance of our service there and our services, fulfilling the needs of the populations that we served. I really feel that my experiences there, solidified and formed the type of occupational therapists that I am today.
26:22 It was difficult to leave these amazing positions, amazing jobs as OTs jobs that I'm super proud of to have had and held. I am super excited to talk about the next chapter in my uncommon ot career, which brings me to Los Angeles. Stay tuned. So, moving to Los Angeles was wonderful and tough at the same time, wonderful in the sense where the winter was quite amazing. couldn't believe how I was able to walk around and flip flops in the middle of January, coming from New York, tough in the sense where shortly after my move, this is really where COVID-19 became a big threat to humanity, and really disrupted my networking and job searching and evolution process as an OT. With that said, I had to evolve. So evolving meant exploring remote work as an OT. And I was fortunate enough to actually before it being considered remote, I was fortunate enough to get a position with Stanbridge University to teach their mental health course, in their OTA program in Alhambra, California, which was amazing. I love teaching and have guest lectured in the past, enjoyed working with students, and really love the mentoring piece of it all. And, you know, never really thought of myself as you know, teaching term or entire core. So this was a challenge, but also a challenge that I think came at a really good time because it you know, really allowed me to explore a little bit further where I really wanted to take my career, which will come next to so here I was teaching remotely, originally not meant to teach remotely, but due to society circumstances, the school evolved and school came up with a curriculum that allowed for ot a student's occupational therapy assistants to really continue with their coursework online. It was quite challenging, but at the same time really quite enjoyable. For me, I loved connecting with students again, I loved again, the mentoring, the work and being able to connect with other ot clinicians in the process, although we're very remotely at the time.
29:01 So alongside with my work as being an adjunct instructor at Stanbridge, I also had some time and opportunity to explore my personal interests and passions. And that involved yoga and really working with individuals who have experienced trauma in the past, coming from personal experiences and also from my work at barrier free living working within that population. The pandemic actually offered me the opportunity to learn to explore, to connect my passions with my skill set, and to develop an online holistic service where I'm offering integrative tools to manage stress and trauma, which involves yoga. It involves meditation And grounding. It involves some coaching, and some goal setting again work that I believe has evolved over what I've learned in my time at barrier free living, working with domestic violence survivors, and also project renewal working with individuals who may have experienced displacement or trauma.
30:21 Exploring remote work during the pandemic, I was fortunate enough to connect with a local nonprofit in Pasadena called therapeutic play Foundation, founded by the remarkable and amazing and fabulous Nakeya Fields within therapeutically foundation. As an occupational therapist, I am part of the mommy matters program, where we really serve women of color, especially those who are low income, who are likely to have fragmented care surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. Again, working with an underserved group served my passion as an OT and aligned with the needs of this particular nonprofit. Some are very proud to say that I'm currently offering occupational therapy services within this nonprofit and serving this population. Sessions involve coaching surrounding routine building time management, parenting, and managing stressors related to that parenting role or related to any conditions or stressors that they may be going through. Working with this population has, again really fueled my passion and continue to love the type of ot work that I am doing.
31:42 The next piece brings me to my mentoring work, my coaching work, and my new podcast work who knew that I would be launching a podcast as an OT. I mentioned in one of my posts that I'm not even that comfortable with the sound of my voice, much less to have the rest of the world here at right. But hopefully, the content will be more important than the sound of my voice. Or my laughs for that matter. I knew that was a whirlwind trip through my resume. And I promise that I will offer future episodes that gives you a closer glimpse to each of those positions. And in fact, I promised to bring you guests that can offer you more insight into these positions in the coming episodes.
32:39 So I don't want to forget to mention that these positions were fueled largely by an occupational therapy internship program that I ran concurrently as services were provided. And I say fueled because it was really through the occupational therapy interns that we were able to deliver our services to as many of our clients as we could. So I want to give kudos to all of the occupational therapy interns that we've had at barrier free living, and at village care and add project renewal you did for your creative ideas. And for the service that you offer these underserved populations, I have no doubt in my mind that you are all doing remarkable things out there. So kudos to all of you.
33:33 This about wraps things up. I promise again, to circle back to some of these positions, you'll hear me referring to them. I have so much more to say about each of them and the OTS role within each of them assessments groups, or specifics, things that you may be really interested in knowing so feel free to email or be in touch if you have any specific questions that you're dying to ask. In the meantime, I hope that this has brought you some insight. I hope that this has brought you some inspiration as to what our ot careers can be and the types of ot things that we could be doing. Please stay tuned for future episodes, which are available at my website at www dot holistic dash transitions.com. Also on Spotify, Stitcher, Google and Apple podcasts. So thank you again for listening. And until next time.
RESOURCE LIST:
transitionsot@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-motus-otr-l-ryt-a26a999/
Website: www.transitionsot.com
Facebook: Transitions OT
Twitter: transitionsOT
IG: @transitionsot
United Cerebral Palsy https://www.adaptcommunitynetwork.org/
Mount Sinai Medical Center https://www.mountsinai.org/care/occupational-health/services-programs/patient-services/careers-vocational-services
New York Presbyterian Hospital https://www.nyp.org/psychiatry
Barrier Free Living https://www.bflnyc.org/
Village Care https://www.villagecare.org/
Project Renewal https://www.projectrenewal.org/how-we-innovate-occupational-therapy
Stanbridge University https://www.stanbridge.edu/
Wholistic Transitions www.wholistic-transitions.com
Therapeutic Play Foundation https://www.therapeuticplayfoundation.org/mommy-matters.html
As always, I welcome any feedback from all of you or if you are interested on being a guest on future episodes, please do not hesitate to contact Patricia Motus at transitionsot@gmail.com or DM via Instagram @transitionsot
We hope you will continue to LISTEN, FOLLOW & SHARE
The Uncommon OT Series Podcast with all your friends and colleagues!
Future episodes Q & A only available here at:
https://www.wholistic-transitions.com/the-uncommon-ot-series
Happy Listening Everyone!
Become a Patron to support The Uncommon OT Series Podcast project via Patreon.
