On Thursday 28th and Friday 29^th March, 25 enthusiastic individuals congregated at the The Solas Bhride Centre, Kildare Town eagerly ready to undertake the Therapeutic Listening course. 

It was a two-day workshop presented by US based Occupational Therapist and founder of Vital Links, Sheila Frick. With over three decades of hands on experience, Sheila’s background of working with her own caseload inspire the topics that she brings to her workshop. Her passion is helping children and their families, particularly with ‘sensory processing dysfunction, sensory integration and auditory interventions’.

Therapeutic listening appears to be especially useful for occupational therapists working with clients with sensory processing disorders. What is so interesting about the approach is that it does not require a certain sequence or formula to follow, the sessions are very much geared towards the goals and needs of the particular child using it. Therefore, it is very much up to the therapist to establish the best way to apply clinical reasoning skills to select the most appropriate albums for each specific session.

Over the course of the two days, Sheila provided a balance of theory and application of learned theory through appropriate use of case studies.

We arrived nice and early to meet Sheila and were delighted to hear how happy she was to be in Ireland.  Lots of chitter chatter echoed in the room, as people registered and helped themselves to the freshly brewed tea and coffee and delicious scones, it allowed people the opportunity to reacquaint with familiar faces, or to simply network with likeminded individuals.

Some of the highlights for us was the usefulness of watching the videos and thinking of our own caseload. It was very beneficial to see the children before and after intervention of therapeutic listening to see the positive gains the children had acquired from it being implemented. We agreed after the course that it would be a fantastic tool to use with some of the children that we currently see.

It was fantastic to see that parents have the option of downloading the material, instead of having to buy the discs, which is a great idea and a more portable way of using the material.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable two days at the workshop and are delighted to now be fully trained in certified in Therapeutic Listening. Here’s what some of our successful course attendees thought of the workshop:

‘It was informative and excellent. Great to go away with a full library to put in to practice’.

‘Excellent interaction and questions answered well. Good Flow’.

‘Very applicable to my caseload. Sheila also offers support afterwards which is really helpful’.