Sensory Integration Education

The Association of SI Practice (ASIP) is a community built by ASI practitioners to focus on the real-world implementation of SI principles and strategies, bridging from theory into practice. It allows us to support each other in the “doing” of SI, working out how to get the most value for our service users from our knowledge in all the tricky and not-like-the-textbooks settings in which we work. 

It is a community of practice for everyone who wants to explore more of the SI way of understanding the challenges our clients encounter. The group is for people at all stages of their SI training and those who have an interest and passion for all things sensory and would like support in adapting the approach for the real world. Cathy Maguire, an Advanced SI Practitioner with a physiotherapy clinical background, is the Director of Membership Services for SIE and has led the development of ASIP. Her vision for an inclusive online global sensory integration community of practice sets the tone for ASIP. We are, she says, “a friendly, inclusive and evidence-based group of professionals, from a wide variety of different professional backgrounds and areas of work. ASIP is a great group to belong to for accessing regular continuous professional development activities, and a fabulous place to go for support and networking with others.”

Every month, ASIP members access online recorded webinars, live workshops and courses produced exclusively for the group, and so much more besides. Members also get a 10% discount on all the other SIE CPD courses and webinars (not including the modular training pathway) and ongoing access to researcher grants and the ASIP community of support.

ASIP Journal Club

One of the key benefits is the ASIP Journal Club which is hosted by Dr Greg Kelly, an occupational therapist, an early pioneer of SI, a SIE fellow and a visiting fellow at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), and Amy Stephens, an Advanced SI practitioner with a speech and language therapy background, and a skilled and inspiring online speaker. We proudly describe it as the journal club for those who don’t think a traditional journal club is quite their thing. In fact, the traditional journal club sessions are just the tip of the iceberg. Focusing on areas and topics which the members have identified in their own clinical practice, including autism, mental health, trauma, the Club also provides webinars, curated reading lists and a wide range of contextual materials and discussion groups in a safe, inclusive, supportive, online learning environment that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. It is a space that you can dip in and out of as your time allows, to support your evidence-based practice and get practical advice and support from a community of practice with fellow clinicians. 

While we all know we need to keep our knowledge and understanding up to date and to stay abreast of recent research, for many of us appraising articles critically and linking our reading to practice can be a difficult skill to master. The ASIP Journal Club is a great way to build your confidence and skills in reading and understanding up-to-date research papers on useful topics. Each cycle of the Club focuses on a different topic through a wide variety of different learning activities. As an ASIP member, you can join in as much or as little as you like, with plenty of variety, no matter what your preferred learning style might be - and all of the previous topics and resources are held as an archive for members to dip into whenever they need. 

Live Online Study Group

Every other month we pick a couple of useful recent papers on our topic and run a live online study group in week two of the month. Greg Kelly tells us: “In November 2021, we started with the topic of supporting Autistic Adults with two papers that both explored women with autism. There was also an exclusive interview with one of the authors, Moyna Talcer. In January 2022, we looked at two papers on the theme of SI and Anxiety. This was followed with an implementation group meeting in which we discussed a related case study.”

Gina Daly is an Irish Occupational Therapist and is one of the ASIP Journal Club organisers. Gina shares her experiences of the Club so far: “Working clinically in a paediatric disability community team and maintaining ongoing CPD is sometimes a juggle. The atmosphere in the study group is very open and interactive. We are all together on a zoom call sharing, listening and learning. The facilitators of the live sessions are really skilled and make you feel at ease. I am really enjoying the sense of connecting with other therapists from across the globe and taking some specific time out of my month to focus on a CPD topic and activity. Being part of the team is a stimulating and rewarding experience. I am able to share my love of research with others on an ongoing basis which is just brilliant”. 

Exclusive Interviews and Workshops

One of the advantages of ASIP membership is exclusive interviews, webinars and workshops with international SI figures, and this is augmented with specialist interviews and content from world leaders in the Journal Club topics. This month, ASIP members loved their exclusive online interview with Canadian OT and ASI expert Kim Barthel, who described how she has built on her early ASI training with Jean Ayres to incorporate new knowledge around anxiety, trauma and overwhelm to create a holistic and responsive SI practice.

Kimberly Elter, an Australian Occupational Therapist, Advanced SI practitioner, and ASIP Journal Club organiser interviewed Kim Barthel, and the interview is available for ASIP members to access at any time. Kimberly is about to begin her dissertation with SIE and Sheffield Hallam University and knows exactly what it is to go through the modular pathway while working clinically. Working full time in a private practice in Sydney Australia, she works with a range of children who have complex behaviour, trauma and developmental needs. Kimberly supervises a number of therapists within the practice as well as facilitating university study placements. Her practice is informed by both a relational, developmental and sensory perspective. Kimberly shared her thoughts on why therapists should join the Journal Club:“As therapists, we are constantly being asked to justify why we are using the interventions and approaches we are using with clients and what has informed our decision-making process with clients. The ASIP Journal Club provides an informative and personable opportunity to engage with other professionals and discuss relevant literature on a range of topics”.

Implementation and Support

In week four of an ASIP session, there is a live online implementation group, where we work through case studies together and share information and ideas to inspire you with ideas and strategies to support children and adults. Emer Broderick, who works as a Children's Occupational Therapist in Independent Practice in London, as well as Clinical Mentor and eMentor on the SIE Modular pathway, is one of the Advanced SI Practitioners organising the Journal Club. Emer comments: “I am very excited to be involved with ASIP as it enables me to network with other clinicians interested in ASI and to keep up to date with current research and thinking around ASI. The Journal club offers a positive, non judgmental environment for learning which also focuses on practical ways to implement the learning from the research. Participants will come away with an increased knowledge of the research and hopefully plenty of ideas to consider for their clinical practice”.

This view is echoed by Karen Forrest, independent Occupational Therapist and Advanced SI Practitioner from Bedfordshire in the UK, who is also an ASIP Journal Club organiser: “It is such a fabulous opportunity to be able to hear from experts in their fields. It is worth keeping an eye on the discussion forums during the month. I would also encourage you to join the skills workshop at the end of the month, which allows us to take a look at a case study in more depth and discuss ideas for implementation into practice. CPD done with an easy record to refer back to”. 

How to Take Part in ASIP

ASIP is for everyone interested in working within an SI frame of practice or wanting to learn more about the potential of an SI approach - whether you work in education, healthcare, social care or other specialisms and settings. You do not need to have completed the modular training pathways to join us. If you are currently on the training pathway, or have finished in the last few years, however, ASIP is going to be invaluable to you. Amy Stephens reflects: “The ASIP team have many years of supporting and mentoring clinicians through the modular pathway and we know first hand that tension between feeling excited and inspired to get going but also perhaps feeling a little daunted about what might or might not be possible in your clinical setting. I think this is especially the case for clinicians who are the first or only SI-trained person in their setting. That’s what ASIP is for: to bridge the gap between what we know we could do as evidence-based practitioners and what we have the time, skills and confidence to do.” 

It is a core principle that SIE is a not-for-profit organisation, and ASIP shares this people-first commitment. The group has a minimal monthly membership fee, currently £8.99 for therapists and £5.99 for non-therapists, with SIE subsidising the majority of the costs to ensure that we can access the very best speakers and learning opportunities for the group members. This means that for less than the price of a coffee, you can meet all your SI CPD needs and get support and help from the whole community. As Karen Forrest remarks: “I was so impressed when I read about how the Journal Club was to be run and what it would offer that I wanted in! It is just such a fabulous way of sharing the responsibility to maintain up-to-date skills in a manageable way. Everyone is very approachable and by working together we should be able to translate the research in a way that raises standards of practice whoever our client group is and at whatever level we are working to. We will have the opportunity to develop our critical analysis skills along the way. It is great to have access to some people who are knowledgeable in running something like this - I wish it had been available when I was doing the earlier modules.”

On Monday 28 February, the ASIP Journal Club started exploring its third topic: ASI in circumstances where “Fidelity” isn’t always possible. 

To find out more about ASIP watch this video from Gina Daly: 

Click here to find out more and join ASIP and the ASIP Journal Club.