Turning Passion into Profit: Animals, Aquatics, and OT Side Hustles

 Looking to turn your passion for animals, aquatics, and nature-based therapy into a thriving side hustle? Join us on "Animals and Aquatics" as we delve into the essential steps for occupational therapy providers (OTPs) looking to incorporate these elements into their practice. From gaining experience and obtaining certifications to finding the perfect practice location and leveraging technology, this episode covers everything you need to know to kickstart your OT side hustle. Tune in for valuable insights, practical tips, and expert advice to help you realize the potential of animals, aquatics, and nature therapy in your occupational therapy journey.

If you are interested in the FREE Nail your OT Niche course from this episode:
https://eponaacademy.xperiencify.io/otniche/
If you would like to join us this year in Business Barn Raising, join here:
https://eponaacademy.xperiencify.io/business-barn-raising-starting-your-ot-practice-with-horses/learn-more/

Transcript

Microphone (3- Logitech USB Headset) & Integrated Camera 0:00

Welcome to animals and aquatics today. If you've been wondering about how to get started incorporating animals or aquatics, or even nature based occupational therapy into your practice, you've come to the right episode today. Hi, welcome to animals and aquatics. I'm Gina, your host. And today we're going to talk about some of the key factors that you need to have when you're thinking about getting started in your own practice, or even as a side hustle, getting animals or aquatics or nature-based therapy started in your occupational therapy practice. Now this doesn't mean that you need to start your own private practice. That's a whole different conversation. We're not talking about starting a private practice. We're talking about how you can start incorporating some of these elements, whether that's hippotherapy aquatic, occupational therapy or nature-based therapy, either into how you're already practicing. That could be at a pediatric clinic. Or how you can get started doing it on the side. So you can get some experience in practice before you decide if you're ready to jump all the way in. I hope this will be helpful for you. And I hope to hear from you if this made a difference. We are getting ready to open up a business barn raising for this year for 2024. We will be running a summer program, only helping occupational therapy providers, OTs, and OTAs. Get started incorporating hippotherapy, into their practice. So this is something that you've been interested in. Be sure to check our link at the bottom of the show notes so you can see how to join us the summer. Now, one of the things that we found that a lot of clinicians seem to struggle with when they want to incorporate either animals or aquatics into their practice. Is do they need a certification? What kind of training do they need? And this is a really key point to start with. And I think as therapists, we're always very concerned about doing the right thing, doing the thing that our state practice act or license requires. And it's really good to be aware of those things. When we're starting to think about branching out, maybe from an area that we've been comfortable or working in for awhile and now we want to incorporate something new and. When we start to think about how we would get started with this, again, there are a number of ways, depending on what your immediate goal is as well as what your long-term goal is. So if your immediate goal is just to get experience. The easiest way to do that is to intern or volunteer with someone who is already doing it. Even if it's one day a month, you're going to gain really valuable experience doing that without incurring any of the expenses. With starting to work in that area. So if. Right now you are just looking at getting some experience. I think that's a really nice way to do it. And if you're not really sure. Which area. You want to include or get started with, because if you listened to our last podcast episode, you'll hear me talk about the mistake that we made of doing all the things and that's certainly something that can be a challenge. So. I do have a free short course online about picking your perfect practice niche. And that could be, if you were considering between incorporating animal assisted therapy into your practice versus hippotherapy,, you could look at those two and compare them, or you could look at how that would compare to nature-based practice. And that can be a helpful place to start. If you know that you want to work outside the box, you don't want to work in a traditional clinical setting. All the time you want to bring something else into your practice, but you might not be ready to go full-time so that's one way to get started that. You don't really need to focus on the certification and the training because you are working under someone else who has the certifications and the trainings needed. Now. If you were eventual, long-term goal is that you do want to start a private practice or you want to start a nonprofit and you want to move into these areas of practice full-time eventually, maybe not now, but eventually, or maybe right now, then the training piece becomes much more important. Whether that's with aquatics and you need to get a lifeguard certification. You need to have the appropriate CPR and lifesaving certifications, and you really need to take some background in aquatics. That's a good place to start. There is the ATRI certification, which isn't required, but can definitely be helpful. So thinking about where are your skill set strong already and where do you need to supplement them so that your practice is ethical? So with hippotherapy, that is included within our scope of practice. But if we think about it from a liability perspective, if you were to start incorporating hippotherapy, or animal assisted therapy into your practice, and you have no background in that area, you're certainly opening yourself up from a liability perspective. So looking at the training piece is important and often hand in hand with that is the liability insurance that goes along with that. And those are really important things to understand at a pretty deep level, because that is what is going to cover you and provide protection in the event that someone does have an incident, whether that's during a treatment session. And so it's more on your professional liability or at the facility that you're working at, and it's more of a general liability concern. So those are some areas that you would need to look into more. Now the next thing that comes up for most people is practice location. Now we do have an episode called finding your perfect practice location. And we'll admit there is no perfect practice location. I think it, even if it is your own facility, there's always things that you would change as your business grows and evolves. But there is a lot that goes into finding a practice location. So some of the OTs. I work with they have the training they've already gone through the American hippotherapy, association training. And they're really ready to get started, but they'll say I don't own a horse. Or I do own a horse, but it's in my backyard. And I'm not sure it's the right horse to incorporate hippotherapy, with anyway. So this perfect practice location piece is really important. We need to consider what population that we're most likely to be working with. What is the accessibility, both for the client to get to us as well as emergency services. So particularly when we're incorporating hippotherapy,, we're looking at the distance to emergency services as well. We want to look at what are the safety standards for that particular facility? And that can be really important in the aquatic environment as well. What are the safety standards for monitoring the pool? What are the safety standards in case of a bodily fluid incident? Right. We want to know. What those standards are, what the protocols are put in place, because often we will not be there full time, especially if we're starting this as a side hustle and doing it mostly to get experience and see if it's a viable business model in our area. And with that we want flexibility from our facilities that we're working with availability. Right. And so those two things can be really challenging because often if the facility is really flexible with scheduling, they may not have the availability that you need. And certainly working in pediatrics, we all know the biggest challenge is scheduling those afterschool hours and feeling daytime hours. So we could probably work a million hours between four o'clock and six o'clock or on the weekends. But it can be really hard to do that long-term. If you were a mom, like I am, and you work those hours, then you're missing a lot of dinner and bedtime. And it can be a challenge to figure out, how do I feel more programming? And or if I'm doing this after a full-time job, how do I find a facility that has that availability for me? And that can be true with pools as well. If they have a swim club That is there or in the summer, if they're running summer camps during the day, that can make that accessibility for the pool, more challenging. This is one of the real assets of nature based therapy. There are a lot more practice location opportunities often there's permitting involved if we're using a public place. So we may need to get permits for conducting our business in that location. But there's a lot more availability typically of outdoor spaces. They're not necessarily booked or full at certain hours during the day. And so that it does create a much greater ability for us to schedule our clients when we need to be there to have flexibility. Now with a nature-based practice, you have the challenge of the weather. And if you're at a public park often, there's a pavilion space. And so if you have the ability to use that during inclement weather, that can be a really nice backup plan. So when you're looking at those facility options, Those are things to consider now often people may have a friend who has a farm or a facility, or it might be a family member, and those can be good options too. We just want to make sure that we're still putting the business pieces in place that we really need to have to ensure that we can be successful. And everyone feels like they're being treated fairly. Because. It would be very sad to set up your business, get all your clients there, work there for six or nine months, and then have your friend or family member say, this really isn't working out for me. And then you're pretty much back to starting at square one and finding that perfect practice location. And if you have worked at a facility for a while and something changes within that facility, it could be the administration, it could be the schedule or the horses, if you're incorporating hippotherapy,. Or you take a break, right? You're at your full-time job. You need to take a break, you have a health issue, you have a baby, any of those things. And then you feel like you can't go back to that facility or they changed their focus. That shouldn't be the thing that stops you. And as I've talked to more and more therapists, they said, oh yeah, I did it for six or nine months. I loved it. I loved incorporating the animals into my practice. But now I don't have a facility to work out. That's something that really is fixable. It's doable. And it shouldn't be the barrier that it can be to so many people. And that's something that I've helped a lot of therapists walk through. In finding practice locations in their area. Assessing that location to determine. What the benefits are, what some of the challenges are, and then come up with a plan in how to handle some of those challenges. If they want to move forward. With that particular practice location. Now as we come to the next area that we would really focus on. When we're deciding. Yeah. I want to try this. I want to see what it's like to be a nature based therapist. And the summer is such a great time to do that. It really lends itself well, because families have more availability. Often school-based therapists have more availability. And the days are longer. So if you're working a typical nine to five therapy job, you still have a little bit of time after work one afternoon. And you have that opportunity to try something new. And so when we look at that. It's looking at. Okay. What systems would I need in place to handle a client from intake? To assessment or evaluation through treatment and discharge and really looking at. A lot of people get hung up on the tech side and thinking I need to have an EMR. And if I'm getting an EMR, how much is that going to cost? And I'm only seeing three clients. And I don't know if I want to have any EMR. If I'm only seeing three clients. And thinking about. That tech side of things. What technology is there that can support you? Particularly if you're doing this as a short-term endeavor, if you're doing this as a test pilot run to see if it's something that you enjoy, or if there is a need in your community. Then figuring out what is the minimum viable project level that you can work at? Is really important. And a lot of people get hung up here because there are so many options out there. There are so many great EMR programs. There are so many programs around how do we have a HIPAA compliant fax or how do we have a HIPAA compliant way of communicating with our clients? And there are lots and lots of options out there for solving those challenges for every size practice from seeing one client, to starting a full-time practice and. It's important to think about scaling or having steps as you go along, because you're not going to jump right in and get that EMR that has all the things on it because often that's going to eat up pretty much your whole profit. To start with and looking at what that break even point is a really great way to say okay. When I know when I get to eight clients, Then I'm at a breakeven point where the time that's going to be saved by getting this EMR and having it handle all of these tasks is actually going to be more beneficial than just the cost. But I know that while I'm getting my first seven clients, I have an opportunity to tweak and refine how I want to do my documentation, how I'm going to track intakes, how my system is going to work. And so I really liked that step or tier method for looking at different technology solutions for people who want to start this one day a week with one client. And feel really nervous about whether it's worth it. How's it gonna work out? What the plan is going to be with all those systems. That are normally surrounding us when we're in that therapy environment. When we walk into a job to provide therapy services all of those systems are already set up for us. And it can be really daunting to think about, especially for one client. Right. I mean really daunting to think about like, how am I going to set up all that? Where to like, what am I even going to do for intake paperwork? I don't even know where to begin with evaluation materials, and I'm not going to go out and buy an$800 eval kit for one client. And those are all things that are solvable. And there are ways to really make it cost effective and provide very high quality services to the clients that need us that want to work with us that are looking for something that fits the needs of their child or their family member. And thinking about just how you're going to organize those things are, is usually the next area of concern for a lot of therapists who are, again, we're coming towards the end of the school year, the middle of spring and thinking about summer and this is often a great time to think about that side hustle. If you're really been interested in one of these areas of practice. If you have been incorporating animals or aquatics into your practice for a while now. I often find that during the summer months we get more client inquiries. And so it's a good time to go back through your business processes. And just take a look at everything again and say, is this really functioning the way I want it to function? Where are the areas that are sticking points for clients with us? And I've been looking at one of those lately of how many people are forming a profile. In our electronic record system, how many people are completing the intake paperwork? And is there something in that process that might be slowing people down? And that's one of those things that we can really find ways to make it. So families are completing the paperwork, they're getting it done, they're getting it back to us. So we get them in our schedule and get them started, which is ultimately why they reached out to us in the first place. So if you are in that stage where maybe you've been doing this a little while and you have that feeling. That things could be running a little bit smoother. This discussion that we're just having here is a good way to think back through and think through the training aspect. Is there any area now that you've been doing it a while you would like to get more training in and certainly that's our running joke, right? Is that we always have more room for continuing education. And with that. You can look and say like, yeah, I feel like I would like a little bit more training in Kinesio tape because I want to incorporate it in what we're doing in hippotherapy, or in aquatics, cause I want to see how that's going to work with my clients. Or I would like a little more training in mental health because I'm seeing a lot of clients out in a nature based setting and I'm seeing more and more clients that have mental health challenges. Then you can look and see what's going on at my practice location. Where are the ways that it's really serving me? How am I working and fitting in at that particular facility? And. What could we maybe tweak, what do I need to ask for? What do I need to question? Where are things going really well? Do I need to revisit the contract? Those are all areas that can be really helpful if it's your own facility, the great time to do that springtime assessment and see what needs a little sprucing up. See if you can have a Workday. At your facility to spruce those things up, really make it warm, inviting, welcoming, easily accessible for the clients that you serve. And then the systems reviewing your systems again and looking to see is everything functioning the way I want it to function our clients, having a good experience from their initial outreach to us, the first time they call us, text us, email us. All the way through to discharge. And are we providing any support past discharge as well? So I hope this was helpful to you today to think about if you're interested in incorporating animals or aquatics as a side hustle or starting to take this long-term steps to getting started, that you now have a couple areas in your mind to start checking out. You want to look at training and certification. Practice location and the systems that you're going to need to get started. If you have any questions as always feel free to reach out to us or follow us on social media and send us a DM. Thanks for listening.