Workload advocacy in school-based practice: A how-to guide for practitioners

In 2014, the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), and American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) jointly released a statement urging school-based providers (SBPs) to transition from a traditional caseload model to a workload model (AOTA et al., 2014). This shift has become imperative in contemporary school-based practice. The profession has embraced an educational model of practice that expands the roles and responsibilities of occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) that are inadequately served by the caseload model. Continuing under a caseload model narrows SBPs’ scope of practice and limits the provision of services to students with individualized education programs (IEPs), resulting in poor job satisfaction because of insufficient time to complete essential tasks.