“Creating real life hands-on opportunities” for middle school students
Occupational therapy includes developing a multitude of opportunities that encompass a variety of areas, including critical thinking skills and valuable life skills through diverse creativity and thinking outside the box.
Lil Cupid's Café was developed with hands-on job skills in mind. Middle school students played a vital role in giving back to staff while working in a realistic, mock restaurant setting. Students were each provided with purposeful and realistic roles in order to attain a variety of customer service skills.
Occupational therapy staff collaborates closely with special education teaching staff in order to create meaningful and purposeful life learning experiences. It takes a creative and cohesive team to pull together such events that implement hands-on job skills in preparation for meaningful job opportunities with the future in mind.
The café' was inspired by “The Thankful Turkey” restaurant created by Frances Cheney, Genna Heileman and staff. Thankfully, we have wonderful, committed and supportive staff to make these kinds of special events successful!
