Therapy Innovations now provides Specialized Consultative Services—commonly called SCS—for children, teens, and adults participating in North Carolina’s Innovations Waiver. The NC Innovations Waiver is a Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services program for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities. SCS is different from traditional outpatient therapy. Instead of focusing only on direct treatment, our therapists evaluate the individual’s needs, develop practical recommendations, and train the caregivers, family members, and support staff who work with the individual every day.
Our goal is to help the entire support team understand what to do, how to do it, and how to use therapeutic strategies consistently during everyday routines.
Our SCS Services
Therapy Innovations offers Specialized Consultative Services through three therapy disciplines:
Occupational Therapy
Our occupational therapists help individuals participate more successfully in daily routines at home and in the community. Recommendations are individualized to the person’s abilities, environment, routines, preferences, and support needs.
Occupational therapy consultation may address:
- Sensory processing and self-regulation
- Activities of daily living, including dressing, bathing, grooming, and feeding
- Fine-motor and visual-motor skills
- Mealtime plans
- Environmental modifications
- Daily routines and transitions
- Adaptive equipment
- Positioning and upper-extremity support
- Safety and independence
- Caregiver and direct-support staff training
- Strategies for individuals whose sensory, motor, or functional needs affect behavior and participation
Physical Therapy
Our physical therapists help individuals improve their safety, mobility, physical access, and participation in daily life. Our therapists work with the individual’s support team to develop realistic strategies that can be carried over throughout the day.
Physical therapy consultation may address:
- Walking, transfers, and functional mobility
- Balance and fall prevention
- Strength, endurance, and coordination
- Positioning and body alignment
- Wheelchair and mobility equipment needs
- Home and community accessibility
- Safe lifting and transfer techniques
- Gross-motor development
- Caregiver and staff education
- Participation in recreational and community activities
Speech-Language Therapy
Our speech-language pathologists help individuals communicate more effectively and participate more fully in relationships, routines, and community activities. We believe that every person deserves a reliable way to communicate. Our team helps identify communication methods that are practical, meaningful, and accessible to both the individual and the people supporting them.
Speech-language consultation may address:
- Functional communication
- Social communication and social routines
- Augmentative and alternative communication/ AAC both high- and low-tech systems
- Caregiver and staff training for AAC implementation
- Communication breakdowns and frustration
- Following directions and understanding daily routines
- Expressing needs, preferences, choices, and emotions
- Mealtime, feeding, and swallowing concerns when appropriate
- Creating communication supports for home and community environments
Why Choose Therapy Innovations?
A Truly Collaborative Therapy Team
Therapy Innovations is a multidisciplinary practice offering occupational, physical, and speech-language therapy. When an individual has needs that overlap across disciplines, our therapists can collaborate to develop a more complete and coordinated plan.
Communication, mobility, sensory regulation, self-care, safety, and participation often affect one another. Our collaborative model allows us to consider the whole person rather than looking at one isolated skill.
Experience With Complex Needs
Our therapists work with individuals who have a wide range of developmental, physical, sensory, communication, feeding, and functional needs.
Practical Recommendations for Real Life
Recommendations are only helpful when they can be used consistently. We take the time to understand the individual’s home, routines, caregivers, staffing, available resources, and daily challenges. Our therapists focus on strategies that are functional, realistic, individualized, easy to understand, appropriate for the home and community, and sustainable for caregivers and support staff.
Training That Builds Confidence
We do more than provide a list of recommendations. Our therapists explain the purpose of each strategy, demonstrate how to use it, observe caregivers or staff practicing it, and provide feedback. We want everyone involved to feel confident carrying the plan into everyday life.
Person-Centered and Family-Centered Care
The individual remains at the center of every decision. We listen to the person, family, caregivers, and support team to identify what matters most to them. Our recommendations are designed to promote independence, self-advocacy, meaningful communication, participation in home and community life, greater confidence for caregivers and support staff, and improved overall quality of life.
Who Can Benefit From SCS?
Specialized Consultative Services may be helpful when an Innovations Waiver participant:
- Has difficulty communicating basic needs, choices, or preferences
- Needs an AAC system or additional support using an existing device
- Experiences sensory needs that interfere with routines or participation
- Needs assistance becoming more independent with daily activities
- Has mobility, positioning, balance, or transfer concerns
- Requires adaptive equipment or environmental modifications
- Has caregivers or staff who need training in therapeutic strategies
- Is experiencing a change in abilities, health, environment, or support needs
- Needs a coordinated plan that can be used consistently across caregivers and settings
- Has functional challenges that are not being fully addressed through traditional therapy services
SCS may support children, adolescents, and adults, depending on the person’s approved Innovations Waiver services and Individual Support Plan. If your loved one is experiencing challenges with communication, mobility, balance, transfers, sensory regulation, self-care, daily routines, feeding, use of adaptive equipment, or participation at home and in the community, Specialized Consultative Services may be able to help. Speak with their care coordinator about the concerns you are seeing and ask whether an SCS referral may be appropriate.