Children, Youth and Families SOPC
Contribute to pediatric occupational therapy practice
The Children, Youth, and Families (CYF) SOPC aims to positively contribute to pediatric occupational therapy practice. We choose engagement in education, advocacy, research or other forms of scholarly activity with an increasingly diverse population of children, youth, and families. We seek to sustain these types of scholarly activity while appreciating the diverse settings and activities in which they need and want to perform and participate to orchestrate meaningful lives. We engage to promote application of theory, evidence, and authentic family and stakeholder engagement, to enact best practice occupational therapy evaluation, intervention and advocacy, and outcomes measurement. We actively explore new approaches to designing and implementing best practice to meet the needs and enhance service experiences, access, and inclusion for an increasingly diverse population.
Advancing technology for pediatric care
Mary Khetani directs the Children’s Participation in Environment Research Lab (CPERL). The CPERL team cares about leveraging authentic stakeholder engagement and diverse methodologies to advance conceptually grounded, evidence-based, and innovative digital health solutions that advance family-centered and participation-focused pediatric (re)habilitation.
Learn more about Mary’s scholarship
Email mkhetani@uic.edu
URL https://uicollaboratory.uic.edu/4171-mary-khetani
Promoting family engagement in early childhood
Ashley Stoffel’s scholarship includes promoting family-centered services to young children and families in diverse early intervention and community settings. Ashley is the director of the UIC OT Faculty Practice: Children, Youth & Families. She is the UIC OT discipline and training coordinator for the Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities Program at UIC.
Learn more about Ashley’s scholarship
Email astoffel@uic.edu
Understanding and improving coordinated health and educational services for children and youth with disabilities
Sabrin Rizk focuses on understanding and improving equitable care coordination across health and education systems for children and youth with disabilities and their families, beginning in early childhood. Sabrin uses diverse data sources (e.g., population and programmatic) to examine social and structural barriers to coordinated medical home primary care and educational service use through early intervention and special education for children and youth on the autism spectrum.
Learn more about Sabrin’s scholarship
Email srizk@uic.edu
Student members
Student members are central to the collaborative. They work with faculty to learn how to design and conduct innovative capstone projects that are responsive to the needs of community partners.
Students
| Class of 2025 student members | Class of 2026 student members | Class of 2027 student members |
|---|---|---|
| Lucy Chesla | Lauren Dimayuga | Gianna Buffano |
| Andreea Guler | Feba Elayadom | Natassia Celnik |
| Alexis Klima | Jenna Frizzell | Lauren Frame |
| Jessalyn Medina | Sarah Gruettner | Bren Guerrero |
| Talia Neuhaus | Caroline Klose | Janaki Patel |
| Jocelyn Tam | Keya Patel | Maya Smith |
| Lilyanna Patton | Sydney Swenhaugen | |
| Ashley Tafur | Alexa Vetos | |
| Cara Younkin | Eliza Zarebski |
SOPC in action
We celebrate our first six student members this week as they prepare to publicly present on their capstone projects at our first-annual ‘Creating Tomorrow’s Practice Poster Symposium‘. We are excited for them to take the stage and lead their audience in meaningful knowledge exchange.
Our preview video below describes projects that have been designed and implemented to be responsive to the needs of nearly 5 major hospitals and community-based sites in the local Chicagoland area. Projects range in scope from developing educational resources to support the use of assistive technology and coordinate family-centered transitions into and out of early intervention, to integrating trauma-informed care in the workflows of pediatric providers. Students successfully accessed their faculty advisor, site mentor, capstone coordinator, and peers within this SOPC for mentorship in rigorously conducting their projects this year in ways that shape the scholarly agenda within our SOPC.
As our Class of 2025 student members worked to deliver on their projects, our next group of nine members in the Class of 2026 started to define the scope of their capstone projects this Spring and another nine members from the Class of 2027 join the collaborative. Stay tuned to learn how the next group of capstone projects take shape in ways that live up to the high expectations set by our first cohort of students.
Class of 2025 Capstone Project Preview
Questions?
Questions?
Want to learn more about the Children, Youth and Families SOPC? Curious how this collaborative fits in with your career and education goals?
Contact Mary at:
Email mkhetani@uic.edu