OT's Mental Health Response to the COVID Pandemic: Promoting School Participation, A Trauma-Informed Approach

Amanda M. Rodriguez, OTD, MOT, OTR/L

Amanda M. Rodriguez is a practicing occupational therapist with an identified passion for mental health care across the lifespan. Amanda has worked as a mental health professional since 2007 working with adults with severe and pervasive mental health diagnoses in a community-based setting. For the last six years, she has worked as an occupational therapist providing care to adolescents in group home care as well as working with children and families in the continuum model. Amanda recently transitioned into school-based practice work in late 2018 at a small, intensive therapeutic school in Massachusetts. In all areas of practice, Amanda deeply values the therapeutic use of self, sensory-based interventions, and trauma-informed care in supporting the individual’s capacity to achieve. Since 2014, Amanda has also served as an adjunct professor at Bay Path University in the occupational therapy department. Presently, she also provides consultative services as an occupational therapist to Medically Involved Mental Illness (MIMI) adults living in residential care.