Outdoor Kids Occupational Therapy Group in Berkeley & Oakland, California
Berkeley groups meet in Tilden Regional Park.
Oakland groups meet in Joaquin Miller Park.
All group times and locations are listed on the application. You may rank them in order of preference when you apply.
Your child will build motor skills, grow more confident, make friends, and connect with nature in our Outdoor Kids OT group! Children never know it’s therapy…they just think it’s FUN!
All groups are led by licensed occupational therapy practitioners who are certified in the ConTiGO (Connection & Transformation in the Great Outdoors) Approach, a science-backed methodology for providing outdoor therapy for children.
Our therapy groups are intentionally formed by our therapists based on the children’s needs. Groups consist of 3-5 children who are receiving OT services to address motor skills, attention, social skills, and/or sensory processing.
Outdoor Kids OT Groups help kids grow:
Coordination
Balance
Endurance
Core strength
Fine motor skills
Body awareness
Visual-motor skills
Climbing, jumping, running
Sensory processing & integration
Confidence
Problem-solving
Safety awareness
Focus and attention
Sharing their true opinions
Courage to try hard things
Feeling valued and worthy
Grit, determination, & perseverance
Connection
Listening
Making friends
Enjoying PLAY!
Emotional regulation
Cooperating with others
Contributing to a team effort
Noticing and loving nature
Outdoor OT for kids who need some extra support.
Our groups have benefitted a wide range of children including those with:
• ADHD
• Autism
• Anxiety
• Sensory Processing Disorder
• Motor skill challenges
• Social-emotional challenges
Many children in our programs have no diagnosis at all but just need time to work on skills … just like adults might go to the gym to get stronger or take classes to learn new skills.
Our groups are skilled therapy intervention that won’t feel like “therapy” to your child.
Here’s What You’ll Get:
🌳 Weekly 90-minute Outdoor Occupational Therapy Group where a licensed OT practitioner supports your child to build essential skills and make friends while playing outdoors and connecting with nature.
➡️ Initial Occupational Therapy Assessment of your child’s individual strengths and challenges, so that we work together as partners for your child’s progress.
💞 Collaborative Goal Setting Session with your therapist, so you can be sure the therapist is planning group activities to address the goal that is most important to your family.
👋 Weekly Group Video Re-Caps from your therapist, so you'll always know what happened in the group and you'll have lots to talk about with your child!
📲 Private Parent Consult Calls with your therapist to discuss your child's needs and collaboratively find solutions to support your child so you’ll have specific strategies to carry over skills from therapy into home and school settings.
📝 Personalized Progress Report at the end of each semester so you clearly see your child’s progress!
RATES for California Group Services
Our group packages include all of the above elements because every single one is critical to getting great outcomes from group therapy. Current rates are:
-Registration fee - $100
-Pre-group initial OT assessment (required yearly) - $208.
-Re-assessment (includes parent call and progress report at end of each semester) - $208.
-Groups - $31 per 15 minutes.
-1:1 consult calls with therapists - $52 per 15 minutes.
Fall semester runs August-January
Spring semester runs February-May
Payment for Outdoor Kids OT Groups
We are a private pay therapy practice because this allows us freedom to practice in a family-centered way, offering comprehensive packages of services that would not all be reimbursable by medical health insurance.
If you have out-of-network benefits through your medical insurance, we offer superbills (paid-in-full invoices) should you wish to submit to your health insurance after services have been provided.
We allow families to pay for services in installments of smaller monthly payments over the course of the program.
We offer scholarships for low-to-moderate income families when funding is available. Please indicate this need on your application and we will get in touch to discuss the scholarship process after your application for services is received.
Some families have successfully negotiated for Regional Center of the East Bay (RCEB) to provide reimbursement for our services. Speak to your case manager to inquire about this option.
To be a good fit for our groups, we look for children to:
1.) Stay within 10-20 feet of the group.
2.) Follow verbal or visual directions. (Most of the time. We know kids are kids!) 😊
3.) Participate at their own level without demonstrating behaviors that significantly and repeatedly disrupt the experience of other children in the group.
4.) Have basic safety awareness to be in a wild, unpredictable nature setting with an adult nearby but NOT always within arm’s reach.
Group therapy is truly different from individual therapy. In a group therapy model, the needs of the overall group are prioritized over the needs of any one individual. This is why our therapists form our therapy groups intentionally, based on a review of each child’s application to determine goodness-of-fit in a particular group.
If your child is not quite ready for a group, we welcome you to apply for our individual therapy services to get them ready for group participation at a later date.
If you have questions about goodness-of-fit for your child, fill out the application and we’ll review it together.
Application Process for Outdoor Kids OT Groups
We fill our groups through an application process rather than direct open enrollment to the public. This is part of our therapeutic process and allows us to intentionally form groups that are balanced for the needs of each child in the group.
All details on current group services are in the application. Groups run in school-year-long sessions from August-May.
If we do not have a group spot for your child at this time, your application will remain on the waitlist for your chosen groups. You will be notified via email if a spot opens up later on. We add services and hire staff based on our waitlists.
It is free to apply.
All you have to do is fill out the application and our admin team will be in touch via email.
