We think that client engagement enhances goal attainment in pediatric rehabilitation.

Our research would be among the first to create measures of client engagement that would enable researchers and service providers to look at how client engagement influences families and service providers in the pursuit of therapy goals.

In January 2014, members of the Pediatric Rehabilitation Intervention Measure of Engagement (PRIME) team were awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Operating Grant which is enabling the team to find out what client engagement means to children/youth, parents (parents/caregivers/ guardians), and service providers (i.e., clinicians, therapists, practitioners, and others who provide services), how client engagement can be measured, and the predictive strength of client engagement in relation to intervention outcomes.

MISSION: Our practice-based research will inform and potentially change service providers’ perspectives and practice with respect to understanding, measuring, and optimizing engagement in rehabilitation-related interventions.

Meet the team
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What does client engagement in pediatric rehabilitation therapy mean to us?

It’s a belief in therapy
It’s a commitment to therapy
It’s participation in therapy
It’s working towards rehabilitation goals
It’s an investment in therapy
It’s being receptive to what is happening in therapy
It’s sharing thoughts and experiences about and in therapy
It’s confidence in the importance of therapy
It’s enthusiasm for therapy

The PRIME team wants to find out:

What does client engagement mean to children/youth, parents, and service providers?

Are the measures of client engagement that we have created and are creating reliable? Do the measures ask the right questions to let us understand client engagement? Would the measures be able to show us change in client engagement over time?

Can the measures of client engagement that we have created and are creating predict levels of client engagement?

Read more about the project
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The PRIME team includes researchers, service providers, and students from:

 

The Bloorview Research Institute
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA

Drexel University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Mount Royal University
Calgary, Alberta, CANADA

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Chicago, Illinois, USA

The University of Queensland
Brisbane, Queensland, AUSTRALIA