{"id":7844,"date":"2018-01-31T14:02:42","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T19:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/?p=7844"},"modified":"2018-01-31T14:02:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T19:02:42","slug":"families-at-the-helm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/families-at-the-helm\/","title":{"rendered":"Families at the Helm"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Children\u2019s Therapy Center, Gay Lloyd Pinder \u201968 and her two cofounders pioneered techniques of family-centered therapy for children with neuro-developmental issues.<\/h2>\n

By Martha Park M.F.A. \u201915<\/p>\n

Gay Lloyd Pinder had never lived away from home when she arrived at Hollins College in 1964. \u201cBasically, I grew up at Hollins,\u201d she says, \u201cI arrived there as a kid, and I left there independent, confident in myself, and with a real excitement about life ahead and the world that was out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

She graduated in 1968 with a degree in philosophy, and although she \u201creceived a superb education, I wasn\u2019t going to land a job with a degree in philosophy.\u201d So she set out to find what she wanted to do. \u201cI had an eagerness to go and see the world,\u201d she remembers.<\/p>\n

Pinder\u2019s father was a minister. A woman in his congregation suggested Pinder reach out to her sister, who\u2019d founded a therapy home in Huemoz, Switzerland, for children with cerebral palsy. \u201cThe town was so small we couldn’t find it on a map,” Pinder says, \u201cbut my parents, bless their hearts, put me on a plane. I\u2019d never been on a plane, but off I went, and I was there for two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

She worked as an aide at Chalet Bellevue in exchange for room and board and $25 a month. By the time she flew back to Virginia, Pinder knew what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. In 1972, she received a master\u2019s degree in speech and language pathology from Boston University.<\/p>\n

After graduating, she returned to Virginia to work at Petersburg Training School, a facility with 2,000 residents and two speech therapists. \u201cI always say that was the largest caseload I ever had in my life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Over the course of three years at the school, Pinder learned she wanted to work with kids before they became institutionalized. She moved to Maine to work in a home-based program. During this period she took a neuro-developmental treatment course (NDT) focused on working with kids with neuromuscular problems. This course was pivotal in Pinder\u2019s professional development and would be the basis of her later teaching.<\/p>\n

From Maine, she moved to Seattle. She didn\u2019t know it yet, but she\u2019d contracted a viral infection and was losing her hearing. \u201cIf you have to go deaf,” she says, \u201cSeattle\u2019s a great place to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she lost her hearing, Pinder went to a local community college to learn sign language as quickly as she could. She also went through a training program to learn how to use an interpreter. At the same time, she was working at a clinic with physical therapists Nancy Hylton and Sue Hudson. The three therapists shared a dream of opening a small clinic in which services were needed most.<\/p>\n

\"photo

One of three Children\u2019s Therapy Centers; this one is located in Kent, Washington.<\/p><\/div>\n

“The three of us had enough work experience that we knew what we wanted in a place, and what we didn\u2019t want. We started what we thought would be a tiny private practice.” Within several months, it became clear that Children’s Therapy Center (CTC) would be larger than they’d ever imagined, and would need to be restructured as a nonprofit. \u201cThat was in 1979,\u201d Pinder says, \u201cand we\u2019re all still here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its beginning, CTC has grown to employ 160 people at three sites, with a fourth site on the way. \u201cWe were outside the box from the beginning,\u201d Pinder says. \u201cFrom a managerial perspective, we wanted it to be a place where everybody who worked here owned it\u2014so no hierarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also wanted to change therapy culture as a whole, to put families \u201cat the helm,\u201d Pinder says. In this model, ultimately \u201cthe therapists see themselves as guests. The chief in the program is the family, and as the child grows up it becomes the child.<\/p>\n

“In 1979, the norm was that children would get therapy three to five times per week. One day would be physical therapy, another speech therapy, another occupational therapy. We did not want that model,” Pinder says.<\/p>\n

\"photo

Pinder (center) with Sue Hudson and Nancy Hylton, founders of Children\u2019s Therapy Center.<\/p><\/div>\n

Instead, all therapists would work together, cotreating the child, with the parents actively involved. Parents would learn how to give physical therapy while changing a diaper, or feeding therapy during snack time. \u201cOur whole goal was to see them once a week, so the rest of the week was theirs,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In other words, they wanted to treat the whole child. \u201cIn the early \u201980s,\u201d Pinder says, \u201cthat was out of the box. And now, that\u2019s best practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took about seven or eight years for Pinder to lose her hearing completely. By 1985, she was deaf and had to make a decision. \u201cI\u2019m either going to stay in my field\u2014I\u2019m not sure how I can do that\u2014but I also love what I do. I\u2019m a speech therapist,” she says. \u201cBut a deaf speech therapist is an oxymoron. So I said, \u2018I\u2019ve always wanted to be a car mechanic.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And she set out to do just that, beginning to look into a program to study car mechanics. That\u2019s when the staff of CTC asked if she would consider becoming the director. \u201cCar mechanics would be, I\u2019m sure, very fun,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I decided I was going to give this a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shifted her professional focus from speech to augmentative communication (AAC) and oral motor\/ feeding therapy. Today, she says, “People know me as a feeding therapist. That\u2019s been another fascinating journey.”<\/p>\n

Pinder says she is a much better therapist, now that she is deaf. \u201cAs a deaf person, my concept of communication is so different than it was when I was hearing. It\u2019s broader, and I\u2019m acutely aware of the power of communication and what happens when people are unable to communicate for whatever reason.”<\/p>\n

In 1994, Pinder graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of Washington\u2019s Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. For the next two decades, she would participate in a collaborative effort between the University of Washington and CTC, studying the development of prelinguistic signals in young children with neuromuscular challenges.<\/p>\n

Today, Pinder is gradually cutting back her work. “I realized if I don\u2019t step back, nobody\u2019s going to have the space to step up,\u201d she says. \u201cI have absolutely adored every minute of my career.\u201d The highlight of her work has been \u201cthe power of empowering. To empower a family to empower a child, that\u2019s been remarkable to watch. And in my teaching, to empower the therapists I teach.”<\/p>\n

\"Photo

Pinder using the feeding therapy techniques she and her colleagues developed.<\/p><\/div>\n

When Pinder graduated from what was then Hollins College, she couldn\u2019t have imagined all the lives she\u2019d go on to change, the clinic she\u2019d one day found, and the contributions she\u2019d make to the field of neuro-developmental therapy. But when asked about her start at Hollins as a philosophy major, she says, \u201cHollins is the best thing that ever happened to me, no question. Hollins gave me myself. It prepared me for the world.”<\/p>\n

Though she no longer has an active caseload, she still teaches all over the world. Last year, she received the award of excellence from the Neuro-Developmental Treatment Association. She does monthly consultations with younger CTC therapists and the children they work with. And she has a few ideas for her next project. \u201cThe Children’s Therapy Center is so strong,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause of the management style, the concept that the center belongs to everybody. That\u2019s the book I\u2019m going to write.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martha Park is a writer and illustrator from Memphis, Tennessee.\u00a0 She received an M.F.A. from Hollins\u2019 Jackson Center for Creative Writing and was the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University\u2019s Stadler Center for Poetry.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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