2017 Humanitarian Award

The purpose of this award is to honor individuals or groups who, through their humanitarian activities, have demonstrated exceptional commitment to the philosophical principles of occupational therapy. The CFOT is honored to present the 2017 CFOT Humanitarian Award to Dr. Winifred Schultz-Krohn for her pro bono work with children and families at the San Jose Family Supportive Housing Shelter.

Dr. Schultz-Krohn is Chair and Professor of Occupational Therapy at San Jose State University. She earned her BS in Occupational Therapy from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Neuroscience Psychology from the University of Hartford, and a PhD in Human Science from Saybrook Graduate School in San Francisco. She has a rich career in practice, education, and research. She has shared her expertise orally and in writing. She has been involved in over 50 workshops and invited presentations and has presented many times at OTAC, AOTA and other conferences. She has authored well over 40 articles and many chapters in books.

Dr. Schultz-Krohn has demonstrated leadership in occupational therapy organizations and currently serves on editorial boards for our journals. She is also the co-chair of the CFOT Scholarship committee.

Dr. Schultz Krohn has received many awards including the Award of Excellence from OTAC, Honored Lecturer for CFOT, and San Jose State University Outstanding Professor.

In addition to her ongoing educational and organizational interests and responsibilities, she has provided occupational therapy services to the San Jose Shelter on a pro bono basis for close to 20 years.

The San Jose Family Supportive Housing Shelter is the only emergency shelter in Santa Clara County designed for families of all configurations and combinations of members. The Family Supportive Housing shelters 35 families for up to 90 days. It is a unique shelter and not just a place to lay your head down.

The shelter provides a number of supportive services and a detailed step-by-step plan to assist families to become self-sufficient. Aside from meeting basic needs such as food and shelter, the shelter provides a number of needed services such as counseling, referrals for housing, employment services, budgeting services, health care services, educational workshops and parenting classes.

In 1999, Dr. Shultz-Krohn was approached by several San Jose State occupational therapy students enrolled in an Honor’s Project course. The students wanted to work at a homeless shelter with children. They wanted to teach the children skills and run a group with parents. The students needed someone to guide them and to focus their efforts. Wynn of course said she would happily do that. She worked with the Executive Director at the shelter who was supportive of the idea of providing Occupational Therapy services at the shelter but mentioned that none of the individuals at the shelter had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! That was the Director’s conception of occupational therapy - at that time!

Wynn talked of providing individual and group sessions with the children, involving parents in parenting classes, running groups for teens and running a coffee and classes group. Wynn also felt that the shelter would be an ideal psychosocial fieldwork setting for an occupational therapy student. One of her faculty colleagues, Dr. Gigi Smith, suggested that 2 students were better than one as they could lend support to one another. Wynn designed the summer fieldwork experience and recruited donors to provide stipends for the students.

Under Wynn’s guidance and supervision, the fieldwork students provide individual and group sessions for the children, teens and the parents. In addition to the groups already mentioned, occupational therapy services focus on mindfulness, work readiness, money management, and fostering parent-infant bonding.

Wynn also developed a summer day camp for 7-12 year old children at the shelter where teens can serve as “Junior Counselors”.

Wynn gave time, effort, and planned meaningful interventions for numerous families in her nearly 20 years of service. She taught and broadened students’ perspectives in working with this population. Through her research she enriched the knowledge base in occupational therapy. She is a leader in our field and she has pioneered models of care for the homeless population. She has helped all of us understand some of the issues involved in the population of families who are homeless and also to respect the coping strategies identified in this population. Wynn received a regional Jefferson Award in 2011 for this volunteer commitment. It is a great pleasure to award the 2017 Humanitarian Award to Dr. Winifred Schultz Krohn for this important work.

2017 Honored Lectureship

The CFOT Honored Lectureship was established to recognize occupational therapists in the state of California who have demonstrated leadership, promoted ideas and vision in occupational therapy for the profession, and to provide the occupational therapy community an opportunity to hear them speak at a public gathering.

Ada Boone Hoerl was the 2017 CFOT Honored Lecturer. She is currently the Program Coordinator and Professor of the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program at Sacramento City College. She is the first COTA to be named a CFOT Honored Lecturer!
Ada received a BS Degree in Newspaper Production Management from Rochester Institute of Technology, an Associate of Science Degree from Sacramento City College and a Master of Arts in Education/Special Education/Adult Learners from California State University in Sacramento. She enjoyed a successful career in Newspaper Production prior to becoming an occupational therapy practitioner. Her journey on the career path is as follows. She came to Sacramento to accept a job at the Sacramento B news organization. In Sacramento, she regularly visited a good friend who was hospitalized. She scanned the bulletin boards at the hospital and saw a number of advertisements for occupational therapists. She was no stranger to health careers as her mother was a social worker and her grandmother a nurse. She was not familiar with occupational therapy and went to the library to learn about the field. Once she found that occupational therapists helped people function in life, she was sold! She learned Sacramento City College had just started a program for Occupational Therapy Assistants - Ada applied and was in the 3rd graduating class - graduating with highest honors.

Ada has had work experiences in many disability areas including acute rehab, trauma and intensive care, sub-acute rehab, long term care, adult education, traumatic brain injury and hands. She has worked in a locked psychiatric facility and served as a site coordinator for an Easter Seal Project. It is a varied and rich practice career.
Ada’s pursuit of a MA degree in Education/Special Education/Adult Learners had a major impact on her. Her Master’s project involved using Dunn’s Model of Sensory Processing. She created a self-regulation program for community college students receiving disability services with the aim to improve academic success for these students. The program was developed at Sacramento City College in collaboration with Disabled Students Programs and Services. The program incorporated sensory modulation strategies for adult learners. One aspect involved supervising OTA students in Level I fieldwork to act in the role of a coach with students who have impairments that affect cognitive and or psychosocial skills. The program is now in its 7th year!

This program framed her sabbatical work in 2015 in which she developed a resource manual and formalized procedures for having OTA students function in the role of coaches addressing self-regulation and management activities.
Ada has made numerous professional presentations on leadership and other topics at annual conferences of OTAC and other organizations. Her publications include information on working with families and caregivers of elders in textbooks for the COTA. She has also been active in occupational therapy organizations in a variety of roles including AOTA/ACOTE roster of accreditation evaluators, ad hoc committees for CBOT in revising the definition of OT practice and OTA leadership in emerging practice, AOTA Ad Hoc committees on faculty shortages and Procedural and Organizational Change.

Ada was selected for an Academic Leadership Fellowship by the AOTA/AOTF and in 2015 she received the OTA Honorary Award from OTAC. She was selected to represent OTAC and the profession on the OT Centennial Float in the 2017 Rose Parade.

It was an absolute pleasure to have her as the 2017 Honored Lecturer. Ada’s lecture was titled “Context, Mindfulness, and Resilience: A Journey through Grief”. Ada told us that she had lost her husband, Don, to cancer 1 1/2 years ago. In the journey of trying to recover from grief and loss, she presented us with an extensive bibliography of references used in researching the Grief Recovery Process. The journey was personal and academic as well. She presented findings in the literature in such a manner that literature statements came alive in this context and became highly relevant. The tying of personal, professional, and academic themes was beautifully integrated. Her lecture was meaningful and powerful and following the lecture, many in the occupational therapy community commented that they hoped she would publish it.

CFOT Meritorious Service Award

The purpose of this award is to honor an individual who has demonstrated exceptional effort on behalf of the CFOT for over five or more years and who has made a major impact on the mission, goals, and objectives of CFOT in the present and for the future.

At the CFOT Award/Symposium Luncheon on October 20, 2017 in Sacramento, CFOT President Linda Florey, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, was presented with the Meritorious service Award for her dedication and long-standing service as a CFOT board member since 1981. She chaired the CFOT Steering Committee from 1981 – 1983, served as Secretary from 1981-1991, and was Member-At-Large from 1991 – 1998. Dr. Florey then began serving as CFOT President in 1998. Since then, she has facilitated the CFOT board and committees in their activities that align with the Foundation’s mission to enhance the knowledge and quality of occupational therapy services through supporting occupational therapy research and educational endeavors. Dr. Florey has made significant contributions to the profession, not only as a leader in different capacities, but also as an OT practitioner, mentor, and role model. She has served with grace, humor, and a positive outlook. We wish her the best, and we know we will hear great things from her in the future. Congratulations!

Certificates of Appreciation

The CFOT was pleased to recognize Tracy Brown of ARC, Association Resource Center (ARC), for her Creative Efforts in branding CFOT. In 2012, the CFOT engaged in updating and revising the strategic plan for the foundation. One of the goals in that revision was to rebrand the CFOT and we began with our logo to mark new directions. Karen Polastri, Executive Director of OTAC, introduced us to Tracy. Tracy is the creative director for ARC and a key member of the branding campaign development team. She is an award winning and accomplished creative designer. Tracy went through many iterations of logo for us and came up with a winner! The logo is on this newsletter and on all materials pertaining to the foundation. Tracy totally reformatted our website and has maintained the website since. We are grateful for her mentoring, her patience, and her timely upkeep of the website.