FHS 2013 grad serves children from birth to age 18

By Lori Fischer Thorp

Correspondent

When Dr. Jessica Reishus Davidson, OTD, OTR/L earned her Frazee High School diploma, the 2013 grad knew she wanted to work in healthcare.

“Originally I was thinking of becoming a pediatrician, but even a year into college I was wondering if I wanted that,” she said, because she wanted to see her patients regularly. 

After obtaining her Biology degree at the University of Minnesota Duluth, that passion for connection led her to complete a Doctorate of Occupational Therapy at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, S.D.

“You get to see your patients weekly, build relationships with them and help them work toward their goals,” she said of her career.

She did her first rotation in Rapid City, S.D., where she often traveled to reservations to provide services, and then did a rotation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

“For my capstone project, I developed a trauma-informed practice protocol, really a guide to help train therapists how to provide best practices at the time,” she said.

With her degree under her belt, Davidson and her fiancé, Tai, lived with their dog, Scout, and Tai’s cat, Ducky, in a camper in Oregon for 18 months, while she did travel therapy on a contract which ended in June. 

Since March, the couple has been planning their next steps, which included their September 9th wedding and the recent launch of her business, Sprout Therapy Services, LLC, based out of the couple’s recently-purchased log home between Frazee and Vergas.

“We got all the big things done,” she said of the Davidsons’ past year.

“We really wanted to move back to the area,” she said. 

Davidson grew up near Dent, and her husband is from Grafton.

“We like the lakes and trees,” she said. “It’s a great place to be.”

Her business name “Sprout,” she explained, refers to the term for new neuroconnections in the brain, as well as growth in the natural world. 

“Nature is a big part of my life,” she said. 

She added that natural settings can also be very beneficial for families with children struggling with self-regulation or other needs. Establishing relationships and learning through play are also building blocks for progress.

Occupational therapists help work on “things you do in your everyday life,” Davidson said, such as “playing, eating, going to school, things like that.”

An example, she explained, might be a four-year-old who is a picky eater. 

“They’ll get referred to me, I’ll do an evaluation to look into a ‘why.’ Is it sensory so they have difficulty with textures, or oral motor (moving food in mouth, etc.,) or core strength because they’re so weak so it’s hard to sit at the table, or fine motor so they can’t use utensils and only eat finger foods?” she said. 

Once that’s understood and a therapy plan is set, she works with the child “60 minutes once a week until they meet the goals or we revisit the plan. There’s usually a three-month plan, then we revisit that and see if we need to set new goals.”

“We can work on so many things for daily activities,” she said, “like a five-year-old working on toileting and then writing their name for the first time. We can do a lot of sensory things, like messy play.” 

For more information on the value of messy play and other tips, follow Sprout Therapy OT on FaceBook.

“It really depends” on what the child’s needs are, she said. “That’s why I like my job, there’s not really a boring day.”

For the business end of her venture, Davidson has support from her husband, who has a business degree and works remotely for Marvin Windows as the liaison between Technology and Human Resources.

She’s currently considered an out-of-network provider while she is working on getting credentialed with insurance, which takes 60-90 days, and she has a wait list of clients who want to use insurance to pay for services.

In Minnesota, she said, “you can refer yourself, which in this case is the parent reaching out,” or the referral can be made by someone such a family practice provider or speech therapist.

Davidson offers a complimentary 15-minute consultation to make sure occupational therapy is the right fit for the child and family. 

My services are delivered in the home or daycares,” Davidson said. “I travel all through Becker and Otter Tail County and also offer telehealth, which really exploded with COVID. I graduated with my doctorate in 2020, and right out of the gate we were doing telehealth.”

“It’s really rewarding,” she said of her field. “Sometimes I feel like an impostor, but then you say something the person never heard of and realize, ‘ok, what I’m doing is helping and it matters.’ The more I study and learn, relationships are really important in working with kids,” she said. 

She experienced that first-hand while attending Frazee-Vergas schools, where staff “know you and your parents,” and it’s a model she seeks to duplicate in her work.

“The relationship in pediatrics is with both the child and the parent or caregiver,” she said. “I love when parents want to be part of the session and have questions answered right then. Parents are the key. I like to foster that. “To me, it makes the most sense.”

Davidson used the example that she is with a child working on skills such as eating just once a week, in comparison to the adult in the child’s life, who eats with them on a daily basis.

“I’m usually the listener in my roles, that’s also how I build relationships, too. I try to understand their experience, where they’re coming from,” she said. “I use a lot of different strategies, usually I have a goal in mind. I like when kids get to be creative, and I offer some choices or incorporate their interests, and incorporate movement. A lot of it is play-based, too.”

Often, people don’t realize the value of play in making progress, but to emphasize its importance, Davidson quoted Dr. Karyn Purvis: “Scientists have recently determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain—unless it is done with play, in which case, it takes between 10-20 repetitions.”

“That’s a statistic I always love to refer to,” she said.

To keep her knowledge current and expanding, Davidson is part of professional organizations and networks with other providers. 

“It’s always so interesting, working on things throughout your day, you might connect with a speech therapist, dentist or nutritionist, for example,” she said.

Davidson has gratitude for “the environment we were raised in. Everyone kind of knew everybody, and it felt like a safe place growing up. My parents (Jay and Kim Reishus) are really great, and the school was very supportive…If I wanted to be on the track team, I was just on the team, there were no tryouts. Everyone had opportunities. That’s just something unique about Frazee.”

She’s also enjoying “being beyond the chaos and busyness of this fall,” and having full-sized appliances after the couple’s long stint in a camper.

On their way back to Minnesota, Davidson said, they made some stops including working at Adam’s Camp, a therapeutic summer camp geared towards children with special needs.

“It was awesome,” she said, and had features such as a huge paddle board on which a wheelchair could be carried.

She has envisioned her business since 2015-16, and after she gets it launched “the right way,” she said, “I have a lot of different aspirations. I’ve dreamt about doing camps which is a way bigger project. I want to have an inclusive environment, and I’ve dreamt about doing sensory classes such as for groups of moms…there’s a lot of benefits to infant massage…I have a lot of different ideas, I just don’t want to do it all at once like I did with buying a house, getting married and everything.”

Davidson concluded that before she works to make more of her plans reality, she’ll “tap into the community and find out what people’s interests are.”

To schedule a consultation or for more information about services provided, go to www.sprouttherapyot.com.