Spotlight: Ashlyn Southard MOT
Ashlyn Southard is a recent MOT graduate from Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO.
Growing up, Ashlyn and her family would take cross-country vacations with a particular interest in visiting national parks. Her interest in accessibility on these vacations stems from growing up as the oldest of eight siblings, five of whom have disabilities. On their 2019 family vacation, she reflected on how she already felt like a park ranger because of having to modify everything that her family wanted to do, including bringing along their own homemade resource binders. From these vacations she saw gaps in staff knowledge as well as how both visitors and rangers could benefit from an occupational therapy perspective to help increase access to the parks for those with disabilities. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and on a whim, Ashlyn reached out to multiple national parks pitching her idea to increase accessibility for families and children with disabilities. When she was offered a position for the summer of 2022, she completed a paid internship at Grand Teton National Park with a focus on cognitive and sensory resources for families and staff. Although she didn’t have enough time to focus on all aspects of accessibility during her internship, she was happy to know that a team was already working on the physical accessibility of the park trails with guidance from a local adaptive sports agency.
Ashlyn created a multitude of resources for families including visual schedules, social stories, a sensory walk program to engage visitors’ senses and learn about park animals, sensory regulation resources (e.g., heavy work activities such as mimicking how certain animals walk), Accessible Chef snack recipes (e.g., trail mix), a sensory kit wish list, and more. She also provided training for rangers as well as feedback for staff on interacting with individuals with disabilities and accessibility features on their website. As one specific example, Ashlyn recalls creating social stories for popular hikes for visitors and their families, including information about bear safety, as this is especially relevant at Grand Teton.
Since her internship, the visual schedules have been incorporated into the national park servers for continued use, the sensory kit wish list is being implemented at visitor centers, and a larger training for interpretive rangers will be completed this year. Additionally, Ashlyn has been guiding a non-OT accessibility intern at Death Valley National Park using her OT lens and experience that she gained at Grand Teton. Although Ashlyn is working hard to improve accessibility at Grand Teton and Death Valley National Parks, there is a need for more resources at all the parks.
When reflecting upon her takeaways from this experience, Ashlyn shares how much she benefited from learning about the positive effects of the park resources on all visitors including information about the animals at the park, how the ecosystem functions, and the impact of climate change on all these systems. She recalls the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer as an inspiration for this mindset.
In the future, Ashlyn would love to return to a national park and be a park ranger again. She’s also interested in one day opening her own practice to work in nature-based therapy and continuing to work on accessibility resources for national parks.
You can learn more and connect with Ashlyn on her LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashlyn-southard
Spotlight written by Laurie Thompson, OTD/S