News from OPAF
A letter from the Treasurer
Happy March! Spring is right around the corner and just like everyone else, I am really looking forward to a new season and getting back to offering the First Clinics to all the communities we serve. I joined the OPAF Board as Treasurer in December of 2019, and shortly afterwards, all of our activities and clinics came to a grinding halt. Despite the sudden change, OPAF took the opportunity to rebrand our website and social media platforms, to reinvigorate and refresh our educational material, and renew alliances with our supporters and participants. We are READY and able to launch all the new material we have waiting in the wings.
I am not a clinician or therapist, but my family roots in O&P run very deep. I have been the IT & Marketing Director at Dankmeyer, Inc for over 30 years. My most rewarding experience has been to hear the stories of our clients, and to share them with others on our website and social media. I am so happy to be able to contribute doing what I do best, in a largely administrative support role, freeing our clinicians and educators to do what they do best. OPAF’s programming offers a wide variety of opportunities to earn CEUs, with education that targets prosthetic/orthotic rehabilitation using introductory level adaptive sport and mobility skills. By combining a robust didactic effort with participants in a hands-on session, professionals go home with skills that can be applied directly to their clinical practice to improve patient outcomes, and participants get that feeling of participating in an event at an introductory level that shows them “Yes, they can!”
Strength, confidence and resiliency are the building blocks for successful rehabilitation and participation in physical fitness and a variety of life skills, while living with limb loss or limb difference, or some other mobility impairment. We thank you for your continued support to fulfill this mission, making a difference to members of our professional communities and the communities we serve. We are excited to move forward this year, giving us the opportunity to renew old friendships and create new bonds, once again in person!
INSTRUCTOR SPOTLIGHT
Say hello to Britt, one of our First Dance Instructors! Britt has been involved with OPAF since 2017 and is a licensed dance and fitness instructor, teaching ballroom dance and Zumba classes. Britt has traveled to Pennsylvania, Texas, and Indiana teaching First Dance classes and loves the experiences and people she gets to meet. She also worked with OPAF during the pandemic to provide free resources for the community. She created online dance classes during the pandemic to encourage people to continue to dance. Britt is so excited to go back to teaching First Dance classes in-person again!
Outside of OPAF, Britt works as a medical biller at a physical/occupational therapy office that serves individuals with neurological disorders. She currently resides in the Metro Detroit area She graduated magna cum laude from Oakland University, where she earned her degree in Health Sciences and Exercise Physiology. At Oakland University, she assisted teaching dance classes to individuals in the Parkinson’s disease program. Throughout the years, she has worked as a physical therapy aide, and as an office manager at a physical therapy office. Her combined clinical and administrative experience makes the perfect fit for a First Dance Instructor.
Additionally, Britt volunteers behind-the-scenes to create engaging social media posts on OPAF’s Facebook and Instagram pages. She believes that everyone should hear OPAF’s mission because she has seen first-hand the great impact it has on the individuals it serves. Britt performs advocacy work for individuals with disabilities and chronic illness, and that fuels her “why” at OPAF. Thank you, Britt, for being a wonderful asset to OPAF!