Serving theatregoing children with special needs: Implications for inter-professional collaboration

ABSTRACT Aim Arts, culture, and entertainment venues routinely serve children with special needs. For this needs assessment, we surveyed a range of venues to understand the knowledge and confidence of staff who work with children with participation challenges, and explored how occupational therapists could help them optimize children’s participation. Significant relationships existed between knowledge of conditions and confidence in meeting the needs of children with participation challenges. This also revealed what participants felt they needed in order to provide quality experiences, including facility assessments, proactive preparation, program development, and staff education. Participants believed collaboration with occupational therapists could help achieve this.