My daughter has three ei therapists that come to our house. Two of them have been coming since she was just a few months old (she will be 2 in Feb). The speech therapist has been coming for the past couple of months. I think I gave the PT and DV cookies last year. I'm wondering what other people do, if anything, for therapists? I was thinking of giving them little loaves of pumpkin bread and a small gift certificate, but I'm not sure what kind.
I think that's an awesome idea. I usually make a pamper yourself little basket. I make cookies and truggles, bath salts (really really easy), and other bath stuff. I think that just the acknowledgment of what they do is the most important things to most people.
I used to buy unique gifts and gift cards. Now I do the easy thing and give everyone Target gift cards. I figure everyone can find something they need or want there.
I do home baked goodies for the therapists & their families, a range of everything I bake. I also put in little recipe cards for the sweets if they want to make them later. I already have the recipes saved on my hard drive, so I just pring them out on cardstock and put some christmas stickers on them. I usually have an assortment of the following: Honey nut Cheerio treats, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, fudge, cherry chocolate cookies, peppermint bark, ginger bread, pumpkin bread, candied nuts, and chocolate covered fruit (whatever is on sale).
My recipe cards are already printed out. I buy ribbons & packaging after christmas every year, so I really just have to do the baking. I also make notes when the therapists tell me about their kids so I make things tailored for them (i.e. our ST is lacto free and has a child with a cashew allergy, so I bake accordingly)
Baked goods are good as long as you check with the therapists for allergies, etc. I got a bunch of baked goods last time that I couldn't eat and while I appreciated the effort, I couldn't eat any of them.
My favorite things are gift cards to a bookstore or an educational place like Lakeshore, or something I can use on a regular basis like a nice mug or water bottle.
We've done a lot of the things recommended here, but we've had easily 6 therapists at any one time. The one that became most like family, we got her a large, LL Bean tote with her initials on it to carry her toys, etc. It was inexpensive enough and we ordered it early enough. Worth it for the work she did. We had one other therapist later (an ABA therapist) that we did a smaller tote for (she only had papers to carry really).
Both loved them.
We also did a gift certificate to Lakeshore Learning or Toys R Us for the ones that have toys to bring. They flipped over that because they have to buy their own stuff.
I thought about doing gift cards so they could buy toys, but my dh thought that I should get something more for the therapist. I deal with them more, though, and I think they would like a lakeshore or toys r us gift card. I also have to decide how much is a good amount. I'm buying for so many people this year that things are really adding up!
As a school ST, I was thrilled when parents remembered me at all. I personally don't trust baked goods from my students, but I might feel differently if I knew the parents well and was in their home on a regular basis. A $5 giftcard for starbucks with a nice note in a card is nice. The other ST I work with gets plants, candles, boxes of candies/chocolates/cookies. Gift cards for toy stores or some place like superduperinc.com or linquisystems.com are also nice (at least for the speech therapists).
A little something is SO appreciated by these therapists. I agree with people about a small gift card. Dunkin Donuts is popular around here, because even $5 will get you a few cups, and it's easy to keep in your car for those bad days.
I am crafty so last year I made our main teacher a resin necklace charm, and this year I made crochet flower coat pins with a picture of their kids on it. So far they seam to like them
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