By Jasmine Shaw
For The Birmingham Times
Shea Beshara remembers dreams of being a business owner long before beginning her master’s program to become an occupational therapist.
Now she gets to do both.
Beshara is founder and director of BOOST Kids, LLC., a therapist run company based in downtown Birmingham.
Better Occupational Opportunities Start Today – or BOOST — provides children with a ‘boost’ toward independence through improved skills, learned strategies, environmental modifications, and caregiver education.
Founded in March of 2018, BOOST Kids offers pediatric occupational therapy services to children ages six months to 14 years.
“Many children benefit from occupational therapy,” said Beshara. “Many of the clinics in town have waitlists, which shows the need for more families and children to obtain our services . . . we work to increase their independence and ability to participate appropriately in all environments.”
Beshara helps kids strengthen their skill sets by providing a small, intimate therapy space to treat cognitive and motor delays.
“Occupational therapy is important to children because we focus on building developmental skills that are needed for children to perform their daily ‘occupations’ at an age-appropriate level with as much independence as possible,” said Beshara.
“This is done through various treatment methods as well as client and caregiver education. In addition to the child becoming more independent with handwriting, feeding, dressing, and social skills, which is our number one goal, parents and caregivers also get a ‘partner’ in understanding their child and their child’s unique development.”
Beshara said she enjoys more than just helping the children develop. “I absolutely love meeting children and their families and understanding their personal backgrounds,” she said. “Every child and family has experienced different life circumstances to get them to their current point of need and learning these things about children and families helps us to provide the most client-centered services possible to see the most progress and growth in therapy.”
Close-Knit Relationships
Growing up in the small town of Zachary, Louisiana, where her father coached and her best friend lived right next door, Beshara developed a love for the close-knit relationships she strives to build at her clinic.
Despite the slow pace of her hometown Beshara stayed active as a child by playing t-ball, basketball, and swimming for the local team. Though she baby sat occasionally throughout her time at University High School, her interest in entrepreneurship was sparked by the kindhearted restaurant owners she worked for while attending Louisiana State University.
“…it was a small, very popular local spot where the two owners were present almost every night. It was motivating to see them run their own business, know all of the details from washing dishes and clearing tables, interviewing employees, greeting and remembering guests,” she said.
She graduated from LSU with a degree in kinesiology and then received a master’s degree in occupational therapy from LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. Beshara, 31, is a nationally registered and state licensed occupational therapist with six-plus years in pediatric OT.
After earning her degree in 2013, Beshara went on to work as an occupational therapist at a pediatric therapy clinic in Austin, Texas. After giving birth to her first child she felt unsure of her professional future and decided to stay at home for a year and put together a business plan for her own OT clinic.
“I learned a ton through my individual experiences with children and families in my first few years out of school,” she said. “I learned how to better understand children with different needs, how to engage and make strong connections with them, and build a therapeutic bond/rapport that leads to progress toward their therapy goals. Those are skills that are very hard to ‘learn’ in school, but I felt that were the most important to develop when building a career working with children.”
Children’s Yoga Instructor
She took another step toward helping children, becoming a certified children’s yoga instructor in 2016. She leads classes as an extracurricular activity at several preschools and elementary schools including Rushton Child Development Center in downtown and Creative Montessori in Homewood with hopes of expanding this component of her business in the next two years.
“Yoga provides a fun, non-competitive extracurricular to children that helps them develop skills that can help them throughout their childhood,” said Beshara. “These skills include mindfulness, self-regulation, attention, social awareness, as well as physical skills of strength, balance, and body awareness. I believe that children’s yoga fulfills a huge need that I intend to grow in order to provide these services to as many children as possible.”
Getting the clinic started meant getting a grasp of all aspects of the business like licensing and taxes.
“Knowing that I have done the hardest part of getting started and helping children and families makes me want to continue to grow until it reaches its full potential,” she said.
Building A Therapeutic Bond
After she founded BOOST Kids early last year Beshara and her team have worked with children with a variety of diagnoses and delays. Common diagnoses that she evaluates and treats include autism, sensory processing disorder, feeding delays and difficulties, developmental delay, dysgraphia, ADHD, and Downs syndrome.
“Every interaction parents have with [the team] is with a licensed and registered occupational therapist, so we begin building a therapeutic bond and rapport with the family at the first point of contact,” said Shea. “Our smaller treatment space also allows us to control the stimulation during therapy sessions to best serve each individual child.”
Beshara imagines a future where the clinic has expanded into a larger location with more therapists and services, like after school and summer inclusive extracurricular activities. Her goal is to become more of a developmental center that hosts parent seminars on various developmental topics and hosts parental support groups.
“I think that laying the groundwork first and building a good name in the community with positive therapy outcomes, positive customer service, and a personal touch is what we are focusing on now,” she said. “I am always brainstorming and looking for others in the community with aligned interests to discuss future potential.”
Support System
Beshara credits her family support system with help in growing the business, her husband, Brian, parents and in-laws.
“My husband is also an entrepreneur, so we help each other out a lot in different business areas,” she said. “He is one of the owners of Roots & Revelry restaurant and the owner of the R&R Event Space at the Thomas Jefferson Tower.”
“Brian has always believed that this was something I could do,” she said. [He] pulls out my creative side and reminds me that there are no limits to what we are trying to build, which motivates me to think outside the box when looking to BOOST Kids’ future.”
And she’s thankful to her teammates, Kacy Morrissette and Alexis Kruse, who are by her side as the business continues to make milestones.
“When my first two clients made their one-year therapy anniversaries and showed tremendous growth on their re-evaluations and testing, it was pretty cool,” Beshara said. “Also, every kind email from parents stating how impactful BOOST Kids has been in their child’s development is great!”
For more information on BOOST Kids, at 1623 2nd Avenue North, Birmingham, Alabama 35203, visit boostbirmingham.com or call 205-767-9207.
