Meet Joanna Littler of Beelieve Pediatric Therapy in Fort Worth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joanna Littler.

Joanna, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My husband, Rudy, and I have a desire to serve and support families who have children with special needs. I worked for a home health company for a few years and always felt a little restricted by not being able to have large equipment to serve my patients and by a handful of corporate policies. The only way to truly do therapy the way I wanted was to start my own clinic. In January of 2015, we opened Beelieve Pediatric Therapy with a handful of patients. We believed there was a need for our services in this area and have seen that to be true. We’ve grown over the past 2 and 1/2 years to close to 400 patients and that doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

We BEElieve in our patients and chose the bumble bee as our logo for a reason. Science would tell us that a bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly – his wings are too small for his large body. He’s able to fly by working hard – he may not be as graceful as other flying bugs, but he’s able to get where he wants to go. The world often looks at children with special needs the same way. The world would say these kids can’t do certain things – we disagree and believe they can do anything they want. They may have to work harder and may not be as graceful as their peers – but they can get the job done! It is our goal to come alongside the family and support the child to be all that he/she can bee.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely not always been smooth sailing for us. We started the company knowing very little about all the various healthcare policies, insurance companies, rules and regulations of buying a commercial space, getting a bank loan, how to manage a group of women, etc. So, as with learning any new skill, there were bumps along the way. We still, 2 years in, run into different things that we have never experienced before, but we are better equipped now to find the answers and navigate these waters than we were when we were starting out. We have a community of people and advisors to cheer us on and assist along the way.

Please tell us about Beelieve Pediatric Therapy.
We are a full service pediatric therapy clinic that performs physical, occupational and speech therapy to children ages 0-21. We have a team of therapists that each specialize in different areas of treatment and having all disciplines in the same space allows us to collaborate together and really provide the best care to our patients. We specialize in neurodevelopmental delays, fine motor delays, sensory integration disorder, autism, apraxia, articulation disorder, torticollis, toe walking, behavioral disorders, receptive and expressive language disorders, CP, spina bifida, hyptonia, congenital disorders and more. Our therapists have a combined 50 years of experience and are specially trained in many different areas. We also offer intensive therapy services, which are unique and not offered by the majority of pediatric clinics. Intensive therapy is ideal for a child with a non-progressive neurological disorder and consists of 3 hours of therapy 5 days/week for 3 weeks. We use a dynamic orthosis, as well as the universal exercise unit in order to achieve functional goals that would take 6+ months to achieve through traditional therapy. All of our staff is knowledgeable, compassionate and ready to help your child meet their goals in regards to language, feeding, ADL’s, fine and gross motor skills so that they are as successful as they can be. In the summers, we also offer social and language camps to help your child interact with their peers while improving their language, social interactions and fine motor skills. What sets us apart is our family friendly atmosphere, the owner is a physical therapist and still treats kids most days, and a true cohesiveness among our staff. We want the families to know that they are the most important thing to us and we are there to come alongside them, encourage them and truly listen to what is important and meaningful to them and make sure that gets carried out in our therapy sessions. We also strive to provide the best resources for the families of other therapies they might need or doctors or activities that would allow them to thrive. We live for the days when parents get to watch their child take his first steps, or gets to see their daughter excel at school because she uses strategies she learned in OT or when she is finally able to utter the words “I love you”. We love what we do and truly enjoy seeing our kids be successful.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite memories from childhood all have to do with being around people I love and having fun! I loved growing up on a lake and spending every minute of daylight outside boating, fishing, jetskiing, and laughing with friends and family. I still love having fun and I try to incorporate fun into each and every therapy session! We even have a PT cheer 🙂

Contact Info:

• Address: Beelieve Pediatric Therapy Clinic
  10932 N Riverside Road, Suite 112
  Fort Worth, TX 76244
• Website: www.beelievepediatrictherapy.com
• Phone: 817-431-9000
• Email: joanna@beelievepediatrictherapy.com
• Instagram: beelievepedstherapy
• Facebook: Beelieve Pediatric Therapy

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