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Working as a school-based therapist, you are required to complete continuing education units (CEUs) for licensure renewal. More importantly, it keeps your knowledge fresh to support your students as their needs evolve and you grow in your career.
At Kelly Pediatric Therapy, we quickly learned that finding CEUs specifically for school-based providers was challenging. That’s why we started to create our own, focusing on the whole child. Yes, we get them approved through the licensing bodies. Even better? We provide them for free to our providers.
Key takeaways.
- CEUs are essential for maintaining your credentials and staying current with evidence-based practices. Understanding what's required for your clinical specialty is essential, as requirements often vary.
- Many challenges can arise when searching for the right CEUs, including a lack of specialty-specific courses, differences across licensing boards, and affordability.
- Kelly Pediatric Therapy helps make continuing education more accessible by providing free monthly CEU opportunities, flexibility, and more.
Why continuing education CEUs matter for pediatric therapists.
Lifelong learning helps you strengthen your skills and provide high-quality support to the students you serve. While requirements vary by field, therapists must complete CEUs to maintain their licenses or certifications.
Staying engaged in learning not only supports improved outcomes, it also helps you build confidence to provide high-quality care throughout your career.
In working in healthcare, it's critical to stay up to date with new research, evidence-based practices, and changes within your field. As you explore new strategies, you'll refine your clinical approaches and better support your clients.
Understanding pediatric therapy CEU requirements.
Continuing education requirements vary by clinical specialty and other factors. Since states typically regulate related services credentials, the required number of CEUs can differ. Your licensing or credentialing board dictates how many CEUs you need and the timeline for completing them.
Related Services
For example, an occupational therapist (OT) in Alabama must complete 30 contact hours every two years, while Virginia requires only 10 contact hours during the same renewal period.
While the number of required CEUs differs for related service therapists, such as occupational therapists (OTs), speech-language pathologists (SLPs), and physical therapists (PTs), these credits are generally interdisciplinary. Each component strengthens the others and emphasizes treating the whole child.
Behavioral Health
National credentialing boards often have specific continuing education requirements that vary by profession. For instance, a board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA) must complete 32 CEUs every two years.
BCBAs and registered behavior technicians (RBTs) have separate training focused on developing skills, strategies, and ethical practices within their scope of care.
Regardless of your discipline, finding new CEUs that align with a school-based specialty is not always easy, though credentialing boards do post options.
Common challenges in finding pediatric therapy CEUs for school-based providers.
Finding the courses that offer enough depth in pediatric therapies, let alone for school-based settings, is difficult. Here are some of the issues our providers have encountered over the years:
- A lack of specialized content: Many CEUs apply to broad populations. This means, you might rely on broader CEUs that do not directly align with your focus area.
- Conflicting board accreditation rules: Even if a course is relevant to your specialty, one licensing board may accept it while another might not.
- Late career concepts: After 20 years as a therapist, it’s difficult to find new material that expands on what you’ve done.
- High cost: Advanced, specialty-specific workshops and live training programs tend to be more expensive per credit hour.
How do I find CEUs relevant to school-based therapy?
No matter your clinical specialty, you can’t submit the same CEU twice. So, even if the instructor is different and there’s a whole new group of active participants, you may not repeat. You must complete new courses or learning activities each renewal cycle to meet your professional requirements.
Planning ahead helps you avoid the stress of completing your CEUs at the last minute.
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Credentialing bodies often list upcoming CEU opportunities on their websites.
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Our clinical directors share useful, affordable CEU courses relevant to pediatric work.
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Search the internet. Here are a few we found quite quickly:
Pro Tip: Don’t procrastinate! If you need 32 credits in a cycle, that’s basically 32 hours. Some of our providers have shared that they’ve spent three full days staring at a computer watching online modules to achieve 32 credits.
Does Kelly Pediatric Therapy offer free CEU courses?
As you grow in your career, we are here to support you with relevant, ongoing CEU opportunities at no cost to our active providers.
We offer related services providers all the courses needed during the first two years with Kelly. Our behavioral health therapists need 16 credits, and we provide about half of those internally.
Kelly Pediatric Therapy provides CEUS on many topics, including:
- Sensory Integration & Processing
- Behavior Management & Emotional Regulation
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) & Neurodiverse-Affirming Practices
- IEP Writing, Implementation & Evaluation
- MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports)
- AAC (Augmentative & Alternative Communication) & Assistive Technology
- Executive Functioning & Cognitive Skills
- Early Intervention and Pediatrics
- Parent coaching and strategies for family buy-in
- Legal and regulatory compliance (e.g., suicide prevention licensure, education law)
Our monthly course schedule makes it easy to spread your CEUs throughout the year—and avoid procrastination! We also provide a multi-session School-Based Academy CEU program for those new to or wanting a refresher about school-based therapy.
Natalia Pierwola-Gawin, DPT, is a school-based physical therapist working with Kelly Pediatric Therapy. She found our CEUs to be excellent resources as she started working with us.
> Watch Natalia’s entire story.
Grow your career with Kelly Pediatric Therapy.
At Kelly Pediatric Therapy, our mission is to support dedicated therapists like you, so you can make a difference for children and families in our schools, clinics, and communities. We offer resources, mentorship, and real opportunities for career growth—plus a true work-life balance. Learn more about all the ways we support our therapists.
Explore our PT, OT, SLP, and behavioral health opportunities in schools across the country.
