Lending a helping hand

Rorie Scroggins has a job with Shelby County Schools that many people may not even know about.

Scroggins is an occupational therapist, one of eight in the school system.

She said that as a child she was always creative, and her mother, who was a speech pathologist, mentioned the career to her, thinking it might be a good fit.

“I knew that I loved kids and loved people and was leaning toward the medical profession,” Scroggins said. “I knew I could use my creativity and artistic ability to help kids.”

After attending Samford University followed by graduate school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she was part of the first masters’ degree class in 1999. She completed an internship at the Civitan-Sparks Center at UAB and spent time working at The Bell Center in Homewood.

Scroggins was also part of a new program at UAB called Constraint-Induced Movement therapy, which consists of a family of treatments that teach the brain to “rewire” itself following an injury to the brain.

“I was working with students who came from all over the world,” she said. “We were the only people doing this. If someone had lost function in one side of their body, we would cast the side of the arm they could use and make them use the other side to create neural pathways.”

Scroggins would work with a student for six hours a day for three weeks. After being at that job for 18 months, she came across a job listing in the Shelby County School System. She applied, was hired and has been there since 2002.

Alabama law states that if a child ages out of early intervention and they continue to need services for which they qualify, they then can receive those services from the school system. Scroggins said that some stay in the system until they are 21 years old, depending on their needs.

“I go into homes and day cares and some kids come to the school. It depends on what works best for them and is their least restrictive environment,” she said.

With occupational therapy, the goal is for each child to be as independent as possible and as successful as possible within the schools, she said.

“Their occupation as a student, whether a preschooler, elementary or high schooler, changes as they get older. With preschoolers, we help them develop the things a preschooler needs to do, like being able to put on a coat, washing their hands, stringing beads, stacking blocks, drawing pictures and writing letters,” Scroggins said.

Occupational therapists have an expertise in task analysis and are able to assess each child and break down the work they need to do.

“I want to make it fun and disguise it as if they are just playing,” she said. “When it comes to the classroom, we help them build skills and also go into the classroom and work on things they're already working on.”

She comes alongside the bigger team of other teachers, aides and parents to collaborate ways to best assist each child.

Scroggins serves three elementary schools in Shelby County: Elvin Hill, Wilsonville and Chelsea Park. She is at a different school every day according to how many students she is scheduled to see, while also juggling her home and day care visits.

Although she has been at her job almost 20 years, she still enjoys it and said she has the unique opportunity to see her students grow over years, and that feels rewarding to her.

“Because I am part of the preschool team, so often those students end up at my elementary schools,” Scroggins said. “I did a 3-year-old evaluation on a student when I was pregnant with my daughter, who is about to be 13. Then one day, I walked into the National Honor Society induction and that student was in it.”

Scroggins enjoys walking alongside students and their families and getting to be a part of their lives. She said she is there at the beginning when parents receive their child’s diagnosis and can tell them success stories of other children similar to theirs.

“When they get in the right hands of teachers and therapists, I can be encouraging and to let them know sometimes the road is hard and challenging, but I get to say we’re going to see some good progress.”

When she’s not working, Scroggins said she always has her hands in something. In 2019, she created the illustrations for her friend Sally Dollar’s book, “The Gumball Lottery” and is currently illustrating a children’s book for a teacher at UAB. She enjoys spending time creating art and hosting art camps during the summer.

Scroggins lives in Mt Laurel with her husband, Shelby County Manager Chad Scroggins. The couple are celebrating their 20th anniversary this summer, and they have two children, Max, 16, and Evie, 13, who both attend Chelsea schools.