Practical Access Podcast

S8 E3: Inclusive Impact with Andrea Piazza

• Eric Imperiale • Season 8 • Episode 4

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In today’s episode, Drs. Lisa Dieker and Rebecca Hines have a conversation with Andrea Piazza. Andrea Piazza graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She is passionate about working with underserved communities such as individuals with special needs, eating disorders, complex trauma, and members of the LBGTQIA+ community. Andrea has served as a substance use counselor and therapeutic movement practitioner for individuals with special needs, in addition to her experience as a psychotherapist in many settings throughout the Central Florida area. Andrea uses a combination of trauma-informed therapeutic and has dedicated herself to providing effective individual, family, and group therapy to meet the needs of individuals and their support systems.

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Lisa Dieker:

Welcome to practical access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines:

And I'm Rebecca Hines. And Lisa, I know that today's guest is bringing us not only some of the summer fun ideas, but also an area that I think is pretty interesting. And I'm looking forward to hearing from her.

Lisa Dieker:

We're excited today to have with us Andrea Piazza who is an inclusive impact therapist and runs multiple roles. So we're gonna let her talk about that as we go along. But we're super excited to have her and she's also a UCF Knight, Go Knights, and graduated from the master's program. It is our first time to have the chance to hang out with you. But we're really excited to have

Andrea Piazza:

That's such a great question, I think I would start with to have summer fun having a plan. So I think (A) knowing your resources, so to the best of your ability, like do some research, find out what's out there. And really develop a plan, I think what I see a lot with my patients and with families that I work with, is kind of like I want to do something, I want to do something, I

Lisa Dieker:

So what's the one thing you'd recommend that go like of all the things you've seen families stress? What would be the one like put this on your plan? First, what's what's the thing that you've seen most helpful to put on that plan? If you have some thoughts there?

Andrea Piazza:

Typically, it comes down to accessibility. So it's this thing I want to do going to be accommodating and accessible for my loved one, depending on the disability or the special need that they live with, like, what do I need to know about the space to know that I can go there and function and if something does go wrong, that it's all going to be okay,

Lisa Dieker:

great. That's some great advice. And as a parent of a kid with Tourette's, I wish she would have given me that advice. Because you know, you make an assumption that everywhere you go is okay. And then you're like, well, the movie theater in the dark, not making any sound check. Not a good idea. But we went anyway, you know. So now what do you do when it starts to fall apart? So I

Rebecca Hines:

Yeah, I think that's a, I think that's a great point as spending many years of, you know, forcing people to be inclusive of, you know, someone with significant physical disabilities, you know, it's a, it's a struggle, it's certainly helpful to know, who already embraces a diverse audience, it makes it a lot easier on us. I wanted to ask you, Andrea, I, this idea of, you know,

Andrea Piazza:

Sure. So my whole mission, just as a human in this world, is to really inform a more inclusive culture and to teach and promote just how kindness fuels your life and kindness makes you you know, wealthy in your own way, and it makes your life rich and just joyous. And inclusive impact really speaks to that, for me, both of my LLCs are inclusive impact something. So I have Inclusive

Rebecca Hines:

I know on your website you mentioned all the different populations that you take into consideration and also specifically individuals with special needs. And you talk about providing some emotional and creative therapies. Is this something that you guys directly offer or do you train people to create these kinds of things? Or do you help families find them? I'm curious how that

Andrea Piazza:

That's a very much yes to all of the above. So I have my Bachelor's of fine arts and dance and do incorporate dance and visual art therapies throughout my work with any patient. And oftentimes, especially my patients who have special needs, because maybe words just aren't their language, maybe art is their language, or maybe they need to move to think so I always want to be making it more and more of just a regular part of their day, regular part of their week.

Lisa Dieker:

In know, I think that, that I love that and that everything that you're about is is about not just the mental part, but you can have more fun when you feel good, and you're accepted. And one of the things that that I'm always curious about, I'm a big believer that people with disabilities should have the as many opportunities as to give as they do to receive help. And so I'm curious

Andrea Piazza:

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a big believer in just integration. And really having individuals of all abilities exist in the same space and learn and know and be confident and how to support one another and how to provide support. So with Inclusive Impact Therapy, and even Discovered Behavioral Health, for a lot of my patients who have had, who have special needs and have

Rebecca Hines:

I love that idea. And I hope that I hope that teachers and parents both will take that take that tip and start including, you know, including the people that we are working with living with etcetera, in the design of their space. I think that's a great a great point. I know also that that you have worked with different telehealth types of services. And so I'm just wondering, because

Andrea Piazza:

Sure. So. I'm a telehealth program designer. That's just kind of what I've labeled it for Discovery Behavioral Health. My official title is the Director of Virtual Programming. And what I would say is not all telehealth programs are accessible. Not all telehealth programs have an individual special needs in mind, and creating and kind of recreating the curriculum that we have for our

Lisa Dieker:

Love it. Great. Thanks. And my last question for you would be I know you mentioned something about a book tell us a little more about this children's book and maybe how that might be a fun summer read for someone.

Andrea Piazza:

Oh my gosh, absolutely. I don't know why it didn't start with that. So Nicole Warren and I wrote in published Peter Payment Everland, which is an inclusive retelling of Peter Pan. So we know and love that story. And then we have layered and just modern fun and a lot of really great information about autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, and the stories of individuals with special

Rebecca Hines:

Great. Well, thank you, Andrea. Pleasure to meet you.

Lisa Dieker:

Yes, some really fun ideas for our listeners. And we thank you so much. So if you have further questions for us, you can tweet us at practice at Access practical, or you can send us a post on Facebook and we'll be certain to link your book and the links to your work on our podcast. Thank you so much, Andrea, we really appreciate your time.

Andrea Piazza:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks