Your team is clinically skilled.

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For pediatric clinics · dental practices · ABA teams · school-based health programs · mobile lab providers · community sponsorsThe behavioral framework that reaches children before distress takes over — so procedures succeed, schedules hold, and families come back.For pediatric clinics · dental practices · ABA teams · school-based health programs · mobile lab providers · community sponsors

Poke Pals trains clinical teams to prevent escalation before it starts — using a nervous-system–aware framework that improves first-attempt success, reduces staff stress, and protects patient dignity without slowing care.

You run or lead an organization that serves children — and you've watched a procedure fall apart not because your team lacked skill, but because no one helped that child arrive ready.

Poke Pals serves five types of organizational partners:

Pediatric & Family Dental Practices The dental chair is one of the most sensory-demanding environments a child encounters. Unfamiliar sounds, smells, physical proximity, and limited control create the conditions for meltdown — even in children who have no diagnosis. Poke Pals trains your team to prepare patients before they arrive and respond effectively when distress begins.

Outpatient Clinics & Pediatric Practices When a child escalates during a blood draw, vaccination, or exam, everyone in that room pays the price — the patient, the caregiver, and your staff. Poke Pals gives clinical teams a consistent pre-procedural framework that reduces refusal, limits restraint, and keeps appointments on schedule.

ABA Clinics & BCBA Practitioners Medical fear in children with autism is real, documented, and undertreated. When a client returns from a difficult appointment, session disruption follows. Poke Pals bridges the gap between behavioral goals in your clinic and the medical settings your clients navigate — supporting generalization, reducing fear-based regression, and giving your team a shared language with healthcare providers.

School Districts & Special Education Teams School nurses, special education coordinators, and health staff are often the first point of contact when a child has a medical event at school — and frequently the last line of support for families navigating a child's healthcare avoidance. Poke Pals offers training and consultation for school-based teams working with medically anxious or neurodivergent students.

🤝 Corporate Sponsors & Community Partners If your organization serves families with children and you want to attach your name to a program with measurable community impact — Poke Pals offers structured sponsorship partnerships built around visibility, shared values, and outcomes you can point to. [Jump to Sponsorship →]

THE PROBLEM

Every organization that serves children has seen this pattern:

• Appointments run over — or collapse entirely — because a child can't regulate
• Staff are clinically trained but have no framework for what to do before the procedure starts
• Neurodivergent patients arrive with no preparation and leave with new trauma
• Restraint becomes the default when it should be the last resort
• Families leave and don't come back
• No consistent approach exists across your team for anxious or sensory-sensitive children
• The encounter gets documented as incomplete — and no one tracks why
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The result: lost time, lost trust, and care that never happened.

The gap isn't clinical skill. It's pre-procedural readiness — and that's exactly what Poke Pals addresses.

That gap costs time, trust, and outcomes — leading to longer appointments, staff exhaustion, and families avoiding care altogether.

Your team doesn’t need more technical training.

They need pre-procedural readiness strategies.

That’s where Poke Pals comes in.

A practical, nervous-system–aware approach that works across procedure types — blood draws, dental visits, vaccinations, imaging, sensory exams, and more.

Calm — Regulate the environment and adult presence before the child's anxiety has room to escalate. Reduce surprise. Build predictability into the encounter from the moment of scheduling.

Explain — Use clear, developmentally appropriate language the child can actually process and hold onto. Not medical jargon. Not vague reassurance. Real, honest procedural language that builds trust.

Involve — Give the child a role. Choice, agency, and coping strategies practiced in advance don't disappear when they walk through your door. They transfer — if someone took the time to build them.

This framework reduces escalation and refusal without changing your clinical protocols or slowing your workflow.

It is not a replacement for what your team already does well. It is the layer that determines whether what your team does well actually gets to happen.

Current version: Two tiers, lab/phlebotomy framing, good price points.

Rewritten:

Developed by Franchesca Kelly, PBT (ASCP) | RBT (BACB) | MLA (AMT) — published researcher, pediatric phlebotomist, and Registered Behavior Technician with nearly a decade of frontline clinical and behavioral experience.

$499 · 2 hours · Virtual or In-Person Best for: Clinical teams, dental staff, ABA teams, school health staff

A focused, practical introduction to the Poke Pals framework — adapted to your setting, your patient population, and the specific procedures your team faces.

Includes:

• 2-hour live training session (virtual or in-person)
• Calm · Explain · Involve framework applied to your context
• Practical strategies for reducing escalation and refusal
• Staff confidence-building for neurodivergent and anxious patients
• Implementation guidance for immediate use
• Q&A with Franchesca

Designed as a low-risk entry point — comparable in format and scope to standard continuing education staff training.

$699 | 4 Hours

$699 · 4 hours · Virtual or In-Person Best for: Teams wanting deeper implementation support or serving high-complexity patient populations

Includes everything in the Pilot Session, plus:

• Case-based scenarios tailored to your patient population
• Protocol review and integration planning
• Extended team Q&A
• Post-training implementation roadmap
• Co-branded family preparation materials (optional add-on)

Custom pricing · Monthly or project-based

For organizations that want a continued partnership — reviewing cases, refining protocols, supporting new staff onboarding, or developing custom family-facing materials under your brand.

Every family in your service area navigating a child's medical anxiety is a family you could have reached — if a program like this existed and carried your name.

Poke Pals™ is a community wellness program with real infrastructure: published thought leadership, credentialed expertise, a growing family audience, and training that pediatric clinics, schools, and ABA providers are actively seeking. Sponsorship means your organization's name is attached to the moment things get better for a child and their family.

This is not a donation. It is a partnership with outcomes.

For your organization:

• Visible, values-aligned community impact with a mission-driven health and wellness brand
• Co-branded family preparation materials distributed through your practice or community channels
• Recognition in Poke Pals training sessions, presentations, and publications
• Access to a growing audience of caregivers, pediatric healthcare professionals, and educators
• Speaking and staff training engagements that carry your name
• Association with peer-reviewed, credentialed work — not just goodwill

For the community:

• Subsidized or free family coaching sessions for families who cannot afford private services
• Expanded access to preparation tools (visual storyboards, coping guides) distributed through community health channels
• School-based and community event programming under a co-branded Poke Pals presence

Sponsorship is the right fit for organizations that:

• Serve children and families in a pediatric healthcare, dental, educational, or wellness capacity
• Want community visibility that goes beyond a logo on a flyer
• Believe that a child who feels safe in healthcare is good for everyone — including their own practice
• Are willing to invest in a program that reaches families before they become avoidant, anxious, or lost to care

Ideal sponsors include: pediatric dental practices · pediatric specialty clinics · ABA therapy organizations · children's wellness brands · regional healthcare systems · school district foundations · diagnostics and medical device companies

Every partnership is structured around your organization's goals, your community footprint, and the level of visibility and co-branding that makes sense for you. There is no one-size-fits-all package — because the right partnership depends on what you actually want to accomplish.

 Most quality frameworks measure what happens after a specimen exists. Nobody measures what happens when the specimen is never obtained. When a child cannot tolerate a blood draw — because of sensory overwhelm, because nobody prepared them, because the encounter became a battle — the system moves on. The order auto-cancels. The result never comes. The physician waits. The child carries it forward. Poke Pals changes what happens before the needle goes in. Because that's where the outcome is determined.

When access fails:

• care is delayed
• staff time increases
• families disengage

Poke Pals strengthens readiness at the point of care—
so more encounters result in successful, first-attempt collection.          

Poke Pals focuses on arguably the hardest of these visits — the blood draw — because getting that one right builds a foundation of trust that follows a child into every medical encounter for the rest of their life.

A child who leaves the lab feeling capable rather than defeated doesn't just have a better blood draw. They have a better relationship with healthcare. For life.

That's not a training program. That's a public health intervention.

Whether you're looking to train your team, consult on a specific patient population, or explore what a sponsorship partnership could look like — the next step is the same.

A 15-minute call. No pressure. No obligation. Just an honest conversation about whether this is the right fit.