Master Courses

All GPI courses are rooted in a responsive, sensitive, and supportive approach to feeding.

In our Master Courses, you will learn from and interact with pediatric feeding experts Get Permission co-founders Marsha Dunn Klein OTR/L, M.Ed., FAOTA, Karen Dilfer, M.S., OTR/L, and Stephanie Cohen, M.A., CCC-SLP, CLC.

You will leave our dynamic, evidence-based courses seeing children and families through a new lens, knowing exactly where to start in therapy, and understanding which strategies will work best. 

Currently, GPI offers two Master Courses, with a third coming in the spring of 2024! For further information on each course, check out information below.

Course Description

Marsha Dunn Klein will present the Get Permission Approach to Anxious Eaters, Anxious Mealtimes, a 16.5-hour online course.   We will look at support for extremely picky or anxious eaters and their families from the perspective of relationships, motivation, mealtimes, and opportunities for both parent and child success.  This course will be presented in lecture, discussion, video and case presentations, and interactive opportunities.  We will answer these questions:  

  • Who are the pickiest of eaters?
  • Why are they picky?
  • What is the Get Permission Approach and how can it's strategies help?
  • What do we need to think about as we gather information for assessing and understanding worried eaters?
  • What does research tell us about what works and what does not?
  • How can we help parents understand their worried eaters and what strategies can we use to help build mealtime peace, mealtime success and mealtime enjoyment?

Upcoming Anxious Eaters, Anxious Mealtimes Course Dates

Course Description

Get Permission is a trust-based approach to pediatric feeding intervention. This three-day (16.5 hours) long workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of feeding tubes using the Get Permission framework. Video examples and real-life case studies will be used to help participants apply Get Permission principles to their own practice. This workshop is filled with practical mealtime and treatment suggestions. Content will include: 

  • An introduction to the mechanics of feeding tubes
  • Why a child may receive a feeding tube, and how feeding tubes can be used to support a child’s growth 
  • A special emphasis on helping course participants learn how feeding tubes can be used to support the relationship between parents and their children. 
  • Participants will learn how feeding tubes can be used to promote emotional well-being of parents and support a child’s mealtime participation. 
  • Developing clinical reasoning skills to identify when a child may be ready to transition off of a feeding tube and begin oral eating. 
  • And the benefits of a homemade blended diet, strategic use of hunger, oral-motor skill acquisition, and application of Get Permission strategies for treatment success.

Upcoming Tube Feeding with Love Course Dates

Marsha and Karen are hard at work creating a hybrid version of this course to make it more flexible for learners!

Coming January of 2024!

Course Description

Positive feeding experiences are central to the development of a strong, trusting relationships between parent and child. Many children who experience feeding difficulties struggle to develop the skills necessary to enjoy eating with their families and eat enough to thrive. This course provides a foundational understanding of feeding development in infancy and toddler with a strong emphasis on responsive feeding and discussion of how feeding skills develop within the context of relationships. Content will include:

  • Feeding skill development in the newborn and older infant (0-12 months), including sucking, swallowing, and breathing patterns, transitions to solids, diet expansion, cup and straw drinking, and self-feeding. 
  • Feeding skill development in the toddler stage (1-3 years), including emerging autonomy, diet expansion, cup and straw drinking, and self-feeding. 
  • Exploring how a variety of conditions/diagnoses and experiences might disrupt feeding skill development in infancy and toddlerhood
  • Building provider capacity to support strong and trusting relationships with family members and team members
  • Developing clinical reasoning skills and strategies for working with infants and toddlers and their families
  • Understand how to develop individualized family and child support plans with an emphasis on use of parent coaching techniques in the context of a child’s natural environment and daily mealtime routines.