Learn why Courtney Bale loves making a difference in people’s lives.

“I love working with people and feeling like what I do matters.”

Courtney Bale, OTR, CSCS is the Academic Fieldwork Coordinator for the master of occupational therapy (MOT) program. She’s also finishing her doctor of occupational therapy degree, but still found time to speak with us about how she’s helping program director, Dr. Adele Breen-Franklin, develop the MOT curriculum at the School of Health and Sciences (SNHS) San Diego campus.

After playing college basketball at Ohio State, Courtney originally considered pursuing a career in athletics as a sports broadcaster, but she ended up becoming a strength and conditioning coach at San Diego State University training all 17 of their sports teams. She loved her work but  after 10 years, she felt like she wasn’t making enough of a difference and needed to find a new career path.

“I was talking to my mom about when my grandmother had a major stroke and had an occupational therapist (OT) work with her in her home. I was around two years old at the time, but I remember the OT enlisted my brother and me to help my grandma. Then I spoke with my aunt who is a special education teacher who works with children with severe disabilities and she encouraged me to consider the occupational therapy field. I started looking into it and then did volunteer hours, and I absolutely fell in love with it.” Once she made the decision, Courtney earned her prerequisites and then her graduate degree in occupational therapy at Saint Augustine in San Marcos, California.

Courtney is drawn to the OT field because it is client centered and there are many different areas one can work in such as home health, hospitals, or schools. Courtney chose to be a home health OT because she likes that it’s functional in nature. She also likes the psychological component of this work which can help her clients feel more empowered to overcome challenges and do the things they want to do. “I love working with people and love feeling like what I do matters. It can sometimes be tricky to figure out what motivates a client but it’s important to be intentional in this process and determine how best to encourage a patient to participate in occupational therapy. It is vitally important to build rapport and facilitate a relationship, in OT, this is called ‘therapeutic use of self.’”

Courtney recognizes that it’s a very intimate process to go into a client’s home to assist them in regaining their prior level of function. In a typical day, Courtney will evaluate her client’s strengths and capabilities and learn what ADLs (activities of daily living) they want and need to complete. “The client knows their situation best and what goals they want to achieve, so it’s crucial to let them express that to you. If a client had a stroke, I might be thinking they want to work on gaining dexterity of their hands, but their most important goal might be showering and getting dressed on their own, which ultimately will address their dexterity.”

Courtney loves her job but admits that it can be emotionally difficult at times. She recalled a professor who told her early on that her biggest problem was going to be the moment when she ends her therapy with a client. “She said, ‘People are going to get very attached to you because you give so much.’ She told me that I have to prepare people for discharge on the first day I meet them because the whole goal is to get them self-sufficient, so they don't need me.”

Likewise, Courtney can become attached to her clients which makes the separation hard on both of them. She recalled one client, a 48-year-old woman who had both ALS and Parkinson’s whose only goal was to live long enough to see her daughter graduate from high school. Courtney worked very hard to give this client as much independence as possible, even helping her use her finger to control the joystick on her motorized wheelchair once she lost most of the use of her hands. Courtney was amazed at this woman’s incredible strength and positive attitude, and became very close to her, even keeping in touch with her after discharge. “Just watching the grace with which she handled this, I asked her once how she could stay so positive with such an amazing outlook and she told me, ‘Courtney, every day I know that I'm closer to death. I make the most of it.’ She never complained. She was just incredible.”

Courtney was already thinking about a potential career in academia when she found her current role at Alliant and is excited help build the program from the ground up. Now that Alliant has achieved candidacy status, she is busy getting ready for their first cohort which will arrive in September 2025, followed by a second cohort in January 2026. Courtney is tasked with finding 160 fieldwork sites to accommodate these students who will work in a variety of specialty areas and ages from pediatrics to adults, to geriatrics.

Courtney credits the MOT program director, Dr. Adele Breen-Franklin, with being an amazing mentor and helping acclimate her to the world of academia. She appreciates their working relationship and how much she’s learned from Adele as they take on this great task of building this program from the ground up and creating an OT curriculum that is truly exceptional and comprehensive.

Courtney is also looking forward to sharing her beliefs and values about OT with the students. “I think a lot of people still don’t completely understand what occupational therapy is and I believe it’s such an amazing job that provides so much meaning and purpose to people. Even if I didn't do something tremendous on a physical level with a client, I might have been the only person that client saw all day and that’s important. I loved what I did before, and I love college athletics, but I feel like I was made for this job. I feel like I’m making a real difference in people’s lives every day.”