CCC-SLP Shadowing a CCC-SLP (Vol. 1): Schools
Expand Your S.C.O.P.E.™ seeks to change the ways in which speech-language pathologists (SLPs) go about their professional development. Continuing education courses are usually done in workshop or online formats. While these traditional approaches are fantastic tools, we also recognize the value in learning from our peers in person, in real-life contexts.
For years, however, shadowing and mentoring have only been formalized during our graduate and undergraduate programs. That changed at the end of 2015 when Expand Your S.C.O.P.E.™ launched with the mission of matching ASHA-certified SLPs with each other for mentoring and shadowing. Since then, we have further formalized our services by providing both mentee and mentor SLPs opportunities to earn post-Master's degree graduate hours or certificate maintenance hours for participating in this paradigm-shifting program.
Jenna Lewandowski, M.S., CCC-SLP recently completed a shadowing and mentoring experience for graduate credit through an offering between Expand Your S.C.O.P.E.™ and SpeechTherapyPD.com. Jenna had this to say in reflecting on her experience with her mentor SLP, Tiffany:
This mentoring experience was a very positive and enjoyable experience for me. My school district is small and rural, so I am the only SLP in my building. Although there are other SLPs in my district, the nature of being in different buildings makes collaboration a little more difficult. The mentoring component of this course ensured that Tiffany and I got together more regularly, both in person for traditional mentoring and also by checking in more often via email and taking part in the same professional development courses at our local University to continue to increase our skills together. I found that taking part in this course “forced” us to observe each other, collaborate, and discuss challenging cases much more than we normally would. I always knew that working as a team is best practice, but it is easy to get overwhelmed by the enormity of my job and forget to reach out to my district coworkers for help. It was nice to have the mentoring component of this course be required, because it ensured that I took part in something that turned out to be very valuable.
One of the best parts of being mentored by a veteran SLP was learning new therapy techniques to use with my students. After inheriting a few students with severe phonological impairments, I was interested in learning more about the Cycles approach. Tiffany serves a younger population than I do and has experience using Cycles with highly unintelligible children. I found it incredibly helpful to be mentored through the process of using Cycles, starting from the very beginning of simply discussing it and how it could be used with some of my students, to sharing materials and resources, and all the way to discussing evaluation results and writing IEP goals. It was an opportunity to have support in an area I felt less comfortable in and it was very helpful.
I also really appreciated forming a connection that will last beyond this semester. I know I will continue to go to Tiffany with questions and challenges and she will do the same with me. I haven’t had this level of support since my CF year concluded and I found it extremely valuable. I’m glad I went outside of my comfort zone and participated in this course.
Jenna's experience highlights the benefits of intra-professional shadowing and clinician-mentoring, even for SLPs who already have years of experience themselves. While Jenna already knew her mentor SLP, many of us find it difficult to find an SLP to let us shadow them - especially if we are looking to shadow in a different setting or with a different population than our usual caseload. That's why Expand Your S.C.O.P.E.™ matches CCC-SLPs with each other as a complimentary service and leaves the graduate credit and certificate maintenance hours as optional add-ons. It's time that we as a profession take full advantage of the flexibility our vast scope provides. In doing so, were sure to hear many stories like Jenna's, or like yours, along the way.
Expand Your S.C.O.P.E.™ is a clinician mentoring and shadowing service for certified healthcare providers looking to expand their own scopes of practice. JOIN NOW to get access to exclusive content and the opportunity to be matched with providers in your field for professional shadowing and mentoring experiences.
This post featured an excerpt from a guest contributor. If you are interested in sharing your experience on this blog, please contact us at info@griffinspeech.com.
