2014 New Years Resolutions

2013 was a really wonderful and positive year for me professionally. My practice grew, I made some wonderful professional connections, saw some wonderful little friends for treatment and assessment, grew in my knowledge and really feel that I grew a great deal as a clinician. I also had a few pretty cool experiences. My little practice had it's first birthday, I started this blog, and I began indulging in my enjoyment for developing resources, sharing them through Teachers Pay Teachers.

This year, I want to keep the momentum going. Now that I'm back to work, I've had been thinking a lot about what the goals I have for myself and my practice are this year, and how I can go about achieving them. I would to be proactive this year about working toward professional goals, so that I can make the most of the opportunities I have. My big goals are:

Learn more

This is one is obvious, and comes with the territory of being a Speech Pathologist. There's always new and better information coming through in the research, and always more to learn to make me a more effective clincian. This year, I would like to dedicate more time to professional development, and hopefully attend more conferences. Right now, I am keen to build on my knowledge of early language development and difficulties. It's one of my favourite populations to see, and an area that I'm so, so passionate about.

Build on this blog

I started this blog in October, and haven't done a great deal with it yet. I've not had time to get a good feel for the direction I want take it in, or what I want to write about. This year my goal is to explore blogging more, while sharing my experiences, resources and information I think others might find useful. I also want to use this blog as a platform build on my own clinical knowledge and learning

Get involved in community awareness

This will be a new challenge for me. I've signed up to be a Nation for Communication Champion for Speech Pathology Australia, as part of the International Communication Project. I have plans so far to send out information about the ICP to clients, and encourage them to share their stories, but I'm in the process of brainstorming ideas to spread a wider net of awareness about communication difficulties (suggestions are welcomed!). I'm really excited to see where I can take this one.

As I get deeper into the year, I will hopefully be able to make these very general goals much more specific. It will be interesting to revisit these through the year to see just how much I feel I've accomplished in each.

Freebies: Speech Sound Syllable Sheets

Here are a few more freebies ready to download on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Decent and simple speech sound syllable sheets for speech therapy have been hard to come by, so I've been slowing making my own set.

At the moment I have three available for free in my TpT store, the 's', 'ch' and 'j' syllable sheets. Click on each of the pictures to take you to TpT to downloaded them.

               

Don't forget to stay posted, because I'm working on a complete set of these syllable sheets that will be up for download very soon.

Freebie: Clinic On Wheels | A Checklist for Mobile Speech Pathologists

Mobile therapy presents some pretty unique challenges, the most significant of which is making sure you're able to transport enough with you to make sure your sessions are successful. Don't get me wrong, it's a great way to conduct therapy, and I've seen some amazing benefits by conducting intervention in a setting with which a child is familiar, but it's a whole different ballgame to having a clinics worth of resources just out the door for when something unexpected pops up. 

In my time working as a Speechie on wheels, I've come up with a pretty efficient, yet comprehensive set of items, both practical and therapy based, to help me get by. Some are common sense, some have come with experience, but they will all come in handy whether you're completely mobile, or do the occasional home/school/preschool visit. I've finally gotten around to writing them down, and decided to share them through Teachers Pay Teachers, for free! Click on the pictures to follow the link and download.

This checklist will have you pretty well prepared for everything you will reasonably need. There will, of course, be sessions where you will wish you had brought something you didn't have, or a client's behaviour will be so difficult that a closet full of toys to bribe them with would have helped. It's important to remember, though, that these sessions are few and far between, and all you can do is be as prepared as you can.

I hope you find this checklist useful in creating your "Clinic On Wheels". Don't forget to take a moment to rate the checklist on Teachers Pay Teachers.

First Things First

At university, I had a placement with the most wonderful clinical educator. She was an incredibly generous clinician, who is still sharing every bit of information or resource she can with me today. She taught me so much about the importance of sharing within the Speech Pathology community, and it's something that I've taken on board as a clinician myself. It's with this spirit that I decided to start this blog. As a way to share my and grow my knowledge and resources with others. As a sole clinician in private practice, I've had to learn a lot about developing engaging and effective resources myself. It's actually something that I've grown to enjoy doing, and I would love to share them with anyone who might have use for them.

Right now, I've got a Teachers Pay Teachers store up and running, where I'm slowly sharing resources that I've developed and used over the years. I would love if you would check it out and let me know what you think. You can also find me on twitter.