The Certification Trap

Dr. Jeanette Benigas and Megan Berg speak with MaryTherese Sabatino, an SLP currently completing her SLPD and pursuing a track in academia who has decided to drop ASHA membership. The episode touches on the history of the membership association, how it has grown in the last 20 years, and opinions around lack of transparency and accountability. Grassroots change at the level of state associations is discussed, along with competency-based training and evaluation.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Jeanette Benigas, PhD/SLP

Host of Fix SLP

What is Fix SLP?

Fix SLP is a grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech-language pathology by driving real change—from insurance regulations to removing barriers to full autonomy like the CCC. This podcast is your space to learn, engage, and take action in the field of speech-language pathology. We don’t wait for change. We make it.
Hosted by Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP

Megan Berg 0:00
Hi everyone. I'm Megan Berg

Jeanette Benigas 0:02
and I'm Dr. Jeanette Benigas.

Megan Berg 0:04
And we are here to fix SLP.

Jeanette Benigas 0:06
We are discussing the biggest challenges that are currently holding back the field of speech language pathology.

Megan Berg 0:12
We present the issues with facts and invite you to be part of joining our movement to make things better one conversation at a time.

Jeanette Benigas 0:19
Let's fix SLP

Welcome back fearless fixers. Today we have a guest. But before we get to that, Megan and I have a couple things we want to start with. We're just going to jump in and read some five star reviews. We asked you guys to pause your recordings to rate review, subscribe, and oh my gosh, have you delivered. Now the challenge is going to be like let's double these numbers because we just keep going, but oh, okay, the first one she's gonna read fantastic. They're so good. So Megan, do you want to read us a couple of the reviews? Sure.

Megan Berg 1:07
This is from one to three live 123 Who says thank you fix SLP for taking on big daddy Asha would clarify like that is not this person calling it like she this person is not individually calling Asha. Big Daddy. I show that is a running joke.

Jeanette Benigas 1:25
Yes, so if you're not sure about that running joke, I have no idea what episode we started lovingly referring to Asha as Big Daddy Asha. I assume it's like the first or second episode so go binge. It's the holiday bake and listen to our voices. And yeah, I loved it. Megan sent me a screenshot of that and I died. was great. Thank you. 123 love 123 Thank you.

Megan Berg 1:51
SLP to EA says I'm mind blown by the information you guys are sharing the work you're doing is so important for the field of speech language pathology. Thank you for forging ahead through the naysayers who frankly, either don't know what they don't know or stand to profit from the broken system. Yeah. And row or girl 302 says Jeanette and Megan take a no nonsense approach to demystifying all things Asha, agree or disagree. But Transparency is key. I have been practicing for 30 plus years and learn something new during every episode. Keep up the good work. Yeah, thank you to everyone for leaving written reviews. And if you have time, please give us that five star rating and leave a written review because that bumps us up so that we appear in front of more SLP eyeballs.

Jeanette Benigas 2:40
I set these weird personal goals that mean absolutely nothing. And I often report in on them to Megan. But my goal is to get us as the first suggestion when someone types fix into the search bar on Apple podcasts. I have no idea how that works. At first I thought well, maybe it's alphabetical. But no, we're the third suggestion and the ones under us are not alphabetize. So we need to be the first suggestions to make it happen. Make it happen. Do you want me to do this next one, or do you want to Sure, go for it. Okay, our next little piece that we wanted to talk about was I know people could be listening to this podcast at any given moment, not right now with the current happenings. But I'm going to talk in the right now. And if you're listening to this in a year, go back and look but yesterday, Megan and I made a post about the ASHA Membership Options and then people started to get confused. I myself this is Jeanette talking started to get confused. And this, this just speaks to the confusion that Asha creates, right? Like, sometimes we think that the confusion is there on purpose. So you can't make clear decisions. It continues the fear culture that we posted about recently. It all contributes to that. And so we made a second post to try to clarify and as part of that process, we agreed we'd make that second post that I would post a reel to explain and that we would just mention it today. First of all, I have a full six minute reel on our Instagram and Facebook pages explaining it. Making was like Jeanette no one's ever gonna watch this. Oh my gosh, I it's it's been 13 hours since I posted it and we had an entire night and it has like 3000 views and people are like watching it and commenting on it. So thank you wrong. It's a great job. Yeah. Visual Aids. Listen, despite what some of my professor reviews say, I am a good educator. Okay. Um, yeah, so you can go watch that. I'm not going to talk six minutes now. What I am going to just highlight is option number four, which says it's on the resignation form, it's at the very bottom with four points that says you cannot supervise, you cannot clinically practice you cannot have a student it is very misleading, very confusing. But what that is speaking to is the membership without the CCC option that is not open to me. It's not open to Meghan, it is not open to a practicing clinician. And the best way I describe this is if you think of Asha as a club as a membership club, they get to decide how they're their membership levels. And this membership level is for people who are not practicing clinicians or who have perhaps retired, they're no longer practicing, but they still want the benefits of the membership. So that's an $84 option. You cannot practice you can't practice and people have asked Well, what will they do? Well, it does also say that choosing that option or resigning does not exempt you from like ethics violations. So we don't know this. This is just an assumption, but I assume they'd like file an ethics violation and kick you out of the club. Who knows. But that your that is only for if you are choosing that option to be a member without the CCC. If you are a practicing clinician, you cannot choose that option. You can still practice without a CCC, just as a member or as a non member of Asha, does that cover it all make it

Megan Berg 6:29
so confusing. Yeah. And just like for the historical framework of this, I'm assuming that the reason they did this is because again, it's all about control and trying to act like a regulatory body. So back in the day, when people were calling themselves speech therapists when they weren't, this was a way to ensure that people who were associated with ASHA, had met certain requirements, like the requirements of the CCC. I personally would argue like at this point, not only do consumers not know what the hell we do, like they do not understand Asha or the CCC at all. So like somebody could pay the $84 for Asha membership. And like, they could just put that on their website that they're a member of Asha and and consumers aren't going to understand like member of Asha versus Asha certified like it just, I think Asha in their attempt to control things created a system that makes 100% sense to them, and no sense to everybody else. And that's what we're trying to tease apart here. And it is very confusing. But yeah, definitely check out genets video on Facebook and Instagram, because it's very well done. And I think you will end the six or seven minutes, knowing very clearly what the options are. Okay, we're gonna share a voicemail from a listener named Linda. Hi, Jeanette,

Linda 7:58
and Megan, this is Linda Gaida calling from Massachusetts. My pronoun is she. I'm also ro a girl 302 on Instagram. I am not renewing my C's this year. And I want to actually tell Asha that I'm not doing that. So I want to resign it. And I can't remember from one of your podcasts how to exactly do it. I did look on the Azure site. But of course, I can't find it. Because it's not user friendly. So if you guys could tell me how to do that. So I can actually let them know my intention is not to renew on purpose. That would be awesome. You guys are doing a great job. Love your podcasts. I look forward to all your posts on Instagram and Facebook. And keep keep up the great work. Thanks a lot. Bye.

Jeanette Benigas 8:46
Um, row or girl 302 gets like the biggest gets the what was the award? Megan, the face award that someone's Mr. Award. She gets the space award the f what was that F Asha continuing award for like getting in twice today that was not planned. You will you will not relent? You will we'll mail you an email that says we'll send you a certificate for $35 If you want it. Good job.

Megan Berg 9:19
So to answer the question, you have to google resigning the certificate of clinical competence. So it's the resigning term that you need. And then you'll see a link that says CCC resigned affidavit form. And this is a PDF that you have to fill out and somehow get to them. Sure there's instructions on the form. There's not but there's an address at the bottom of the form so I guess you mail them the form. And this is where this is where we got all the confusing information about membership with out certification. So when you fill out this form, you can select different options, you can be a member without certification, you can discontinue your membership and change your status to not certified. So again, it's a very confusing form. And then there's a whole bunch of things that you have to agree with that are very confusing, but that's how you do it. So again, that's the certificate of clinical competence, resigned affidavit that you want to look for. And also, Jeanette, and I were just going to update everybody are the decisions that we're making about the CCC. And so I personally have decided to that I don't need the CS. So the job that I have, the PRN job does not require it, my State License in Montana does not require it, Montana, Medicaid does not require it. I'm self employed with therapy insight. So I don't have a requirement there. So I'm, again in that position of privilege where I can decide to let it go. However, I've also been receiving some counsel from different entities that it might be in my best interest to maintain the CCC, given different avenues that we might want to pursue, to address all of the issues that we're talking about. And so my plan at this point is to not sign the resigned affidavit form and just kind of say nothing and pay nothing. And that gives me a year to reinstate if I want to. And that's something that everybody has that option. So if you're in a position where you don't need it right now, and you just want some more time to make a decision, you can pay like a late fee, I think is basically the the only thing you have to worry about. If you let it go for a year. After that year, then you have to do the full reinstatement process that we've been talking about on social media. Janette, what about you? Yeah,

Jeanette Benigas 12:18
so that's kind of a bummer. Because I know Megan, really, she had made the decision to let it go. And I was in the meeting where she was advised to keep it. So maybe next year. For me, I've said from the beginning, I would love to let the CCC go. However, I am a full time faculty member at an accredited institution that prepares students to pursue the CCC because they're not given that choice. And part of my load, my academic load is advising supervising in the clinic. And I don't work at a research institution, if I want to remain full time, I need to supervise students. So I have to keep my CCC, it is not an option at this time. That doesn't mean I don't want to let it go. It just means we just need to keep working harder. So we can all have the choice because I will be the first one in line. If it ever changes, I will lead that charge. So yeah, that's where we're at. We just wanted to go over that, again. Because we've had a significant increase every week, we have a significant increase in following we're gaining an average of 1000 plus followers across two social media platforms every week. And we know not everybody's listening in or or paying attention. So we just felt that that transparency is important. And we really just thank you for understanding that I think Megan's reason is a promising that means we're working on stuff behind the scenes. So yeah. All right. Megan, do you want to you want to Oh, you want?

Megan Berg 13:55
Yeah, I was just gonna say speaking of making this decision. We have someone with us. So I would like to introduce her name is Mary Therese. And we've been talking basically, through social media. This is the first time that the three of us have met. And we haven't really planned anything for this conversation. But I think the Mary Teresa is going through a lot of the same thought process that all of you are probably going through. And so we're just going to talk through that today. So Mary Therese, could you start off by just telling us about yourself and your situation?

MT 14:28
Yeah, absolutely. I normally go by Mt. But you can call me Mary Teresa, if you want. So I am currently a school beat based clinician and I work in our low incidence classrooms in a district right outside of Philadelphia, actually started off medical. So when you got to talk about track, it's very interesting because I was full on did all of my clinical practicum in medical placements, and then when I had a kid that also had medical needs ended up switching over to the school. So that's tough conversation. For me too, because I feel like there's you know, pros and cons for both. But in terms of certification, Pennsylvania does not require that you have your CS to bill Medicaid, you just need your license, I do have my teaching certification in Pennsylvania, which is all you really need to be a school based SLP. So, on that side, I do not need my theories. But on the other side is I am close to finishing my LPD, my clinical doctorate. And that I will say the coursework that I did, especially about the science of teaching and learning and supervision, just like blew my mind opened my eyes to how little evidence there is behind the CEA requirements, and what you know, we're actually doing in terms of supervision and mentorship and competency. And it really kind of planted that seed even before I was listening to you guys about like, well, do I really want to be a part of this anymore. But I do think I want to teach. There's a as you guys have mentioned before, there are a ton of master's programs for speech pathology in Philadelphia and in Pennsylvania, in in general, but particularly in the Philadelphia area. And I've done supervision for students for the past couple of years and really enjoyed that. So kind of the same thing. As Jeanette, if I want to have that opportunity, I think I need to hold on to my seat. So I've been really stuck and kind of going back and forth and talking to other people in my cohort, and some of my professors, but I think I have landed on a decision that I am going to maintain my sees the drop my membership. And as you guys explained in the really yesterday, I need to call them and do that which I'm kind of looking forward to because I want to see if they try to sell me on some of the features of having membership because I feel pretty strongly that there's a lot of things that maybe Asha is saying are the benefits, but either they're, you know, kind of benefits in name only, or they might be things that there are other avenues to get those things and make them available to clinicians.

Megan Berg 17:08
I'm just looking up the membership benefits. And every time I look at this page, I get a little confused, because they conflate the CCC with membership like in ashes mind those are one in the same and like they don't see an issue with that, although I just got this book called The first 75 years and oral history written by Russ Malone who was like the communications director at ASHA for a while. And there's a whole chapter in here about the bogus versus Asha court case. And I think there was a piece of history where a lot of executive players really felt that the certification and membership needed to be split. But for some reason that has just never really happened after the bogus case was settled. They flipped it. So it used to be that the membership was required in order to purchase the CCC. And because of different court cases that have happened in the United States, that tends to fall into the category of tying which is illegal. And so they flipped it so that the CCC is required for membership. And then they give this you know, they talk like the CCC is optional. Meanwhile, you know, they're they're sending letters to legislators to require the CCC for government entities like licensing boards and Medicaid programs.

MT 18:38
One of the things that the one thing that I know, just in conversation with other SLPs that they've brought up is like oh, well, then you won't have access to journal articles. And I will say it you know, as a school based clinician, I'm not affiliated with the university, I'm not affiliated with the health system like we don't have ready access to journal article. I can't say that there's been a ton of things that I have found in the ASHRAE journal super recently that I've been like, Oh, this is exactly when I'm looking for something, I'm not necessarily going to the ASHRAE journal, like I'm going to go and Google Scholar go on and form just copy like kind of collect all of the things that might fit. But you know, more than half of the time, they're not ASHRAE journals. And every time I've ever needed something that I haven't been able to get access to through my Asha membership. If I just email the researcher, then they send me a copy. Like I've never had it that's never been an issue. And I feel like that's something that's becoming more prominent in our field like I know through like the informed SLP and ces disseminate like there are all these tutorials about like if you need stuff so that you can do evidence based practice. Like here's how you get that information and dozens of times I've emailed people to get access to a journal article and I've never had somebody say now So I don't think that that's necessarily the benefit that they say it is. And then advocacy is the other one. And there are times, I'm active in my state association. And I know that there, there have been times that like, we've had specific issues with insurance companies. And like Medicaid and stuff, where ASHA has come not with me, but like with our board and like gone and like, sat there and advocated to legislators with them. But the vast majority of things that we're doing, and the progress that we're seeing is coming from the state level, like, that's not something we're ashes like swooping in, and, quote, unquote, fixing stuff for us. So I don't really see that as a benefit, either. And with all the money they have, I'd love to know what's actually happening, though, I mean, I feel like it's, it's frustrating, but I any money that I can keep and then maybe put towards professional development for myself or whatever, like I will, I'll take that $29 and do something good with it.

Jeanette Benigas 21:00
I might miss precedent,

MT 21:02
or the the point of the thing, you know, yeah,

Jeanette Benigas 21:04
and I might even point out because a couple people, I, Megan helps with social media, but I largely spend all day answering comments, I'm largely the one in there. And so I've answered a good handful of people's comments that have said I am were supposed to have journal article access, and I can't even get them. So there's also like this other layer that is more infuriating that sometimes you do just need to relog in and then you have your access. But some of those articles are from perspectives. And unless you are a perspective, or a cig member, which is another $45 You can't get access to the perspectives and those aren't empty, correct me if I'm wrong, those aren't peer review, even peer reviewed articles. Those are more just

MT 21:56
know, it's like editorials. And there's good stuff in there. But yeah, but that's a great point. Like there if you have like a specialized thing that you're trying to keep up on. Like it's just another cost to try to get those same journals. And that's, that's really frustrating.

Jeanette Benigas 22:12
And then I don't know how it is in other areas of practice, but we have the dysphasia journal, which isn't out, you don't get that from Asha at all that you have to be a member, you have to be board certified are a member of what is what do you have to be a member of wherever board certification is through drawing a blank, but you have to be a member of different nonprofit boards to get I'm almost positive, that's how you get the dysphasia journal. I've never gotten dysphasia journal articles from Asha I, I get those through my university jobs through you know, the, the libraries that the one that I use the most I'm not even getting from from Asha as a perk. And those perspectives, those are clinicians typically writing those things are PhDs. Like you said, reaching out to them, people who write those those kinds of articles, they are more than happy to send I've myself I published an AJ SLP. I'm published in perspectives a couple times. I'm published in some random journal that is out of Italy about about dementia and literacy and people have a hard time accessing that one. So I've emailed that one out a ton of times, but like you said, just sending an email is is a great way to obtain an article if you can't get it.

Megan Berg 23:38
Yeah, you get $10 off the CEE registry, you get about 50% off Asha convention registration. You get 25% off car rentals, which I personally think is just a racket because you can find a different, you know, like, there's deals all over the place. Yeah, you can get professional liability insurance,

Jeanette Benigas 24:10
or there's OfficeMax in there in there, too. Isn't there an Office Max deal? Yeah, I

Megan Berg 24:14
don't, I don't, I'm not buying this one members can save up to 75% on over 93,000 products. Whenever I see a line like that. Up to 75%. Like, there's probably one product that's like $3, that's 75% off. And then the rest are like 2% off, or whatever. Like, that's bullshit too. So I don't know. I mean, I'm just I'm still looking at all the different member benefits. And it seems like the journals are the biggest one. And then if you care about the ASHA convention, that's a pretty big discount.

MT 24:52
Otherwise, you're not going to that

Megan Berg 24:54
advocacy. And again, like because Asha doesn't separate like when you look at their tax documents, they put everything under dues. So any money that comes in from their certification product, and any money that comes in from membership dues are all lumped in under dues, and then they get to spend certification money, however they want. And I, I mean, I don't, I just don't know what kind of federal laws are in place, probably not in or they wouldn't be doing this. But it just, it doesn't seem fair to me that they can artificially deflate the cost of membership to $26. And artificially inflate the cost of certification that $199 If truly the certification part of their company, according to them is 8% of their budget. So if it's 8% of their budget, then the CCC should actually cost SLPs, somewhere in the range of like 12 to $15 a year. So the math has never added up. And the CCC just needs to be separate from membership. It's

Jeanette Benigas 26:03
Asha mass.

MT 26:05
Asha man. That's I mean,

Jeanette Benigas 26:07
that's the hot thing right now girl math.

MT 26:12
ASHA is technically a nonprofit, correct? Yep. So and that's the other thing that I think is disconcerting, because if you look at other nonprofits, it's not the same level of transparency. Like I have another speech path who her husband is an accountant. So she asked him one time just like, hey, can you because he does the audits for nonprofits all the time, just like in the public information, like is that stuff available? And the vast majority of nonprofits like post that stuff, and it's really hard to find for Asha. So that's, it's just disconcerting, because you don't know where all that money's going. Right?

Megan Berg 26:50
Right. And then less, I think it was a couple years ago that SLPs, were asking Asha, like, can you give us a breakdown of where the money goes. And so they've started doing these charts where it's like, per dollar, we know how much of your dollar when you when you give it to ash, it goes to different things. But all that does is confirm that the cost of you know, randomly auditing people for CPUs, and running a volunteer ethics board does not cost what they're charging people for this certification. And then they kind of get away with it because they tie membership to certification. And then they call it a an optional membership association. And they're so proud. And they go to these, you know, big association meetings and boast about their voluntary retention percentage numbers. And I'm sure if any SLPs were in that room, we would all be throwing tomatoes at the stage and vomiting. It's like it's so fake. And I think that ASHA has just gotten into this world of like, nonprofit, like big nonprofits like Big Pharma, they, whatever, like big nonprofits in Washington, DC, where like, they're all kind of competing with each other, too. And it's just like these vanity metrics that they hold up. I'm gonna pull up some information about the last CEO that I Asha had, there's some statistics that I found really interesting. So do you do either of you know how to pronounce her name?

Jeanette Benigas 28:29
No.

Megan Berg 28:30
Okay. I'm not gonna try to say it because it doesn't matter. It's just that this was the last CEO that retired in 2021. And during her years as CEO, this is an article on the ASHA website, it says that she guided Asha through significant growth and change along with the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, membership increased by more than 90%, the operating budget by 85%, and the staff by 36%. And to me, like when I read this article, and I see Asha, celebrating those numbers, all they're doing is celebrating how big they're getting. And they get to compare themselves to other nonprofit organizations in DC. And they have zero accountability to members of their association. And here, the members are screaming at them, that they want more accountability, they want more transparency, they want more true advocacy. And the message over and over and over from Asha is we're optional. Like if we don't you can, you don't have to be a member, you can

Jeanette Benigas 29:39
leave anytime or we can't do that. That's something you have to do at your state level.

MT 29:44
Yeah, that's the cost is are also challenging, you know, for grad school is really expensive. And I think that for newer clinicians, we need their voices and we need their new ideas and we need people to be able To join the state associations, but if you're coming out of grad school with all these student loans, and you feel like you have to pay your dues, you're I mean, I didn't join Pisco for a long time, because it just wasn't, I didn't see as much benefit, because especially when I was a newer clinician, I very much thought big data was like the be all end all and like, thought that like, I would send emails or like, you know, call the member center or whatever, and ask questions and never really got any responses and didn't really understand that. They're so limited in their ability to do anything in our individual workplaces, or even in like our system. And any sort of policymaking has to come from the state level. But first of all, I don't think a ton of people know that. And they just get really, really bad at ASHA, because they're not doing anything. And then it's also if they do understand that the cost is keeping people from joining it keep people from maybe joining their state association is keeping them from spending money on like, high quality use, like we don't even get a whole lot of that stuff as part of our membership. And it's not improving our field at all, which is really, I think that's what I would like to actually like, I want to want to be part of Asha. But at this point, so many of the students that I work with, you know, from grad schools, they're coming out and they don't feel like they're prepared. Well, that's like, they don't have that many jobs. That's one of their jobs is make sure that people are able to do what they're supposed to be doing and advocating for us. When you look at some of the things you guys have posted about, like how they're spending this advocacy money, it's just to make things more challenging to break away from them.

Jeanette Benigas 31:39
Yeah. Yeah. And I want to circle back, Megan, to what you said about the CEO. Do we know when she started?

Megan Berg 31:47
What was her first she was there for 17 years? Okay,

Jeanette Benigas 31:51
that's enough. Yeah. So also, she, she did not create a national recession. So she was she was the CEO, in I think I talked about this on the last podcast 2007 2008, when the housing market crash, and people were really, really struggling, I'm just going to put this out there. I bought a condo in Columbus, Ohio in 2008. For $46,000, my mortgage was like 310 bucks, okay, you cannot do that now. But people were struggling. And that is when we saw a boom in speech pathology, because people became smarter and wanted to get a return on investment. With their the dollars they were spending. In college, they wanted to know that they had a job at the end of the line. And during that time, we really, really were experiencing a nationwide shortage of speech language pathologists. So that's, you know, that is when this like, huge boom in our field started, she had nothing to do with that. That was people getting smarter, seeing that at the time, not anymore. But seeing that there was money in health care, knowing that this was like a great helping profession where you had a lot of options to work with kids or adults or you know, different settings. Like there are so many good things about being a speech language pathologist, and she just so happened to be a part of that. And that's why the budget went up, the budget went up, because you force us to join and now you know, now all of these people are are becoming speech pathologist, but then they've you know, they have no discretion when they approve universities to start graduate programs. So now this is why we and and empty said earlier, there's a lot a colleague, and I, Pam Smith, spent all last year researching for some talks that we call the state of the adjunct. And we researched every program every every program that was a candidacy program. Well, how many programs were in each state, Pennsylvania, was one of the highest and this started to start to address. People were doing this to address this bottleneck. So then, you know, universities are getting in on this, like, oh, there's all these universities that needs service. Let's start graduate programs, we can make more money, of course, they're going to do that it's a business. But Asha and the CAA are not saying enough, they just keep opening more and more and more programs. And these students are bred basically to get their CCC to join Asha and it just keeps dumping more and more and more money into the system. And this, you know, that had nothing to do with this woman. You know, it's just everybody. Everybody, people needed money. And now everybody's trying to get money. That's just and that's probably one of the many layers of this. But I just want to point that out like, we're, we're in a position. Now I remember, several years ago, a chair of a department said to me, this is the first year I have ever seen our graduates compete for jobs locally, and I forget where I was living or where that was happening at. But we there used to be so many jobs that, you know, every everybody just had a job, I had a job before I even started my last semester of school. And I'm sure I've mentioned on this podcast before I was an awful student, like, fail in the practices like sleeping during class, like, I had a job, it was the only place I interviewed. So it's just, it's just, it's a mess. And that's why the budget, that's one of the reasons why the budget has gone up, because they just keep taking more and more and more people who are paying into the system. And then Megan, as you've said, it's like an MLM, like, you have to pay to let the other people pay. And you know, it's just yeah, and when you look at like, wired up, I need to breathe, ASHA

Megan Berg 36:07
has added and this is very strategic. And I know that staff is pressured to come up with, like, non membership revenue. And so when you look at the programs that they've implemented in the last few years, they're these add on things that don't come with membership. And that's also increasing revenue for them. And can I just read a bit under their paragraph from this article, so the middle of the article, so it's going to come out of nowhere, but Williams added that Arlene is held in high regard by her peers in association management, and assessment that is shared well beyond Asha. She is the current or she was the current past chair of the Council of engineering and scientific society executives and a former chair of the American Society of Association Executives. In 2018. She was presented with their key Award, which honors and the association CEO quote, who demonstrates exceptional qualities of leadership, and a deep commitment to voluntary membership organizations as a whole. That same year, she was recognized as Association Executive of the Year by association trends. And in 2015, as the professional society CEO of the Year by CEO update, like this person is not interested in making things better for SLPs. This person is interested in all of the vanity metrics, and how much money Asha can make and how much how much quote, voluntary membership retention she can show off and how many awards she can win for doing these things that are not representative of what SOPs actually think and feel about this, quote, optional. membership association.

MT 37:55
Something you said in the podcast, I don't remember which episode it was, but also that if you look at the mission, the stated mission of Asha, there's nothing in there about advocating for SLPs. It's for the public, and for the people that we're providing services to, but even if that's the main point, and why they have all this money, like, why isn't something being done, to make sure that clinicians are adequately prepared and that like making sure that people who graduate or like safe for the public, you know, kind of how I know you guys have talked about, you know, what some people do and don't in terms of competencies, but with all these programs, and with placements getting more competitive and lack of, I guess, uniform standards, some of that money, I feel like should be spent on trying to make sure that these programs are getting people out there that know what they're doing. And that's I think we all know, that's not the case right now and that. But I do wonder if more people start to opt out of the membership, like even if they do decide to hold on to their seats, for whatever reason, but we as a larger group, start saying, like, Yeah, that's fine. We have other ways of getting these quote, unquote, benefits. It's not a ton of money back in our pocket, but it does make the point that we don't really need

Jeanette Benigas 39:15
I have I was so excited because I just live in this little small town in Ohio, where, I don't know a lot of other people who do the kinds of things that I do there aren't you know, when I lived in Philadelphia, with a ton of universities, you know, there it was very diverse and lots of different people and people who had PhDs and couples who had different last names, right, like all those things, that doesn't happen here. And so my very first friend or not friend, but an early friend that I made, what is a former professor from Pitt, and we got to talking at a we were at a birthday party that our girls were invited to and I was so excited to meet another woman who had I've spent time in academia in this area. And she left to be a mom. But she, she was not. She didn't do teaching, she wasn't on the teaching side, she was in curriculum development. So as a scientist, I think, math, and gosh, as so much respect for her, I'll say that in a few minutes, I'll say that. But her job was to develop curriculum, both for the university and then to publish that curriculum. And so as I was telling her what I do, and you know, getting in getting into, I think I was getting ready to start at the university, where I'm at now. She's like, Oh, you should be publishing that stuff. And I just looked at her sideways, like, what? Because we don't do that in this field. Nobody is publishing. And it's a, I've thought about it a lot. Why aren't we doing that? It? Why aren't we publishing standard curriculums for all of us to follow, like, it just makes so much sense. And we, you know, we're she was like, a staff person dedicated to doing that we don't have that at all. As professors, we're just like, out there swimming and trying to survive, you know, make it up as we go sometimes, which isn't how it should be. It doesn't, but I totally respect her too. Because if I and I've done this, if I leave the field for a couple years, I can instantly get a job as a professor as like a math professor, they're a diamond doesn't like she left that job to be a mom, and she knows she's never going back. And so that's that made me sad for her. But um, yeah, we need to be doing something like that.

MT 41:50
But that could be maybe a revised role for Asha, you know, if they want to advocate for more uniformity between the programs and say, here's the standards, here's the curriculum, we're going to use, maybe even, here's how you need to make sure that the people that are doing the teaching, are trained ahead of time. I mean, I remember one of the first professors I had, and she was a delightful person, but she just finished her PhD, I think she was maybe a year or two older than I was, and she was thrown into this classroom, and she looked like she was gonna throw up on her own shoes. And it was a tough semester for all of us, because I just think that she didn't have the teaching skill set, even though she knew all of the stuff like she knew the content, but she didn't actually know how to teach. And it's, it's something I didn't realize that like, there's no training for these people that are going in and actually doing our student development. And there's the supervisory and mentorship standards that Asha publishes, but if you've read through them, like, there's no first year or second year clinician that has that skill set, and there's no oversight, like nobody's checking on any of this stuff. You just find your ethics thing every year and say, yep, I'm doing it. So like that might be a more appropriate role. I know they're not regulating us. But if they're regulating the CIA, and they can say, here's the standards, here's what we're gonna do. Like, I know switching over to a full on competency based model is a huge ask, but other countries have done it like Australian Senate Canada has done it

Megan Berg 43:14
like it's not it's not a huge ask. I personally do not feel as someone who has paid for this degree. It's not a big ask. It's the bare minimum that this field should be doing for students.

Jeanette Benigas 43:28
Yeah, yeah. Not just for students, for the people we serve, period. I just, I wouldn't bring this up. Because it came up on social media yesterday, and I kind of called it out. There was a again, I'm sorry, I do dysphasia. So that's the stuff I pay attention to. There is a very good article that came out and I am sorry, whoever I'm missing, but it was like Bice word. And I think a couple other people on the role of instrumentals, and how many people are being over diagnosed with dysphasia. It's a staggering number. And so I posted it in a Facebook group and said, if you're treating dysphasia, like this is a must read. And somebody underneath it said, I already don't have enough hours, I have to work as a as a director of rehab, and just get my couple hours of treatment, even even to just get a full time job. And it's when it's when people start screaming union and all of these things that that they start pulling these articles out from nowhere. And and now I'm not going to have a job and I was like, Excuse me, you are teetering. Very close to say and truly, I felt like this is what this person was saying. I don't care about what the patient needs. I don't care about what the patient's problem is. All I care about is that I need a job and so I'm going to treat it competently and blindly. So I can fill my caseload to an eight hour day and go home and get my paycheck. Like that's what that person said. And it's because of these competency issues, that people were agreeing with this person, like, we can't even get ahead. Because we have people out there who, who got out of grad school, they might have had a great grad school education. But I see this, I really drill my dysphasia students, but they get out there and not all see eyes are like this. But they get out there with these see eyes who have no idea what they're doing, and unteach everything that we've just taught for 16 weeks. And so the student, unlearned there, and then they go to their first job, where they're working with someone who hasn't kept up, and they unlearn some more. And they forget what they learned a year ago, and they just like add to this in competency that is just so rampant, that yeah, then we have this person who would rather just not know what's wrong with the patient, so they can get a paycheck. And I said, if you had cancer, or didn't have cancer, you wouldn't want your oncologist giving you chemo. So he could, you know, fill his work day, if that happened, that doctor would lose his license, we should be held to that same standard, if we are giving treatment to a patient who doesn't need it. And we've gone about it in an incompetent manner with all without all of the information, we should lose our license for that. I mean, period, I was just I was like, did I actually just read this, like the this? This article is written and published by like, very smart people. This was a very smart article, and like, oh, the comments underneath I was just like, I can't that

Megan Berg 46:52
mindset is everywhere. I know, like you can meet any SLP in any town who's building up their hours just to fill the

Jeanette Benigas 47:01
day. But that's it. But I think the baseline of this is what we're saying is that because there's no competency because there's no standard because we don't know what we're teaching. I've struggled with the same thing. We had someone Hi, if you're listening, a student that I had, I assume she was an undergrad, the very first year I taught neuro in western PA, she's like, I think you you, you were my professor. And I did I know I remember my grad students, and I didn't recognize her name. So I'm almost positive. I had her for Neuro because I taught three sections. And I said, Oh, hey, yes, I was there. And I actually said, I'm sorry, because it was a shitshow. Just like empty, said, I don't think students are even practicing clinicians realize we aren't handed a class when we start a job. People in academia are very protective of their work, they're not handing you fully established classes. When you walk into a classroom, for the first time, you are building that class, week by week. And if you're, if you're ever delivering a good PowerPoint, you are spending hours on a three hour lecture hours and hours and days and days and days. And when this is someone's first job, and they're thrown into a three or four load, which means they're teaching three or four different classes, the development that it takes is insane. I remember sometimes I was up at 4am to work on my lectures, just just so I can have decent lectures that first and second year of teaching, it is brutal. And we are in no way being compensated to be putting in that kind of work. But there's nothing out there. You can't just go buy a course you can't. You can't just like call it no one's giving you stuff unless you have really, really really good relationships with mentors who, and even then sometimes they're not willing to hand you everything. It's rough.

Megan Berg 49:04
It's rough. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, oh, go ahead. And,

MT 49:08
you know, it just it's also making me think about the people that are, you know, and I don't want to further exacerbate like the whole, like research practice gap thing, but I think there are so many professors and I had some professors that were, you know, scientists, PhDs, they weren't practicing clinically. But if they're taking that information, and they have to check all these boxes of like, these are the things they should be learning in this class, even if they weren't handed them or handed that the coursework but they they know what they're supposed to be teaching. There's a lot of grad students that like they can memorize something, they can spit it back, it doesn't mean at all that they're actually going to know how to apply that information. And if the professor may not actually know how to apply that information, because they're not practicing like it's not not creating clinicians. It's creating like, parents that can just say things back, and there's so many pieces Miss thing in our graduate school education that like, I know, in grad school, when I was there it was, it was so competitive like it was, everyone was like very protective of their own stuff, there was no collaboration, it was just like, you know, get the best grade possible. So you can get the best placement possible. And like, I get the sense that not a ton has changed in the past 15 years. But then the minute you're a practicing clinician, you're all still Olson supposed to, like have all these skills where you're like, super collaborative, and you could do interprofessional practice, and you should be able to like, give and receive feedback. None of that's happening in the vast majority of grad school programs, because you're just like, stuffing your brain with all this information, and then being sent off to like, go do something with it.

Megan Berg 50:43
Yep. Yeah. And just to keep on this track, with a little different shift is like, if we look at the CA, because this is where it gets, like, where should these standards be housed? And how should they be distributed? And I think it should be. I mean, the most logical answer at this point, and I don't know if this is the only way, but it should be the CA. And the thing I don't understand about the CA is like it's all run on volunteers. And then they do this practice analysis that creates the standards for the curriculum. And the Praxis and the CCC. And like people volunteered their time to complete that survey, and then they turn around and charge $44 for it or whatever. Like the CAA how it operates and how it runs doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And I think that audio, audiologists have felt the same way. And that's why they started a whole separate accrediting body. That was entirely they were very intentional that it could not be attached to a national association, because then you get all these conflicts of interest, which I think, personally, my opinion is that there are conflicts of interest between the CAA and Asha, and especially when you throw the CCC in, and it all comes down to money. And when they're so concerned with, you know, winning all these awards with Association, executive boards and whatever, like, and they're not really thinking through how this all works, and how it's all affecting instructors and students and supervisors, then you end up with this mess that we're all in that we're trying to untangle. And Janette, I know, I think it was after we left New Orleans last year, I was talking to you from an airport. And I was like we should just make our own accrediting body. And like, there have been a lot of a lot of conversations that Jenna and I have had before we started fix SLP of like, we shouldn't make our own Association, we should make our own whatever. And like that we keep coming back to like, it's not necessarily about starting from scratch, it's about SLPs taking our power back, and collectively deciding how this should be run. Like if Jeanette and I just create another controlling body, then okay, maybe there's another option. But it's not, we're not shifting towards a culture where SLPs are collaborative, where they're sharing information, where there's a collective goal of competent practice and good patient care, or just continuing to rely on these, you know, older patriarchal controlling systems to tell us who we are and what we do. And we're here to say that SLPs like we get to decide who we are, we're such a young profession, we have so much ahead of us, we have so many problems that we really can solve, like, these are all very solvable problems. And we get to decide the fate of our profession. Not Asha, not me, not Jeanette, like, we all get to do that collectively. And I think it is a cultural shift towards collaboration that needs to happen. And that shift comes when we all recognize our own power.

Jeanette Benigas 54:03
I think one step on the way to doing that is continuing to educate, like, make it and I will keep putting content out there. But all of you have to keep sharing our stuff or the things you're share the things you're learning with us. You know, certainly people are sending us stuff now often. But you know, just as everybody if we are going to change the culture, we as in all of us, we all have to take a part in this movement, we all have to be part of this army. That is saying, Enough is enough. No more, we are going to make a change and you so everybody just has to keep sharing and inviting people to this information. And you know, not everyone is going to want to hear it like like me, like most of my colleagues have no interest in hearing what I'm saying right now. But maybe someday our PhD You Friends will come alongside it. Can you imagine? Like if every PhD was like, yes, let's get a curriculum, that is how fast that would happen. There's,

MT 55:10
it's such a shame that there's that disconnect, because honestly, if if the graduate programs as a collective decided that, you know, they're not happy with the outcomes, and they want to shift to competency, like, it would happen, if they all kind of came together and did that. And I'm, I'm so curious, because you said like, our field is so young, and that it's it's 100%. True. I'm curious what sort of like the tipping point was and what the chain of events was when medicine in United States switched over to all competency based and I just, I'm wondering how that happened. And if there are other fields that we could learn from and sort of figure out like, Okay, well, they were doing it, that's or even other countries like they were doing it this way? What was sort of that? That thing that made them decide to switch over? And was it based on the training programs? Was it based on the actual clinicians that were practicing? Did it come from? I don't know, I don't even know what their name was, like the medical association is, but like, there's probably kind of templates for how we could do this. But it would have to be something that the programs or the graduate programs would have to get on board with, and then the individual clinicians could advocate for it as well.

Megan Berg 56:22
Yeah, and I don't know the answer to that. I only know that Australia is leading the charge and competency based standards for SLPs. And that originated from a PhD

Jeanette Benigas 56:32
publishing. But wait, there's more. raelia is leading that charge. But one of our fearless fixers messaged us on social media the other day to say that if you want reciprocity, so if someone wants to move from the USA, to Australia to practice, in order to get licensed in Australia, they have to come with the CCC. So to even understand competency I have to ask,

Megan Berg 57:03
right, yeah, very true. Very true. And if you look at the meeting minutes from the board's over the last few years there I mean, that's what they're doing is going to other countries and making sure that that requirement is there, just like they're going to state licensing boards and Medicaid for I mean, they're just going all over the world, planting the seed that their certification is God's gift to humanity, and that they should implement it as their requirement is

Jeanette Benigas 57:28
has to stop. I wasn't angry before we started. Plus the last two days. I've messaged Megan, let's, let's record today, I'm feeling really spicy. Today. I woke up tired AF because I've been sick for over a week now. I like big it'll, you know, I messaged Reagan, I was like, I fed my kids breakfast at 11am. Okay, I was dragging this morning. But man now I'm like, so angry. I

Megan Berg 57:54
have I know. We're running out of time. But I have a question for both of you. That I would just love to hear you riff on a little bit if we have time. Do you have time empty? Yeah, that's good. Okay, what would it take to change the supervision requirement in academia? And I know, Jeanette, you've talked about like enough people would have to quit the CCC, and then there wouldn't be enough supervisors. But is there a way to do this more efficiently?

Jeanette Benigas 58:21
Yes. i They changed the standards every What is it four years empty? Do you know I feel like it's every four years the standards change?

MT 58:31
Yes, I believe that that's also not based on anything like the requirements are not like they find evidence. Like they.

Jeanette Benigas 58:38
I think they do little surveys, I would assume.

MT 58:41
But I'm saying it's not based on like, no, it's like they survey people and say, What do you think about this? Yeah. Which I mean, everything's based on surveys, which is completely insane. Like, make sure everyone's using evidence based practice. But none of our standards are going to be based on any evidence.

Megan Berg 58:56
Just people getting inside,

Jeanette Benigas 58:59
they decide what's on the surveys that are set, it's not fill in the blank surveys. They done the surveys. Yeah. So the standards are changed. So in the next standard cycle, and honest to God, is there a rule that says they can't break out of the cycle and add, you know, a extra fix, if you will? A little bonus? Like a bonus cycle? That you know, they could at any time they could they do? It's an answer. Sorry.

Megan Berg 59:28
These are this is the CA Yes. Yes. Not Asha.

Jeanette Benigas 59:32
Not that well.

Megan Berg 59:35
Separate supervision requirements.

Yes.

Great because they don't require the CCC because they can't because they would be shut down. Now

Jeanette Benigas 59:44
listen, I'm going to challenge that I haven't seen the paperwork, it would probably be easy for us to get our hands on. I think that they have to sign off. I think programs have to sign off that their students have been supervised by people with The CCC because we have to collect that information, we have to collect their, the their Asha card or their Asha number and keep that on file.

Megan Berg 1:00:11
I know but when I was looking at the CEA, guide book, whatever, that was not the CCC was not mentioned in there. And that's when I started thinking like, Okay, why not? And then and then that led me to realize that Asha is aware that there's all these conflicts of interest. And so this

Jeanette Benigas 1:00:34
photo, it might not be directed, it might be in the documentation, maybe that the program director has to sign off on at the end of their program. If you are a program director or a chair, the only one in the US listening to us. Could you be in contact at team at fix slp.com? And let us know. There's some,

Megan Berg 1:01:00
okay, here's what it is. So I'm looking at it and it says it. The graduate program that prepares students for the degree required to qualify for credentials to practice independently, in the profession, for example, ashes certificate of clinical competency, we are in state licensure, we've

Jeanette Benigas 1:01:23
had a follow who has messaged us or emailed us or something and said, I have to sign off that they have been supervised by a CCC supervisor. Right.

Megan Berg 1:01:33
But that's, that's because the department has that's their own internal department rule because they're trying to, because remember, there have been students who weren't supervised by someone with the CCC. And then they and they didn't know that. And then they went to apply for the CCC and it didn't count. So I think all these universities just default, to having that paperwork and requiring the CCC, just because they assume that all of their students are going to apply.

Jeanette Benigas 1:02:01
I have to wonder like when you get accredited, there's they'll audit your Calypso. I have to wonder if the audit includes looking for the ASHA card? Because that's something that a lot of universities upload, why would they be auditing Calypso?

Megan Berg 1:02:22
They might, but I don't think it's not in they might be doing that. Because that's how they've always done it. And they're wanting to make sure that students are like, informed that supervisors have the CCC or not. But what I've everything I've read, they don't have any requirements for the CCC. Because they know that that would be an absolute violation,

Jeanette Benigas 1:02:45
I'm going to add them to my list of things to dig into just so we can be sure. So everyone, I've got like the Tobii Dynavox, pranky Romick thing. This a full time job a Girl Scout troop, we'll get to it, I won't forget. But what it would take is changing the standard to say I think very specifically, just that in order to apply for the CCC. So this would be Asha saying it to apply for the CCC. You can be supervised by a licensed speech pathologist licensed by any of the 50 States, Washington DC, in the USA period ever gonna do that? No, they won't. But it's that easy all day. And it wouldn't, it wouldn't be something that would happen overnight. Obviously, when changes happen, you know, a couple years out to write like, and anybody who graduates after this time will be subject to these standards and anyone. So after and that's why we're all of these rumors are like, Oh, I had to do schoolwork and redo all of this stuff. That's how that happens that when you apply for the CCC, what standard year are you held to? So you know, they'd have to announce it out quite a bit. So people are ready for that change. Although it would be helpful, you wouldn't even need it wouldn't hurt anyone. It would only help people really so you wouldn't have to give it they could make the change and a meeting as soon as we publish this podcast, and it would hurt no one. It would help everyone that and it's not easy. They will do it. But it's that easy. Less of being naive.

MT 1:04:26
I think also maybe having I don't know how it would be enforced but having more rigorous standards for supervision and mentorship because it's it's horrifying to me that you don't just have to have your season been practicing one year. And I also did like, which within like three years of practicing I switched practice areas. I could have technically been supervising somebody in a school based setting and I had no idea what I was doing. And there's no one checking up on me because I am in Pennsylvania considered a teacher. So I'm not being evaluated by any The other like, I'm not being evaluated by anybody that really nitty gritty knows what I'm doing and what I should know and should know. So, I mean, a lot of it comes down to this, this issue of quality. And I don't know what that would look like from the supervisor level, but it's such a huge deficit in our field is like having quality mentorship, having quality supervision, and that if that is something that could be more prioritized, it would have a trickle down effect, I think of making things better for so many clinicians in so many workplaces, but also like it would help with retention. Because I know I mean, of my cohort, less than half of us are still practicing. And they, you know, they found something else and that's fine. But it's people are just like, running away from the field. Because it's it's hard. It's hard work. And there's not a lot of support.

Jeanette Benigas 1:05:53
Yeah. And if I would have been supervising in those early days, I would have been like, and here's how you copy other clinicians notes.

Megan Berg 1:06:03
And again, okay, so this is all making me think that we, like, Jeannette, I was thinking of your conversation with the Hawaii State Association from the last episode, and how they are wanting to increase the quality of patient care that's provided. Any state can enact legislation that more clearly defines a provisional license, and the supervision requirements for that. So any of us can go to our state licensing boards and start shaping these changes. And I think one thing that maybe could come from fix SLP is this national conversation of what does it take to be an SLP? And what do we recommend for state licensing boards to consider. And it's really a grassroots effort of all of us really thinking critically about what we needed, and what we would like the future generations to have, and then enacting that legislation and not waiting for a body like Asha, to dictate it, because they've demonstrated that they don't have the capacity to do that without huge financial conflicts of interest.

MT 1:07:16
Well, I think also understanding like, how to and to not get things done, like, if more SLPs really understood that. What was the one who was like Ash was not coming to save us, like it's not happening. And it's not even that they're not like, that they don't want to, it's that they can't, so if you if more people understand where to put their advocacy efforts, and advocacy, money, and time, you know, take all the time and energy you're spending not you guys personally, but SOPs in general take all that time and energy you're spending, being pissed off at ASHA, and realize like, you could take that same money and join your state association and be more involved with that or like, get in touch with legislators in your area and make sure they actually know who we are and, and what we're doing. Or if you're in a school, you know, joining your association or union and making sure that they're aware of what we're doing and what the value is, and that they're advocating for issues of caseload or workload or whatever. I think that that is so valuable, and something that so few people really understand that we do have a voice. But you have to know where to use it for it to be effective. And it's not Asha.

Jeanette Benigas 1:08:31
Yeah, I agree. That's i That's why I'm so hopeful about this series we're doing where we're hoping to interview every state association and see what's going on and see how SLPs can communicate with them and communicate what they'd like to see and get involved. Especially like to join hasha it was 50 bucks a year. So a couple people have asked us like, Oh, now that I'm saving this $26 or now that I'm saving to 25 What should I do? Well, if you're saving to 25, go join your state association. MTA I think ours is 75. Right? Yeah, go join your state association. And then go have a nice, like meal. And like send me a coffee with the change, like, you know, to join your state association is so much cheaper and to get involved and

be getting things done. Yeah,

be a part of that community too. You know, I've met some really nice people in picha that I don't know them well, yet. I've only been volunteering for a year. But these are people and I'm not implying that people at ASHA, don't care. There are a lot of people volunteering at ASHA because they wish to make a difference. But with the level of bureaucracy happening there, that difference is very hard to make. That type of bureaucracy doesn't typically exist in these little state associations that are barely served. Driving, they're happier, they're, they want your opinion, they'll have a job for you, they'll have 10 jobs for you if that's what you want. And I think it's a much way, a much better way to spend our time to make the changes that we need to see.

MT 1:10:17
And we're I mean, I'll speak to PSHA specifically, we're as like either committee heads or as people on the board. We're reviewing legislation at every single meeting, like anything that even comes in contact with the world of SLP. We're reviewing that, and then we're writing letters, or we're like, actually going to the meetings and like advocating for things like there's real, everyday progress happening at that state level that, I mean, the cool part about being involved in it is you can see it, and then you can see like, oh my gosh, this past, this is gonna make my life better in this way. I don't think that that because the transparency isn't there with ASHA, you're never going to see that. So even if you buy into, you know, they're advocating for us in whatever way they purport to be doing. So it's gonna be really hard to find that information. I love that there's been like, we're hooked up with somebody from the board of special education in Pennsylvania now. And she's like, attending some of our meetings and helping us problem solve, like, what's the best way to get information out new specifically to school districts. So they understand how our job has changed in the past 1015 years, like my caseload looks totally different than it did even five years ago, because of the student population. And, you know, kids when I used to work in a NICU, they were, you know, 27 and 28 weeks, and maybe they were gonna be okay, maybe they weren't like, I have multiple 22 weekers on my caseload, right now, they're in kindergarten. And like we, as a collective of school speech, pathologists are not necessarily trained for that population. And people at the government level have, first of all, they have no idea what we do for the most part, but they have no idea why a caseload cap of 65 is wildly inappropriate right now. And that that's not it's like more of like a suggestion. Like you don't necessarily have to only have 65, you can case manage 65. I know I'm getting very Pennsylvania heavy right now. But I'm just saying, like having been involved in this process and getting to see what changes are actually possible. And that it's, if you have enough people really trying to move in the same direction and have the same values and have the same goal, like things do happen. And I don't know how that would even be possible with a larger organization. So I'm obviously super passionate about people joining their state organizations. And if you live in Pennsylvania, please email me.

Jeanette Benigas 1:12:40
Yeah, come join us, please.

Megan Berg 1:12:44
And I mean, this is not to I'm not, I don't have like, deep seated patriotism. But the United States is a really unique country, in that we have all these different states, and we have so much grassroots energy that we can plug into. And that's just not the case everywhere in the world. So I think, especially in the United States, if you're an SLP in this country, just realize like, our government system is set up for you to have a voice. And so even though it doesn't feel like we've had a voice as SLPs it is there, and we just have to find it and use it.

Jeanette Benigas 1:13:25
Yeah.

Do you think this is a good time to wrap up begun? I don't know how long we've been recording, but I feel like Yeah, before we empty, yeah. Thanks for chatting, guys. Before we wrap up, I do want to highlight one more thing that I think got posted. Oh, it got posted today. On to our social media. We have a slide deck that shows what progress looks like so early on, as we were looking at regulations for states. We and by we I mean Megan found a discrepancy in what was required to practice in New Jersey. And so we don't just put things out there and then forget about it. We were doing some following up and on the New Jersey State Association website. When you look at the licensing and certification information under the speech language pathology license, it says content is currently under review. So when Megan's set, like sent me that I said, we have to tell our fixers about this because that would have never happened if it wasn't for fix SLP right. And by the way, we just found a big discrepancy somewhere like this morning, so maybe we'll be making some more changes but I'm not with New Jersey. But that's so cool to kind of the see the fruits of our labor. So New Jersey, good for you to the New Jersey's Speech Language Hearing Association. We want you to come on and talk about this. Once it's settled once you figure it out. This is cool. Like,

Megan Berg 1:15:03
these are talking about all the other cool things you're doing because they're Yes,

Jeanette Benigas 1:15:06
but, but this is why this is why we're fixing SLP like, even if that's the only thing we ever accomplished, like people in New Jersey are gonna have clarity now. So I just am really excited about it. I said we had to put it out there and show it because I mean, this is just like a tiny, tiny, tiny little win, but hopefully this will be the first of many and hopefully the winds get bigger as time goes on. So yay. Yay. Anything else either you have for today. All right, everybody. I'll sign off and thanks for fixing it.

Megan Berg 1:15:44
Bye.

Jeanette Benigas 1:15:45
Bye, everybody.

MT 1:15:46
Bye.