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We are discussing the biggest challenges that are currently holding back the field of speech-language pathology. We present the issues with facts and invite you to be a part of joining our movement to make things better, one conversation at a time. Let's fix SLP!
Hosted by Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP
Megan Berg 0:00
Hi, everyone.
Jeanette Benigas 0:01
I'm Megan Berg 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, everybody. If you're listening to us on the day that this drops, we are getting ready to take some time off for the holidays. So if you if you celebrate Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, if you celebrate something else, we definitely have a diverse group of listeners. So happy, very everything. But what we wanted to do today was a play sort of on the 12 days of Christmas. So we're going to do the 12 days of fix SLP 12 things we wish for SLP is this holiday season? And maybe all the time. And all the time. Yes. Let's just launch it right now. We're gonna put it out there, and then it's just gonna happen all the time. Unless maybe there's something you want to add. I'll just jump right into number 12. Let's do it. Okay, number 12. Now in our document, Megan, we start with number one, but I changed that while you talk. So I'm not confused. Okay. So, um, number 12. What we wish for, we wish SLPs rest. And what we what do we mean by rest? When we're talking about our work, which should be separate from all of the other things in our lives, we want everybody to just remember you don't owe your employer anything beyond what you have contracted. So that means working off the clock becomes a problem. It perpetuates systemic racism, classism, sexism, all of the systems that hold us back from being valued. And if you've followed us for any amount of time, you may or may not know that we had a previous project, a limited podcast series called other SLPs pockets, where we did talk about taking work home and how it it devalues us, it holds us back from being valued. It lowers our hourly pay it, it just contributes to devaluing US as a whole. So we want you to stop taking work home, stop working off the clock, stop clocking out to be productive to do work. So you can show productivity to your employer. Show your employer what time you actually need to get your job done. And if they don't give you that time, then the job doesn't get done, I guess. And I I know that that is hard to think about because we're all people who are in this field to help others and leaving work on finishes is not part of our DNA, I guess. So it's kind of a tough mind shift.
Megan Berg 3:24
Yeah, and I just wanted to share a quote by Cal Newport he wrote a book called deep work that I found interesting. He said, If you keep interrupting your evening to check and respond to email, or put aside a few hours after dinner Dinner to catch up on an approaching deadline, you're robbing your directed attention centers of the uninterrupted rest they need for restoration. Even if these work dashes consume only a small amount of time they prevent you from reaching the level of levels of deeper relaxation in which attention restoration can occur. Only the confidence that you're done with work until the next game day can convince your brain to downshift to the level where it can begin to recharge for the next day to follow. Put another way, trying to squeeze a little more work out of your evenings might reduce your effectiveness the next day enough that you end up getting less done than if you had instead perspective a shutdown.
Jeanette Benigas 4:18
Megan was preaching to me right there. I do things that what's
Megan Berg 4:22
the worst offender? Here's the worst.
Jeanette Benigas 4:25
Yeah, the worst. But these are not necessarily things we aren't good at. So let's let's put that out there. For example, yesterday, my daughter was in a performance for a local community theater and she had a student performance and then in the morning, so I didn't work I my final was that I had to administer was at two o'clock and that's when I started working. But it's finals week. Yesterday was the last day of the semester. And if you listen to the last episode, you heard heard about my oral competency. So you know, I still had to work I didn't walk in until 10 NPM that's what time I walked in, that didn't include dinner that was, I worked and then drove home and then started my evening. So I'm bad at it.
Megan Berg 5:12
thing is don't listen. But we're all working on it. I don't know what I say things in reverse order because the song The original song does not do them in reverse order. But anyway, now that we've started doing that in reverse
Jeanette Benigas 5:23
order, that was number one. Now we're doing number two, the second day of Christmas. No,
Megan Berg 5:28
but then you Anyway, okay, sure. Number two, guys,
Jeanette Benigas 5:31
just it just give us a five star review. Okay.
Megan Berg 5:36
Number two, we wish SLPs career fulfillment and no are not selling you a certification or product that promises you career fulfillment. There are lots of ways to find career fulfillment as an SLP. If you don't like your job, try looking for a different one. I know that's can be easier said than done. And there's lots of privilege involved with being able to do that. But just know that you do have options available for you. And even if it takes you a few years, you can find a job that works better for you. If you really really can't change your job, job, advocate for the changes that you need and want. And we're here to help you come up with the words and language and action steps to do that, because you deserve to enjoy your job. And it doesn't have to be what defines you, or brings you all of the joy in your life. But you really shouldn't wake up every morning and dread it this field is vast and wide and there is a place for you in it. If you find that you want to be done with this field, you can also use your SLP skills in other ways and try a different career if you need a break. But life is short. And if you are going to work, you should be doing something that you love. Number three, slash 10 slash three whatever
Jeanette Benigas 6:53
310. We wish SLPs autonomy. i This is something I teach in my classroom that SLPs are autonomous. And I really try to make sure that my students understand what that word means. It is why we are speech language pathologists and not speech therapists. It's how we differentiate from ot PT. It's because we don't we have the ability to diagnose and treat where PTs and OTs don't quite do that. So anyway, we all understand that hopefully my students understand that Megan's making a making a look, I feel like
Megan Berg 7:35
they do diagnose but yeah,
Jeanette Benigas 7:39
they do. That's why Yeah, cuz I've thought about oh, but are we going to we probably don't have time to dig into this. Anyway, we're autonomous. Okay, just suspend your belief.
Megan Berg 7:50
You're more autonomous from Asha. That's 100%, where I was going next. So where autonomous for me PTA and OT. So no, it was for me. No,
Jeanette Benigas 7:59
that is true. But what I was going to say next was, we all understand it as it applies to our practice. But where we all have a really hard time understanding it is that Asha doesn't own us. We are autonomous from Asha, you are your own autonomous SLP. You get to decide what your career looks like. You get to decide how you want to learn what paths you take to learn those things. What mentors you want to work with what CPUs you want to take. And so really, our hope is that someday, truly, not today. This is we've been in this for the long game, but that someday, all SLP is will have the option of choosing from maybe a variety of associations. Many of them already exist, maybe somebody is going to start one, not us. That's not what we're doing. But you know, maybe you want to start. But but that you'll have a choice to choose what you want to support your career as an SLP. Not what Asha tells you, you need to be an SLP because we're autonomous in our practice, and we are also autonomous, in what we choose to use to grow our knowledge base and are autonomous in the people we choose. Just forget it.
Megan Berg 9:28
Number four, we wish SLPs information. So we hope that what we're doing here at fixed SLP helps you save time to access the information that you need to make the choices that are right for you. You don't have to agree with us at all. But we hope that you are able to make those choices because you have access to information. We are in a field that is dominated heavily by a national association who diligently actively on purpose creates very confusing information. shaman that conflates a lot of different things with the intention of trying to sell their certification. And so you as an SLP, are absolutely entitled to clear guidelines and clear information about what is required of you to do your job. And so we wish information for you.
Jeanette Benigas 10:21
Alright, the next one, we wish SLPs recognition. And we've said from the beginning, we're going to talk about a lot of topics. So we'll get to this one more in future topics, someday. CCC, but most people don't understand this profession. Truly, I say it all the time. Other people, our colleagues often don't understand what we do, because half of the time we don't understand what we do, right. So many people don't understand the profession, or even the value that we bring to a team at a school or a medical team. People don't understand that. So we're here to help change that. Eventually. So we do wish recognition. Yeah.
Megan Berg 11:15
In number six, we wish SLPs we wish for all of you to be challenged. And one reason we're so passionate about dismantling the myths around the CCC is because this certification creates a culture within a selfie where we feel that we are being controlled and monitored by Big Daddy Asha.
Jeanette Benigas 11:36
Big Daddy Asha. Yes.
Megan Berg 11:41
So that feeling of being controlled and monitored creates a culture of fear of making mistakes and intimidation for doing things quote, wrong, because Big Daddy Asha might come and tell us or punish us or take something away from us. And so we kind of have this policing, culture. And we just like making a mistake is just the worst thing that could ever happen to any one of us. That's the culture that we're living in right now. And so we want SLPs, to feel safe, to be challenged within a community where learning and growing are absolutely normalized. And it's completely acceptable and normal to think one way and then learn something new and think a different way. And we want to see a space where a national certification doesn't fall asleep, guarantee competency and make us feel like we have to be perfect, that culture of perfectionism 100% of the time, because that is completely impossible, and it is not healthy. So we wish for SLPs to be challenged in a safe space.
Jeanette Benigas 12:48
That's so good. So our next one, we wish SLPs better pay. Megan and I are so passionate about this one that we dedicated, like an entire spring and summer to recording podcasts about it. We are so undervalued. So this is why we I mentioned it without reading ahead. This is why we created the other SLPs pockets podcast. Actually, I hadn't really read this document at all this morning. And I had already said to Megan, hey, link up SLPs pockets to our website. So hopefully by the time you hear this, Megan, have we done that? Yes. So we haven't Okay, sure. But by the time we hear this, hopefully it's there.
Megan Berg 13:35
It's quickly.
Jeanette Benigas 13:37
I find it under Quick Links. I'm biased, but I think it's great. We have a lot of people that we've interviewed on different topics surrounding pay. So what we really like is, is we encourage everyone to continue to be transparent about pay within your local community. You can check out the podcast to hear what other SLPs are making around the country. We have a bunch of tips for negotiating better salary. And I just think it's it was a fun little project that we did and hopefully people find it helpful. So better pay go get it in the new year.
Megan Berg 14:16
Yeah. All right. Number eight, we wish SLP is a better name for the profession. And this is another topic we'll be getting into in the future. Everyone has a very strong opinion about it. It is a very hot topic for sure. But we need a name that captures who we are and what we do or at the very least doesn't cause constant instant confusion and comments like but I talk just fine.
Jeanette Benigas 14:46
We definitely ash it took a stab at this by changing better speech and hearing month to a name that I feel like was equally as bad. Do we know what they changed it to off the top of our heads? No, no,
Megan Berg 14:59
it was just it was like changing the one word or something. Yeah, it
Jeanette Benigas 15:02
was odd. Not a change, we mean an actual change, we need to fix the whole name. That'll be our next endeavor. Yes. All right, we wish SLP is this might be my favorite one, strong state associations. State Associations are grassroots organizations that amplify the voices of SLPs. State Associations are not many ashes. They're not. They may get some grant money from Asha. But they they are autonomous as well. They get to operate how they want to in the best interest of their members. They're paying members. So so we've been you've been hearing us encourage you all along to join your state association. And this is a great time. If you're if you're not renewing your membership to Asha. Or maybe you're letting the CCC go completely up, people have been asking what should we do with the money we save. And I think they're asking as a joke, but I responded, join your state association and then go out to a nice dinner with the change because I don't think any membership association cost as much the CPAC. Maybe it does cost more than the membership that 26 You would save. But think about joining your state association for the new year and getting involved not not just giving them your money. But getting involved in some kind of committee that doesn't take a lot of time, but where your voice can be heard as a practicing clinician to start making the changes in your state that your state specifically needs to see whether that workload caps, productivity, Medicaid reimbursement, just generally, or needing to have the CCC to bill Medicaid or having the CCC to practice period. Every state has different issues. So we really encourage that we really encourage strong seed associations for you. If I'm sorry, that was a lot.
Megan Berg 17:21
Oh, did you have another thought?
Jeanette Benigas 17:23
I didn't read the last point. But I was I was reading, I was like, this doesn't fit into what I'm okay. If you're not ready to join your state association, one step you can take is to learn more about the association and what they're working on right now. Yeah.
Megan Berg 17:42
Okay, number 10. We wish SLPs more comprehensive training. And we talked about this on the last episode, and we will continue to talk about this. I'm gonna say this as a biased medical SLP. But especially for medical SLPs, who have been dealing with filling just enormous knowledge gaps since the early 2000s, when dysphasia was added to grad school curriculums, but it was never fully encapsulated or addressed by the by the CA. And so but it's I'm sure there's also similar feelings in other settings like school based SLPs, where things are just not being captured in the training. And so we have this situation where SLPs are graduating and they're immediately forking out maybe 1000s of dollars for the certification, things that they think are going to fill in the gaps of their grad school education that they just paid 10s of 1000s of dollars for. And so we that's something that we will continue to talk about in the future, because it all wraps up in the conversation about the CCC and like, really, what does it take? And what does it mean to be a competent SLP. So we wish SLP is more comprehensive training.
Jeanette Benigas 19:03
Next we wish SLP is options. So this one short and sweet, you should have the option of joining a national membership association. A true option, not just one that they tell you as an option, but like the real option that you're not afraid to not do it. You should have the option of holding the CCC an actual option without gaslighting attached to that with without fear and emotion that come with it. You should just be able to decide I don't want this this year and then not have it. Just like you have the option of joining your state association that is an actual option. That option that you feel to join or not join. That's what we want you to have for your national association and for the CCC
Megan Berg 20:00
And last and finally number 12. but definitely not least we wish SLPs Respect, respect includes taking the concerns of SLPs seriously, respect includes not prioritizing the voices of academic SLPs. Over the voices of working nine to five clinicians. Respect includes having to work to earn the trust of SLPs rather than using a certification as a way to coerce SLPs into paying an organization. Respect includes better pay respect includes a culture where the average person understands what SLPs do. Respect includes budgets for resources and continuing education and respect includes listening to each other, empowering each other and moving forward into the new year with fresh ideas, new energy and the collective mission to fix SLP.
Jeanette Benigas 20:58
That was beautiful, Megan.
Megan Berg 21:02
All right. That's what we got for everybody today. Anything you want to add Jeanette?
Jeanette Benigas 21:05
No, that was short and sweet. I just hope that all of my academic SLP friends, all of my school SLP friends, if we circle back up to the first point, have a restful time off to my med SLP friends, hang in there folks. Get through the holiday. But truly sure you get that time and a half. If they even give it the go get better pay. Yeah, we just we hope that you just do get some time off that you have some time to rest and spend time with friends and family this holiday season and in celebrating whatever way you might celebrate with your loved ones. So we will see you in the new year. For more fixing. Yeah, thanks, everybody. Bye