SLP Outreach Program provides support, sense of normalcy

When second-year graduate students in ETSU’s Speech-Language Pathology program started to be pulled from their off-campus placements, Dr. Teresa Boggs, the department’s director of clinical services, wanted to give them an opportunity to keep connecting with clients and families.

After ETSU classes went online, Boggs said clinics began to “trickle-off” over a two-week period. ETSU Health’s Nave Speech and Language Clinics closed on March 19, and off-campus clinics began removing students from sites ranging from long-term care facilities to public school systems.

To continue serving families and allow students to continue clinical opportunities despite COVID-19 closures, faculty and students in ETSU’s Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology created an outreach program to help families who have children with communication disorders.

“A big theme that they educate us on in our program is continuity of care and providing care across the lifespan at different points,” second-year SLP graduate student Alyssa Farris said. “And this has kind of made me really think more about that theme of continuity of care and how it’s important for us to provide care even when times are challenging. And I don’t think anyone envisioned this kind of challenge coming about, but now that it’s here, I think it’s our responsibility as future and current speech-language pathologists to rise to the occasion and to continue providing that much needed care for our patients.”

The outreach involves three programs: Family Outreach, SLP Connect and a Social Media Outreach Program.

Family Outreach provides supportive materials and resources to families in need of SLP services. SLP graduate students pair up with families they had previously served within the ETSU clinics. With the guidance of ETSU clinical educators, those students identify goals from clients’ current treatment and create activities that can be done in the child’s home. Boggs said their primary focus is to help clients maintain skills they have already learned with SLP students or at school.

“We know that kids need to maintain skills,” Boggs said. “So, a lot of times, our children with special need may gain a skill, but then if you’re not continuing to work on that skill, they’ll lose it. So this is a time we want them to be able to just maintain skills.”

Another goal of the Family Outreach is to support families who feel isolated. They want to meet the families’ emotional needs and let them know they still have a supportive team concerned about their well-being and happiness, Boggs said.

For SLP Connect, graduate students work with parents via Zoom to help choose a new toy, book or game their child can use to improve their speech, language and social skills. That toy is then delivered to the child’s home with detailed instruction for the families. Toys are provided through funds donated by ETSU’s chapter of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association.  

“We really wanted to be able to give the parents something while they were home with their children, and we wanted the children to know that we were still thinking about them,” Boggs said. “We know that once we were able to get those toys to the children that the graduate students could create activities that the child could do with that toy. So I think … we just wanted to bring a little bit of joy to their home and a little structure to their families.”

The first of four SLP Connect Zoom events will take place Tuesday at 1 p.m. They will invite small groups of parents and clinicians to provide an opportunity for interaction.

The Social Media Outreach Program involves SLP graduate students developing three- to five-minute videos to be shared on Facebook for families and children with communication disorders. It is also a way to reach more children and families than just those receiving therapies within the ETSU Nave Speech and Language Clinics.

Although it began as Boggs’ vision for students to create quick talks to encourage parents while they are home, she did not realize how much the program would grow.

“That has just become much bigger than what I envisioned because this group of students have really [gone] above and beyond making these clips,” Boggs said. “Making it not only so the parent could see somebody but making handouts to go along with it so parents can actually print a handout and watch the video.”

The SLP students discuss ways to change a child’s daily routine including how to implement language-building activities at home, how to enhance speech development with books and how to use the internet successfully. The videos also include child-focused activities such as backyard scavenger hunts, cooking and language, shared book reading and sensory games

Boggs said one of the students is taking the Facebook videos and putting them on YouTube by category to make them more accessible to families. They plan to continue and grow this program even after “we return to real life,” Boggs said.

Both first and second year SLP graduate students are involved in the Family Outreach and the SLP Connect. Some first-year students may be assigned to clients who second year students had the year before, allowing for mentorship by second year students, Boggs said. Second-year students oversee the Social Media Outreach.

Farris, who wants to be an auditory verbal therapist, was familiar with Zoom before the COVID-19 outbreak having done therapy for children with unilateral hearing loss. The additional element of working from home, however, has taught her even more.

“The fact that I get to continue that kind of therapy but can do it from the comfort of my home and the comfort of their home, I’ve gotten to learn so much more about my clients just by watching them interact in their home setting,” Farris said. “And it’s given me the opportunity to even help that family even more because I’m seeing things that I didn’t see before because they might feel more comfortable at home than they do in our office at ETSU.”

For second-year student Alexis Gonzalez, continuing to connect with clients and families has provided a sense of normalcy for her.

“I think what’s so special about it is that even though this is a crazy time, and we keep saying that these are such uncertain and unprecedented times, that it can still feel semi-normal and that we’re still doing what we came to school to do,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said she thinks people thrive off having a schedule or an event in the day and maintaining a schedule has been encouraging to both her and her clients.

“Routines and schedules are like foundational for children in general but particularly children with communication disorders,” Boggs said. “So, having somewhat of a routine, even if it’s mom pulls up Facebook and lets them look to see if they see a familiar face. If they see one of the SLPs that worked with them while they were at ETSU, and then helping parents to have that routine and schedule.”

As a faculty member, Boggs said these times have been hard not only because they miss their clients, but because they miss their students. This program has given her the comfort of virtually interacting with second-year students who, before, she would have only seen occasionally or at graduation.

“Kind of having them back so I can actually see them and know where they’re at is very encouraging,” Boggs said. “Being able to see them at this level as compared to where I [saw] them when they first started and how much growth and how bright and how creative they are. I mean, it feels – I feel very blessed really.”

To learn more about the outreach program visit ETSU Nave Speech and Language Center’s Facebook, or to learn more about ETSU Health’s Speech and Hearing Clinics, visit its website.