De Facto Leaders

There’s a lot of talk about risk factors in education; but not as much focus on protective factors .  That’s why I invited Dr. Mike Gaskell to episode 118 of De Facto Leaders to talk about the work he’s done helping students and staff build resilience in a way that’s feasible for busy educators.  Dr. Michael Gaskell is an author, speaker and school principal in East Brunswick, NJ., following exper...

When the pandemic hit, many clinicians had to unexpectedly transition to online therapy, which raised a lot of concerns about treatment quality. Can you really provide high-quality services in an online format?  Does it require the same skill sets as in-person therapy?  Are there times when teletherapy provides functionality that doesn’t exist in-person?  As the world has embraced telehealth as a...

Those of us working in K-12 education interact with students and staff who have experienced trauma whether we’re aware of the specific events or not.  A lot of people have heard the term “trauma-informed” care , but not everyone knows what it means or how to do it in practice. That’s why I wanted to invite Rachel Archambault to episode 115 of the De Facto Leaders podcast to talk about what trauma-...

A lot of professional development is still delivered in the lecture or workshop format , even though there’s evidence that this model doesn’t have a significant impact on student outcomes.  So what do people working in K-12 education need to support students and have fulfilling careers?  I started asking myself that question when I was working in the schools, and I stumbled upon the coaching indus...

Supporting language and decoding are important pieces of helping kids grow up to be successful readers. But making it happen is way more complex than that.  What happens when a child in 5th grade is reading at a first grade reading level?  What if there are other barriers BESIDES just reading getting in the way; such as scheduling constraints, classroom management issues, or access to mentoring? ...

What do you do if your school administrator doesn’t fully understand your role and your expertise ? What if you have the information and knowledge they need to drive important decisions for your school? How can you get them to listen to your input ?  If you’re a therapist, educator , or aspiring school leader , these questions may have popped into your head from time to time.  If that’s the case,...

“Behavior problems” are an external sign of what’s going on internally.  In order to support kids who are being referred for behavioral concerns, we need to address these internal skills proactively.  That’s why I invited consultant and educator Lisa Navarra to episode 111 of the De Facto Leaders podcast to talk about self-regulation. Lisa M. Navarra, M.S. in Special Education, SDA, award-winning...

Do autistic people experience empathy?  Does masking cause trauma?  How do we help neurodivergent kids form relationships in a way that’s accepting of their differences? These are questions that I get from clinicians on a regular basis that I’ve also wondered about myself. That’s why when I created The School of Clinical Leadership, I made sure to include research and strategies to help guide clin...

If you’re a therapist or educator working in the schools, there’s a high probability that the administrator who does your employee evaluation isn’t a subject-matter expert in your discipline. If they are, you’re certainly in the minority. This is because it’s impossible to find a s chool administrator who’s held every single job in the school system. On top of that, employee evaluations are incred...

Doing a quality evaluation when you’re assessing things like language can be a challenge because there isn’t one “magic bullet” test that gives us what we need.  What is even more challenging is when you get a referral to evaluate a client that speaks two or more languages ; especially when they’re languages you don’t speak.  Unfortunately, monolingual clinicians get referrals for multilingual eva...

What’s evidence-based and neurodiversity-affirming shouldn’t be in opposition. Effective interventions that build resilience and help kids build healthy relationships should be “affirming” by definition. Yet many clinicians remain confused about how to apply this to practice; especially when it comes to things like “social skills” or “pragmatic language” . One of the most common complaints I hear...

I was honored to have Sharon Fuller, founder of The Attachment Place, LLC as a guest for episode 106 of the “De Facto Leaders” podcast.   Sharon began her journey with developmental trauma disorder (DTD), also known as reactive attachment disorder (RAD), when she and her husband first adopted in 2005. She is a mom to nine children, six biological and three who were added to their family through ad...

In 2022, a study was published in JAMA Network Open with a compelling title: “Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children.” You may read the article here: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/video-gaming-may-be-associated-better-cognitive-performance-children This resulted in a number of social media influencers spreading the word about the “benefits” of...

Many people in education and healthcare know that lobbying and advocacy needs to happen; but many people don’t know whose responsibility it is or how to do it. That’s why I invited Michael Campbell, published author, blogger, and licensed bilingual speech-language pathologist to the show to dive into this topic.  Michael has spent time as a union member on his collective bargaining committee, and...

We’ve all sat through some boring professional development before; but there’s nothing boring about the training you’ll get from Dr. MC, the guest on episode 103 of the De Facto Leaders podcast.  Many people in “helping professions” like education and healthcare focus more on taking care of others instead of taking care of themselves ; which is why I wanted to have Dr. MC on the show to talk about...

There are a lot of approaches to teaching kids to read; but not all of them are effective. This is especially important for kids with disabilities who need explicit instruction. That’s why in episode 102, I had special education consultant and host of the Science of Special Education podcast, Brett Stevens, on the show to talk about the Science of Reading. Brett is a special education consultant f...

Strong executive functioning skills can help kids to be  resilient ,  adaptable , and  independent . These characteristics are going to be essential for supporting mental health and success going forward. EVERYONE who interacts with school-age kids on a daily basis has the chance to support executive functioning, and not addressing this skill is a huge missed opportunity. Many treatment teams do n...

On episode 100 of the  “De Facto Leaders”  podcast, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Gastrid Harrigan has been an educator for over 19 years as a classroom teacher, Assistant Principal, and currently as  Principal in Broward County, Florida . In addition, Dr. Harrigan is a Professor of Education at Broward College and Colorado State University Global. He’s also the host of  The School Leader...

On episode 99 of the “ De Facto Leaders” podcast, I had the opportunity to interview Allison Fors, who is a pediatric SLP-A, mom to a child with a cleft palate, and a Teachers Pay Teachers seller with tons of great resources for early language. Allison is an SLP-A in California. She has primarily worked with diagnoses of autism, Down syndrome, and developmental delays in schools at the K-12 level,...

On episode 98 of the “ De Facto Leaders” podcast,  I had the opportunity to interview children’s book author and veteran SLP, Valerie Doherty. Valerie has over 30 years of experience as an SLP, and in 2011 her passion for language and literacy inspired her to start writing children’s books. Readers need physical books they can actually hold in their hands, which is why many authors want to go back...

On episode 97 of the “ De Facto Leaders” podcast, I had the opportunity to interview SLP and Related Services Director, Marva Mount. Marva is a nationally recognized speaker on issues regarding public school speech and language services. She is a published chapter author, and has been awarded the Hall of Fame Award for outstanding contributions to the field of speech pathology by her state organiz...

I’m SO excited to share episode 96 of the “ De Facto Leaders” podcast, where I sat down with Bilingual School Psychologist, Briana Wagner. Briana started out as a teacher, but soon made a career transition to school psychologist. She’s also bilingual and knows a ton about how to support culturally and linguistically diverse students. In early 2022, she started the @educationallypsyched Instagram a...

In episode 95 of the “De Facto Leaders” podcast I sat down with Hallie Sherman, a school speech-language pathologist, blogger, and business owner from SpeechTimeFun (https://speechtimefun.com/). When Hallie started working as a school SLP, she had a difficult time finding materials for middle school and high school students. After a lot of trial and error, she managed to create her own tools to se...

In episode 94 of the “De Facto Leaders” podcast I sat down with Clay Hadden (a.k.a. Mister Clay), a private practice SLP and YouTuber from South Carolina. We had a fantastic conversation about how to come up with creative ways to serve your caseload and play a part in advocacy issues relating to health care and education. At the beginning of the pandemic, Clay found that he wasn’t able to serve a...

I’m continually learning and developing my understanding of language and executive functioning , as well as how to help teams work together to better support these skills. That’s why I recently decided to audit some of the content I have floating around the internet. In truth, I have a lot out there because I like to get content into the hands of clinicians who need it as quickly as possible, whic...