De Facto Leaders

Therapist burnout is prevalent among SLPs, social workers, psychologists , and other professionals supporting K-12 kids. That’s why I was so excited to have special guest Angie Merced on the De Facto Leaders podcast for episode 92. Angie is a Certified Life Coach and School-Based SLP. She lives with her husband and two little girls in the Rochester, NY area. Her passion is to rescue SLPs who are f...

Generalization is one of the most common complaints I hear from school therapists, regardless of the discipline.  If you’re a clinician, you know how frustrating it is when a student seems to grasp a skill in your sessions, but doesn’t ever apply it outside your room.  In episode 91, I wanted to talk about why this happens. Many therapists are very focused on building their clinical skills and pla...

There’s a lot of talk within the therapy world about effective therapy strategies ; but there’s NOT a lot of talk about how to get funding so programs can actually deliver support and resources . That’s why I was so excited to have Merlin Anderson on the De Facto Leaders podcast to talk about what’s known as “ABC runs”. The concept of an ABC run started with 5 friends who wanted to help a local ou...

If you’re a school therapist, you’ve likely been asked to do a lot of things within the school system that don’t seem totally relevant to your role as a clinician. Yet at the same time, you may often feel siloed off, like you’re not a part of the school team. That’s why in episode 88 of the De Facto Leaders podcast (formerly “Are they 18 yet?®”), I wanted to talk about what school therapists can d...

In this episode, I’m excited to officially announce the new direction for the podcast! The show is now called “De Facto Leaders” (it was formerly “Are they 18 yet?®”) I’ve been hinting at this for a while and have slowly transitioned the types of topics I’ve covered over the last year, but in this episode we’re making the official switch! When I originally launched the podcast, I did so in the par...

Part of a school therapist’s job is getting buy-in from the entire IEP team, but that can be difficult to do when team members don’t agree on what’s best for a student. That’s why in episode 86 of the “ Are they 18 yet?®” podcast, I walk through several case studies from my mentoring group to share how to handle it when this happens. As you listen, you're going to find that building relationships...

One of the most powerful ways to provide comprehensive services for K-12 kids is by collaborating with other therapists and teachers… Which is why it’s frustrating when team members can’t come to a consensus about what’s best for kids. When you’re working together as a team, at least some conflict is inevitable. That’s why I wanted to share some case studies and Q & A sessions where members of...

If you’re a pediatric therapist or service provider, chances are you do some form of “supervising”, whether it’s in your job title or not.  Part of being an effective clinical leader comes from working as a team and training others to do what we do, so kids can get support across settings.  That’s why it’s important for you to think about how to supervise and mentor others, even if you’re not in a...

One of the biggest challenges for pediatric therapists is making sure their caseload has support across the day and across settings. This becomes incredibly difficult to do with limited direct therapy time and when service providers are working in silos. That’s why one of the most important things you can do to serve your caseload is think about service delivery before you get stuck in the weeds o...

A lot of your clinical training taught you how to be a good clinician. But often it doesn’t teach you how to "work the system" and get your kids what they need. The truth is, you can't make an impact without autonomy over your time, without adequate tools, without the right people, support, and financial resources. In the system you're working in, these things are limited. You may not have enough...

In episode 82, I sit down with my friend and mentor Stephanie Hayes and talk about comfort zones. I share my experiences within the context of my personal business, but this applies to therapists as well. Specifically, I share how the pandemic impacted the way I provide services and online education; plus some “convenient” excuses I used for avoiding work that felt scary or uncomfortable. Ultimate...

In the School of Clinical Leadership , I’ve devoted an entire suite of programs to educating professionals on executive functioning.  Even though the focus of the program is about career development and leadership, I believe that any professional working with K-12 kids needs extensive knowledge of executive functioning in order to lead effectively. I’ve likely given away the “quick and dirty” answ...

In this episode, I’m sharing a special conversation with my mentor, friend, and business consultant, Stephanie Hayes. Stephanie specializes in building businesses from the ground up by focusing on creating assets that allow small business owners to earn income and serve in a way that feels aligned and fulfilling to them. Even though she is technically like a “business coach/consultant”, many of he...

There’s often a typical expected career path for pediatric clinicians, regardless of the discipline. It can often feel a bit constraining, especially if it doesn’t fully align with your strengths; or if the system you’re working in limits the way you serve your caseload. But what if you weren’t limited to the typical model, or the traditional job postings? What if you could design a clinical caree...

A lot of the clinicians I work with feel very “boxed in” when it comes to the typical career path for therapists. They’re boxed in by the way they have to provide services within the system, which often dictates how, when, and how often they see students/clients. They may feel boxed in by their schedule, their setting, or even their earning potential. Usually, they enjoy what they do, but have a n...

There are a lot of challenges that we face as therapists; but not all of them need to prevent us from delivering quality services. By facing our problems head on, often we can mitigate them or eliminate them completely. This doesn’t happen from avoiding or ignoring them. Instead, we need to get them all out on the table to figure out how to minimize them. This is also key in determining if you’re...

When people talk about assets, they’re often thinking about personal finance. They’re talking about things like real estate, index funds, crypto and other things aimed at giving you some kind of return on your investment. But I want to talk about how therapists can apply this concept to what they do, because it's the key to making a bigger impact. When we make the “leadership shift” and start thin...

One of the most common questions I get is “What am I supposed to do in therapy with students/clients?” Many of my readers want to know what strategies and techniques they need to do in therapy in order to help move their students forward. They’re very focused on “planning for therapy” or “lesson planning”; especially if they’re in the school systems. I think it makes sense to focus on these things...

Therapists and teachers (and anyone else in a “helping people” profession) always have to take care of OTHER people…which is hard to do if you’re burnt out all the time. But most of the advice they’re given about “self-care” and achieving a “work-life” balance is unhelpful. There are a lot of “tips and tools” out there for stress relief and productivity. In the self-care realm, it ranges from reas...

Therapists and educators supporting K-12 literacy have a lot of diagnoses and labels to navigate, and some of them are controversial.  In some debates, the diagnosis itself is in question; Central Auditory Processing Disorder being one example. With hyperlexia, some people suggest that there is a certain way hyperlexic people need to learn to read; but the verdict is still out as to whether there...

Schools often get criticized for not teaching enough “real world” skills to kids, and there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Most of the therapists I work with are worried that what they do in therapy isn’t functional enough to transfer to day-to-day skills; and this is a legitimate concern. A lot of the clinicians I mentor have somewhere between 30-40 minutes with students; which means they ha...

Topic maintenance is a skill I’ve seen on many language therapy IEPs in the category of “pragmatic language”, but often it’s a surface-level symptom of something else. When we’re talking about “topic maintenance” we’re often referring to someone’s ability to stay on a topic during a conversational exchange. Yet when we focus only on what we’re seeing externally, intervention can end up being unpro...

I get a lot of questions about how to write language therapy goals… I ALSO get a lot of questions about whether I offer goal banks in any of my courses. I do offer a version of a “goal bank” in Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my course that teaches SLPs a framework for building metalinguistic awareness and independent word learning...but it’s not a goal bank in the traditional sense. In my o...

When people ask me where they should start in language therapy, I usually say they should start by building vocabulary. That usually results in a couple raised eyebrows and questions...mostly because they aren’t really sure how I’m defining “vocabulary”. That’s why in episode 67, I wanted to talk about what I actually mean when I say we should “work on vocabulary”, and why it’s so important to giv...

Back when I first started practicing, I found language therapy to be super overwhelming.  There were so many peer-reviewed articles, books, and seminars, and it was hard to sift through it all and determine how to apply it to therapy.  These days, we not only have to sort through lots of quality information…we have to ALSO sort through lots of inaccurate information.  This can make it really hard...