GOSSLP Fall Best Practices October 29th, 2021 CASE(LOAD ...

CASE(LOAD) CLOSED: MANAGING WORKLOAD WHILE MAINTAINING YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

Samantha Gannon, M.S. CCC-SLPEmily Mohr, M.S. CCC-SLP

Bridget Rogers, M.Ed., CCC-SLP

GOSSLP Fall Best Practices

October 29th, 2021

Samantha Gannon, M.S. CCC-SLP

Samantha Gannon graduated from University of Tennessee's program

of Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2011. Her work experience includes

school systems, home health, and the hospital setting with ages ranging from two

years to adult. Currently, Samantha is a speech language pathologist for DeKalb

County Schools, working with elementary and high school students.

Disclosure: Samantha has no relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships to

disclose.

Emily Mohr, M.S. CCC-SLP

Emily Mohr, M.S. CCC-SLP is a Speech Language Pathologist working in the Dekalb

County School District by way of EBS Healthcare. Currently, Emily serves as the

president of Georgia Speech Language Hearing Association. She completed her

Master’s degree at University of Hawaii at Manoa, and her Bachelor’s at Central

Michigan University. She specializes in adolescent language evaluation and treatment.

Additional interests include: supervision of graduate student clinicians, neuro-diversity

affirming therapy, and the ongoing learning process of cultural humility. Emily is an

ACE award winner, and has previously served as Georgia’s State Education Advocacy

Leader to ASHA

Disclosure: Emily has no relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships to disclose.

Bridget Rogers, M.Ed., CCC-SLP

Bridget Rogers, M.Ed., CCC-SLP is currently a speech-language pathologist for

DeKalb County School District. She previously served as the Director of Clinical

Services for an autism center, provided teletherapy to school districts in California,

and worked within multidisciplinary clinics specializing in patients with autism,

AAC, and behavior challenges. She is an ACE award winner and a graduate of the

University of Georgia.

Disclosure: Bridget has no relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships to

disclose.

Learning Objectives

Name two strategies for caseload management.Objective One

Name one electronic tool to manage your workload.Objective Two

Describe how caseload management differs between school settings.

Objective Three

OverviewStarting Strong

• Caseload organization

• Scheduling Therapy

• Communication

Maintenance

• Lesson Planning

• Data Collection

• RTI

• Scheduling Meetings

• Transition Planning

• Evaluations

Stick the landing

• Self-care

• Avoiding Burnout

Caseload Organization

Does your district have useful management software?

• Be curious and get training to utilize the organization provided.

Other districts have "management software."

• These require additional effort to allow you to easily track due dates.

What’s an SLP to do? Excel.

Make a spreadsheet overview of your whole Caseload

• IEP date

• IEP due date

• Last evaluation date

• Next evaluation date

• Case manager

• Grade/Teacher Team

• Hours/week

• **any other quirks to stay on the ball.

Excel Tips

• Freeze top panels

• Calculate dates

• Sort by dates

• Count totals

• How many per row

The Problem of Scheduling

If you're here, you already know how schedules become an issue.

• Assume your first draft is in pencil

• Start with last year as a guide, or create your own block schedule of ‘session’s available’

• MS Tip: Create blocks based on the class change schedule. Instead of remembering 9:15, students can remember ‘2nd period’.

• Helpful when blocking off time for meetings

• Ask teachers for any information at the beginning of the year

• Ex: student leaves early for medical reasons

Scheduling and Groups

Group by age/grade

• Mixed groups can provide excellent models and can open your schedule.

• Groups from 3-4 students can assist with generalization of targets

Be creative with how you break up time

• 30 minutes 2x/month vs 15 minutes weekly.

• Ask older students about their schedules to help with motivation / responsibility

• E.g., what class would it be okay if you miss twice a month?

• Beginning of the period vs end of the periods

Push-In therapy can also be very efficient!

• Do this when targeting similar goals for several students in the self-contained class.

• MS tip! Go on CBI to work on generalization for meaningful real-world practice.

Consistent Communication

Teacher communication will keep you on the same page about the student academically

HS Tip! Extra important as you don’t regularly see teachers

Teachers

Send an introduction letter and email to Guardians.

Give them your contact information.Guardians

Email all case managers that you are the providing SLPCase Managers

Make sure they know who you are so you can be aware of any evaluations.

School Psych and Special Education

Leads

Elementary Lesson Planning

Pick a theme!

Younger students

• Book or short video will likely address all goals

Older students

• Incorporate information from class

White board is your friend

• Have a few backups (e.g., favorite books)

Elementary Lesson

Planning

Middle School Lesson

Planning

Make a packet!

• Good for exposure to higher-order language skills and data collection

• Most days will be based on therapy and data.

• Easy to organize and visualize which students are prepared.

• Students can work semi-independently while you move around the circle, cuing and collecting data on a 1:1 level.

Use 'game days' to focus on generalization as well as a reward for hard work.

Middle School Lesson

Planning

High School Lesson

Planning

Semi-independent pencil/paper tasks

• Ex: student 1 is able to read and complete a main idea task independently while student 2 completes a verbal retell task.

• I can collect data for each student, and we have time to complete a third activity all together.

Have students read aloud so that you have an idea of their reading level.

• This is informative with respect to where the comprehension breakdown is occurring.

High School Lesson

Planning

Materials• Teachers may be able to provide classroom items that can be used (e.g.,

reading passages, vocabulary tasks)

• Teachers or students may be able to provide work samples that can be used (for informational purposes or for applicable therapy tasks -editing, run-on sentences, etc.)

Student Input Examples:• A high school student is still working on only articulation/intelligibility.

They will be motivated to improve and will complete practice outside of their therapy sessions.

• Ask a student working on speech fluency what is challenging for them or what skills they think they need to practice

• Review objectives at the beginning of the school year AND each session.

• Ask students what their objectives mean: for example, what is inferencing? what is a suffix?

• In high school, the student should know why they are being pulled out of class and into speech/language.

Group Behavior Management

Token economies are your friend!

• Start small and fast so students understanding the correlation

• It can be a simple white board or an individualized velcro-board

Dedicate time to rituals and routines your students can follow.

• Space for their bookbags or chromebooks when not in use?

• Build-in cleaning time

• Greetings/Goodbyes

Clearly communicate expectations of your office space.

• A visual representation of speech room rules

Data

General Methods

of organizing your data

sheets:

• The classic: a folder for each student

• On-the-go: a binder for each school

• Daily lesson plans: all students for the day with all goals lists - adjusted each morning depending on schedule

Clear data sheets mean your data is efficient to take and to interpret.

You need an ongoing working record for IEP data and information.

One Student, One Sheet

Good for Folder-

based organization

and for binders.

Can become worn as

the you use one page

for multiple weeks,

and multiple pages

per group.

One Day Per Sheet

Good for immediately

entering online. Good

external organization of

your schedule in front

of you. Requires some

prep time daily.

Response to Intervention

Write everything down!

• An ongoing Word document can help you keep track of stray observations

• Who remembers a month ago?

• Take note of how long a student has been in the RTI process

• Slow and steady progress?

IEP MeetingsSet a ‘year at a glance’ schedule for yourself so you can anticipate the months ahead

Give availability at the beginning of the year.

• Tech savvy? Input your schedule on your outlook/gmail calendar

• Link it to youcanbook.me (free!), and teachers can put themselves in your calendar in free blocks of time.

Reach out to teachers for tentative meetings dates

• ES Hint – Carve out time for RTI meetings

• HS Hint - Ask the student for their input about their deficit area prior to the meeting: for example:

• What part of communication is hard for you in class?

• What do you need help with for speech/language?

• Do you still need help with speech/language?

IEP Meetings

Year at a Glance

youcanbook.me

Transition Meetings

For speech-only students: talk to the student when preparing meeting documents (prior to the meeting) to find out their interest areas and post-high school plans.

• Some transition plan items will continue across years VS some will need to be updated

• Building LTSE/special education chair/counseling office may be able to provide you with more formal checklists, surveys, etc. that you can use for transition planning with speech-only students (e.g., interest inventories, etc.) if needed.

The school counselor is an excellent resource for transition planning; be sure to invite the counselor to speech-only student annual review meetings

• The counselor provides the IEP team with information on required upcoming courses, as well as the student's individual progression of courses, and may know about opportunities that you are not aware of (test prep, virtual learning resources, etc.). The counselor can answer parent questions that are outside of the SLP's domain.

Evaluations

Make a system that can organize for you! A binder can be more useful in this case because of all the physical parts of

evaluations.

List

H/V Date

Date of consent

Date Due by

Tentative Meeting date

File

Caregiver and Teacher input forms

Protocols

Checklists

Samples

Evaluation Organization – Checklist

Stick the LandingTake Care of Yourself

• Make time to eat your lunch during the day.

• Your brain will appreciate the break and you'll be more productive and happier the rest of the day

• Don't underestimate how helpful some quick desk stretches can be.

Ask for help

• Even reaching out to have other SLPs to talk to can be beneficial

Use weekly organization to your advantage

• Plan for heavy days and lighter days so you don't get burned out.

• No one is perfect 24/7

Any Questions?