Last Tuesday, members from the Philadelphia, South Jersey and Atlantic chapters participated in the Panel of People Who Stutter at La Salle University. This panel is part of the curriculum for the Speech Language Pathologist Graduate Program. It is a great opportunity for us to educate future SLPs on what it means to be a person who stutters.
This year the panel took place online but it was as fun and engaging as it ever was in person. The students had a lot of questions and we ran out of time to answer more.
I received the following message from the professor, Dr James Mancinelli:
“The students are still raving about the panel experience. Their comments include praise for the panel members’ courage and growth that developed through self-help groups like yours. They now see how a self-help model like the NSA’s facilitates social involvement, communicative confidence, and authenticity among its members. One student commented, “The panel brought it all together for me. Now I get it.” They have been listening to me blab on since January but it wasn’t until the panel experience did they connect stuttering with real people living real lives.
On a personal note, I want to thank you for your flexibility and willingness to participate in the clinical education of our students. The benefits they reaped are immeasurable.”
Thank you very much to Katherine Filer, Maria Turner, Jim McFarlane, Mykia Daniels and Nick Bruno for sharing their experiences and feelings with the students. We hope that activities like this will help broaden their understanding about stuttering and make them better clinicians.
This was our third online meeting and it was another fun event.
We were joined by Tammy Flores, the NSA Executive Director and Mandy Finstad, the NSA Projects Director. They gave us an update on steps the NSA is taking to keep everyone involved and engaged through online meetings.
We talked about how Covid-19 stay-at-home mandate is affecting all of us. In particular, we talked about the impact of having to talk through a mask when we go outside. The mask makes difficult to see people’s expressions. If the listeners cannot see us blocking, how do they know we are having difficulty speaking? For some of us, wearing the mask makes it easier to talk, while others think it is harder. Sometimes it feels like we are shouting through the mask.
There are students in our group that are taking lessons online. However, internships, clinical rotations and other activities that requiring in-person interactions cannot take place.
We were relieved to learn that family members of one of our attendees had fully recovered from Covid-19.
Our thoughts and prayers are with all those that are suffering the physical or economic effect of the coronavirus. We hope that we can return to the new normal very soon safe and sound.
Yesterday, we had our first chapter meeting online and it was a great success! We were a total of 9 people, more than we get at a regular meeting. It gave an opportunity to attend to people we had not seen in a very long time. Also, we had two attendees from the South Jersey chapter. We used Google Hangouts and no one had issues connecting into the call. We took turns at reading the Welcoming Words at the beginning and we read the Closing Words together at the end. We talked a lot about the coronavirus and how it is impacting our lives, our jobs and everything around us. It was a great meeting and we all enjoyed it. It went so well that it was proposed we hold an online meeting on a regular basis once our schedule goes back to normal and we will definitely do that. For now, the NSA has declared all on-site chapter meetings cancelled through April. We will have the next two scheduled chapter meetings online. I will send the links for each meeting as the date gets closer. I encourage anyone that has not been able to come to a chapter meeting in a long time to join us online. Some of you that move out of the Philadelphia area but are still on our mailing list, join us and let’s catch up. The next two meetings will be online at 7:00 PM:
Thursday, April 2
Tuesday, April 21
Stay safe and take care of yourselves and your families. Carmen
I am very pleased to announce that on Saturday November 7, the NSA and Temple University will host a One-Day NSA Conference in Philadelphia!
The event will take place at Temple University Main Campus in Center City Philadelphia. Now that the date and location are confirmed, we will start the process of defining the workshops and activities.
Nothing has been decided yet but I can tell you that the plan is to have simultaneous tracks, such as one for adults, one for children/tweens and possibly one for family/friends. In addition, there will be a few sessions that will provide CEU credits for speech language pathologist. We are also looking into screening the move “When I Stutter”.
Please hold the date and stay tuned for more updates! Carmen
We met at the Bala Cynwyd Library. It was a good meeting with several of the most regular attendees. We had not seen each other since before the holidays and it was a good time to catch up.
We talked a lot about what is happening with the Coronavirus around the world and how it is starting to impact our lives and future plans.
