Written by: Megan Smith / Treatment / July 21, 2021 / 8 minutes read

Roughly once per quarter, you will find that Well Said closes for the entire day, with no clinical appointments available. These dates in 2021 are as follows:

• June 22nd 

• September 21st 

• December 14th 

On these dates, the entire team meets to complete a day full of professional development and learning! Clinical staff are often tasked with bringing in a presentation of at least an hour in duration to help instruct the group at large. These can be about research, interesting case studies that we have seen (with client permission, of course!), new administrative procedures, or assessment and treatment methods, to help improve our team’s standards of clinical care.

Here is an overview of what we learned from our three presenters on the 22nd of June this year:

Laura led all the team through a brief explanation of how her background in singing informs her clinical practice at Well Said. 

She discussed several sticking points that exist when trying to reconcile the world of singing with the world of speaking voice therapy (e.g. what, exactly, is a head voice vs. chest voice?) and covered real-life examples of some singing skills less commonly known by people outside of the industry.

Portions of this presentation time were also spent discussing how these skills may be helpful when working with trans clients to find voices that they love, and that suit them.

As the only Well Said member with actual lived experience of Toastmasters, Carthy decided to use her presentation time to discuss how the program works. She walked us through the different types of Toastmasters clubs, how people can become members, and the types of skills that she has learned to date from this program.

Carthy also spent some time discussing the ways in which Toastmasters may or may not be useful to clients trying to practice public speaking or professional communication skills, and how to decide whether to recommend it to clients seeking to improve their communication style.

In the final presentation of the day, Megan continued on from where she left off at our last PD Day, talking about Acceptance and Commitment therapy for stuttering, and how to put the core tenets of this program (as discussed last time) into practice with clients.

Some of this presentation time was spent in roleplayed conversations between clinicians and “clients,” and lots of time was spent on how to structure assessment effectively in order to feel confident in the treatment strategies selected for use with clients.

As you can see, while we may not have had the chance to work with any clients on this date, we certainly used this time productively! Our team members certainly reported feeling excited to try out the new methods that we discussed with current or future clients.

For those interested in professional communication skills specifically, our Leadership Communication Course could be a useful self-study alternative to speech therapy services.

To book an appointment at the clinic, you can call us at 697-795-5277 or book an initial consultation using the link below.