Written by: Megan Smith / Treatment / March 03, 2021 / 8 minutes read

To our clients, the clinic may not seem to change often. You may have noticed that our website changes, and that the booking system becomes more efficient (or more glitchy, in some unfortunate moments!), but many of our changes are not noticeable except to the discerning eye.

However, we’ve had some staff changes and – excitingly – some new offerings for our clients and the public at large!

Our first, and most exciting update, is that we have welcomed a new clinician to our team. AC Goldberg is a speech-language pathologist with over 15 years of experience in the field. He recently immigrated from the United States, having arrived just before the end of 2020, and is enjoying his early days in Canada. AC has some experience in the hospital setting, but the majority of his career has been spent in the schools. He has particular interest areas in pragmatics training with adolescents/adults and providing voice services to trans clients (especially non-binary clients) to promote gender euphoria.

AC is more than just a clinician! He holds a Ph.D., and therefore has experience as a researcher. He also co-runs a platform for clinical practitioners and community leaders in which he uses his lived experience as both a trans man and healthcare practitioner to help others improve their standard of care for transgender clients or patients. I’m certain this isn’t a complete list of his interests, accomplishments or side hustles, but the rest of our team is very excited to work with him and continue to get to know him!

In a more unfortunate turn of events (for us), we also said goodbye to our Level 2 clinician Dain Hong at the end of the year. Working with her has been a blessing for us, and we are extremely sad to see her go. Dain, if you are reading this, know that we are wishing you all the very best in your future endeavors!

Finally, the clinic now has its first teletherapy-only clinician. During the first round of COVID-19-related shutdowns, our Level 2 clinician Megan Smith moved back to her hometown in St. John’s. However, now that the industry has had to pivot towards telepractice, we have realized that this does not mean that she needs to leave her role at the clinic! Although Megan cannot see clients in person, she continues to work part-time with WELL SAID as a teletherapist, and currently holds registered speech-language pathologist status in the provinces of Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador.

One major project for the clinic in 2020 was to create a set of online courses that could help us take our expertise in communication skills and help to provide information for people who are interested in communication coaching, but do not have a communication disorder requiring skilled therapy.

Although it took a long time, and many rounds of revisions, we have finally finished these courses! They can be found online, and cover several different types of communication skills.

Our Communication Wellness Course discusses some of the theory behind social skills for adults, and walks learners through some targeted exercises to help them apply specific skills that they may find less comfortable to use (e.g. strategies for small talk, body language).

Our Assertive Communication Course takes learners on a journey through both their communication skills and their personal history in order to promote self-advocacy and effective collaboration with others. Again, targeted exercises are provided. Content is included for people who worry that they lean too far towards passive communication, as well as to those who worry that their communication may come off as aggressive.

Our Women’s Communication Course was developed in response to patterns that we noticed in our coaching clients. Women often report specific communication concerns – like being spoken over, or struggling to be seen as an “executive” by those they work with. Learners will engage with structured exercises and reflections to develop personal and professional communication skills that they are proud of.

Finally, our Leadership Communication Course focuses on many of the communication goals that we develop for our coaching clientele. These include strategies to manage leading meetings, providing feedback to direct reports, and tips and tricks to manage public speaking. As in the other courses, exercises and reflections are provided for the learners, in order to help them apply these skills, rather than reading alone!

All in all, we have been quite busy behind the scenes in 2020, but we look forward to 2021 as an opportunity to continue to grow as practitioners and as a clinic. If you are interested in reviewing our communication wellness courses, you can access them here.

Those interested in skilled speech and language therapy can book themselves in for an initial consultation with one of our clinicians using the button below, or can call 647-795-5277 to determine whether our services suit their needs.