Overcoming family challenges for therapy services

Below is an email sent out by the Teletherapy Division (VocoVision) of our company. If anyone can help them in their research to improve their services to families of special needs children, please contact me at 866-874-7390 or email me at millie.simpson@soliant.com.

Request for information:


As you gather with friends and family to celebrate this great American holiday, the VocoVision team would like to ask for your help.

We are in the early stages of developing a new VocoVision telespeech service that can be used directly in the home. An important part of our process is understanding the challenges families currently have when seeking professional therapy services. Beginning the week after Thanksgiving, VocoVision will be interviewing families with children who are receiving speech therapy to find out more about how they juggle the demands of family life along with the need for speech services.


Thank you so much for any help in referring family members who would be willing to give us their input!

Millie

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

As everyone gathers with family and friends for this holiday, I want to extend my warm wishes for a safe and joyous holiday weekend for all. I hope you have lots of great eats and a much needed rest from the stresses of your various jobs!

If in your down time you are looking on line for a new job or anticipating a change for the upcoming new year, please browse through Soliant's website (www.soliant.com) for a variety of locations, settings and opportunites. Make sure to check in with me at 866-874-7390 and I'll give you as many specifics as I am able to find.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and be safe and try to stay warm!

Millie

New Mexico school looking for new grad SLP

This will be short and sweet, as I just found out that our new grad applicant for a school in Albuquerque, NM has decided to take a position in a clinic rather than our school. We have a CF supervisor lined up and the school is very open to new grads. If you are graduating in December and would be interested in this position, please contact me ASAP. Or, if you know a fellow graduate looking for a "done deal" spot, please pass me along. A bilingual candidate is preferred (Spanish), but not necessary.

We will assist you with NM licensure, housing and travel if you are not in New Mexico and considering working a travel contract.

Send me a resume at millie.simpson@soliant.com or feel free to call me during the week at 866-874-7390.

Long list of Special Ed jobs outside of therapists

In our office/call center here, there are "captains" to each of our divided territories who check with their team to update our list of open jobs each week. I was surprised to see how many positions were open in what we call our Pupil Services Group (PSG) this week. These are positions outside the typical Occupational, Physical and Speech therapy realm. I won't list all of them here, but below is a sampling of the states who need help this week:

Teacher for the Visually Impaired (TVI) CA, CO, MD, NC, NV and VA

School Psychologist CO, IL, NM, OH, OR, SD, VA, WA, WI

Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (TDHH) CA, CO

Sign Language Interpreter (SLI) CA, CO

Braillest near Sacramento, CA

Special Ed Teachers (often require specific AZ, CA, MN, NM, WA
certifications)

If you are qualified and are interested in working as a contract Special Ed professional, give me a call or drop me an email if you see anything here that might be a good fit for you. I'll give you as many details as possible! Thanks, all! millie.simpson@soliant.com/866-874-7390 (In my scripting of this, everything was in a nice column format; I'm sorry it doesn't appear that way for your viewing. I'm still learning.) ;-{

Three new therapy jobs this week from my desk!

This was a great week for me, as I received requests from three different Special Ed Departments for assistance to fill some upcoming gaps in staffing this week!

Just to explain a little about how my office operates (and why I'm excited about this past week): There are about 50 recruiters/marketers in my office who make calls to schools trying to uncover open jobs. Most of the time, we are taking a particular professional (OT, PT or SLP) who has indicated that they are looking for a contract or permanent position in a certain area and calling schools around that locale to "sell" that person. We hear a lot of "no thank you's", "we don't use contract services" and "all our positions are filled". And, so often we are merely leaving voice mails in the Special Ed Department; either for the director or the director's assistant. It was so very nice this week to be on the other end of the phone/email to have some of the folks return my calls with a need for my help! ;-}

I received a call from the locations listed below with requests for professional contractors:

1. Tucson, AZ (see my October 6, 2013 post) needs a Speech Language Pathologist to fill in for a maternity leave anticipated to begin in January and go through at least the end of February (could extend, as many maternity leaves do).

2. Grand Prairie, TX, which is situated between Dallas and Fort Worth has an Occupational Therapy need to start ASAP and run through December 20, 2013

3. Reading, PA has two back-to-back maternity leaves starting ASAP to run through mid June, 2014. This is an Early Intervention position for a Speech Language Pathologist requiring some background working with the wee ones and current credentials to work in the state of Pennsylvania.

Call me at 866-874-7390 or send over your resume to me at millie.simpson@soliant.com and I'll catch up with you!

Upcoming SLP need near Minneapolis, MN

We get lots of folks calling us to work in the Minneapolis area, and this opening came in last week. This position is to cover a maternity leave, anticipated to begin the first of January and run through at least the end of March. The caseload is all elementary ages and situated at only one campus.

Anyone considering a move to the area or someone who might have let their MN license lapse would have plenty of time to apply and be granted the SLP MN license. Must be a master's level Speech Pathologist and have a current ASHA certification.

If you (as crazy as it sounds to me) love the cold and snow, this is a really good school district who is looking to begin interviews for this position ASAP!

Send me your resume at millie.simpson@soliant.com, drop me a note with questions or ring me up at 866-874-7390!

Arizona schools' game of chess

First and foremost, does anyone know a Speech Pathologist looking for a school position in the Phoenix area?

In order to work in a school system in Arizona as a Speech Language Pathologist, one must obtain a professional SLP license through the AZ Board of Health, a fingerprint clearance from the AZ Department of Public Safety (separate from the one required by the Board of Health; as if one's fingerprint might change when you walk from one building to another) AND a teaching certificate from the AZ Department of Education. The timeline to obtain all of these expensive requirements can be up to 6-8 weeks.

Now, when a school district calls me and asks me to send them an SLP ASAP, about the only thing I can do is steal a Speech Pathologist from another school district! I envision Arizona schools like a huge chess board where I move one SLP chess piece from one district to another!

There is always a chance that someone on maternity leave might be ready to return to work or someone who has retired might want to return for a temporary assignment....or someone may be planning to move to Arizona and have already put the trifecta of monster-approval-machines to work. However, the odds are low on any of those sweet scenarios.

I'm not just picking on Arizona; I can name several other states who make working in their locale difficult because of requirements (IL, PA, GA, FL, AK...I'm sure there are others). I'm always taken aback that someone doesn't petition ASHA to make things more uniform. Surely the children and their disabilities that one treats in TX or NM (simpler states to obtain credentialing) are no different from the children in AZ or IL! Who makes these decisions-bureaucrats with no concept of what's going on in their state??

OK, enough of my rant. Anyone working in an Arizona school want to make a move across the chessboard??? ;-}