Introducing Myself

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Welcome back to the Aligned SLP.
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I'm Sarah Dowling.
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If you're new here, this is where school-based SLPs stop being clinical islands and start being collaborative partners.
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We're ditching the impossible caseload, embracing the workload approach, and reclaiming our joy as professionals aligned with the education world.
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So today I'd like to describe how the ideas that I will share on this podcast didn't arise from me alone, that in this interconnected web of humanity, my experiences in different settings and in two different countries, I spent a significant part of my career trying to understand how we could work more effectively in schools.
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So I call this standing on the shoulders of others.
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And I found ideas that challenged and inspired me, and I spent time thinking through how to implement them in my clinical practice.
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So where did these ideas come from?
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I've always loved exploring ideas.
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I was, you know, like to discuss ideas when I was a teenager, and I was an active kid, but loved exploring library shelves for new information.
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And from the start of my career, I found other speech therapists, later speech and language therapists, and teachers to debate and discuss and to trial things and to explore, and also connected with special interest groups in the UK and through workshops and photocopier conversations.
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I've just always loved that, exploring and learning from others.
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I have a love of reading and trying on new ideas.
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So there was plenty of key books in my reading history and speech language pathology.
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Pragmatics really opened my eyes up, and Duchan and others showed us how to do that, apply it in real life.
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Working in schools, Merritt and Culatta, Ukrainetz and Wallach and others, family-centred working, teacher talk, and other educational books, neurodiversity, such as Neuro Tribes and Uniquely Human, and also the teacher literature, as well as new ways of thinking and philosophy, including Buddhist.
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So my research-based Master of Philosophy degree at Sheffield University linked me directly into the academic world, broadening my horizons, improving my critical thinking and research perspective.
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And I was able to do some university teaching.
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And I also supported Anne Locke in designing a postgraduate course for teachers, working with students with a language disorder.
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I talked about Alderwasley Hall School in my first episode, and I left there wanting to apply everything I had learned to a more mainstream setting.
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So yeah, I've got a curious, you know, personality, just not accepting something at face value because I was told that's how things are.
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So I'm quietly rebellious and love learning about different ideas, different philosophies.
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I also like to see the absurdity in life and, you know, good comedy.
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It always helps to get perspective on life.
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And I married an economist, which definitely expanded my knowledge about how the world works.
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I was employed in South West Scotland to redesign the pediatric speech language therapy department.
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We implemented the school-based redesign in collaboration with the Education Authority.
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We presented a poster at the Royal College of Speech Language Therapists Conference in Birmingham in the UK.
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Then I moved to Canada and I was fortunate to find a school district, SD57 in Prince George and BC, that was already implementing a tiered problem-solving model.
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And I gradually improved my understanding and implementation of that model, especially as it evolved into a truly protective and well-designed multi-tiered systems of support, service delivery model, with a workload approach.
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And I try to push the model to its full extent.
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I've always volunteered within my profession, including being Scottish School SLT representative for the Royal College.
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And I put myself out there presenting my master's research and therapy ideas at workshops and at an applic and a Royal College conference.
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I'm not a natural extrovert, more a social introvert.
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But I seem to have a drive to want to share ideas and to be part of something bigger.
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And my opportunity in Canada to contribute something to the national picture came when I was able to be a member on two committees to develop advocacy documents.
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And I volunteered twice for the provincial association, B.
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Castleper, and now Speech and Here in BC.
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As director of school SLPs for Speeching Here in BC, I decided to try and create a stronger community of school SLPs in our large geographically diverse province.
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We held Zoom forums four to six times a year and for four years.
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We had various topics, but the most popular was the MTSS Forum.
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There was a thirst for this information in BC.
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I was also invited to teach a module for the Masters of Special Education at our local university, UMBC, and I did that for about four years.
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And I learned lots about the teacher's perspective on teaching language and literacy.
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I linked up with Leslie Sylvan via my friend Pam Waterhouse.
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Just as COVID hit, she generously gave the BC SLPs a book study of her newly published book for SLPs about implementing MTSS.
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And I was also able to mentor new SLPs into the school district that I'd just retired from that I thoroughly enjoyed.
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So all these experiences led me to realise that there are still only minimal supports for SLPs, to help them understand the radical shifts needed to move to an education aligned model of service delivery, and that we seem very stuck as a profession by clinging on to old practices that no longer make sense in the modern education system.
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This information is all available.
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It's been available for decades.
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So I don't quite understand why we hear the same things twenty to thirty years on as I've been waiting for this change to happen.
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So I've decided to join in to be someone who provides that support.
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There are others trying.
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There are lots of wonderful SLPs sharing about neurodiversity, inclusion, sensory-friendly approaches, creating caseload management tools, using curriculum assessments, and working with IEP creation.
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But there seems to be actual not so much talk about the whole sales systemic changes that need to happen within our service delivery in schools.
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There are people out there, but I think the voices, we're still trying to get the voices strong enough to be heard above the noise of the old ways of doing things.
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And from my coaching and workshops, I've learned even more about what SLPs are wanting to do and the barriers and opportunities in their work.
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So from my experiences and way of thinking, I have a sort of big picture systems-oriented way of thinking, and that is the focus of this podcast.
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I'll be including the modern ways of thinking, but I'll hopefully be interviewing SLPs and education staff who can explain these ideas better than me.
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I'll be connecting you to other SLPs who are also systems thinkers within our world and especially around MTSS.
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So I hope this gives you a sense of who I am and why I'm doing this.
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Why am I joining in rather than just retiring and saying, well, that was interesting.
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So long and thanks for all the fish.
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My heart and mind really can't cope with the notion that another 30 to 40 years could pass and we could still be trapped in the same SLP quagmire.
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So I want to do my bit to help move our profession along to a more appropriate and exciting way of working in schools.
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Thank you for spending time with me today.
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Here's what I want you to take away.
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You're not failing.
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The system is asking you to do the impossible, and you're doing the best with what you have.
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But there is a different way.
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And remember, you're not alone in this.
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We're building something new together.
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One conversation, one collaboration, and one small change at a time.
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If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it.
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Share your experiments, your questions, your aha moments, because your experience matters and maybe exactly what another SLP needs to hear.
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Until next time, stay curious and be kind to yourself.
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I'm Sarah Dowling, and this has been the Aligned SLP.