How My Job is Going (CF-SLP Update)

This post was highly requested! I asked you guys to send me some specific questions you wanted me to answer in a blog post all about how my CF is going. In this post, I talk about the best/worst parts so far, why I chose the job that I did, how I’m balancing 3 schools, what I’m doing for self-care, and a whole lot more!

Since this is really the first weekend since work started that I haven’t had a million things to do, I wanted to take some time this Saturday and write down my thoughts on how my CF is going. In case you are new here/aren’t familiar with what’s going on with me and my job… here’s the breakdown. I finished grad school in May with my degree in speech-language pathology/communication sciences and disorders. I took (most of) the summer to job search and finally *BREATHE after grad school, and now I have my first job as a speech therapist.

What’s a CF though?

A CF, or “clinical fellowship“, is a speech pathologist’s first “year” of working. I put “year” in quotes, because it isn’t necessarily a year in length. It’s based on a set number of hours that most people complete in a span of ~9 months. You DO get paid (yay) but you have to basically practice with a temporary license under an already-licensed speech therapist. It’s just another extra mentoring step that we have to do before we are fully licensed by ASHA and the state boards. Fun stuff. Mostly it is just another headache-inducing step in the process, but I digress…

Where are you working/how did you find your job?

I’m a contract speech therapist for a school district ~30 minutes away from where I live. It’s a decent-sized district with a kindergarten center, 3 elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school. The company I work for is called Pediatric Therapeutic Services and they serve the area near where I’m from (southeastern PA, Delaware, and NJ).

I found PTS during a job fair at UD (where I went to grad school). I really connected with one of the clinical directors and after talking with them, I discovered I had two friends from undergrad who were working there. They both had amazing things to say about the company and they spoke with their clinical directors about me. It was really awesome to have connections at the company even before I started.

What made you choose the contract route?

For my CF, I will be directly employed by the company, but next year I will be an independent contractor. That appealed to me the most. Though I get no benefits, I like the flexibility it can provide and so far it has been great. Example: I can get paid to do work at home.

Best and worst parts so far?

Best:

• seeing Miss Rivoli on the speech room door
• meeting and connecting with my students
• making friends with teachers/other therapists
• decorating my room
• getting to finally “call the shots”
• doing therapy without someone else there watching/critiquing me (I definitely feel more confident now!)
• planning/executing therapy for elementary students

Worst:

• scheduling (kind of… we’ll talk about this later)
• having a high-ish caseload (currently at 63 students)
• being at multiple schools
• IEPs/RRs/paperwork (because I don’t know how to do it on my own)
• feeling like I don’t know how anything works
  • not knowing how PA IEPs work (went to grad school in DE)
  • not knowing the school’s procedures for referrals/meetings/getting interpreters, etc.
  • not knowing how to prioritize the many, many things on my to-do list
• not knowing where things are in the buildings I’m in
• not having printing access yet or WiFi at one of my schools (insert major eye-roll emoji here)
• the constant feeling of stress/overwhelm/nervousness/anxiety that comes with a) having a large caseload and b) not knowing how to do anything
• planning/executing therapy for high school students

So, as you can see, there’s more things on the “worst” side BUT I think a lot of the things on the “best” side are what really count. It just so happens that the parts of my “worst” list are the parts that take up most of my brain space and time during a normal school day. Being asked to do things I was never taught how to do on a daily basis is really frustrating for me because it is not the way I operate. I have never liked “learning as I go” as much as being given the tools FIRST and then asked to do things. Trying to adjust!

How did scheduling go?

I’m at three schools, so it definitely was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I had to check with three different groups of teachers, follow three different schedules, and make three different sets of adjustments. I honestly loved the concept of scheduling and figuring out a method that worked was fun for me, but it was hard to take into account the student’s schedules if they got other services, teacher preferences, and all the “extras” that came with the scheduling process. I will probably have to continue making adjustments as the year goes on but right now I’m pretty content with where my schedules are at.

How much work are you “taking home” with you or are you able to leave work at work?

I think I’ve been doing a decent job at this so far for only being 4 weeks in. I still do some planning at home (~2 hours a night on average… sometimes it’s less), and I have to print all my materials and data sheets at home because I still don’t have print access at my schools (long story) so that takes some time. I have tried to not do any “major” work at home like writing IEPs/RRs, etc. And I make sure this happens by not bringing any student files home (which is risky to do anyway). I’ll def keep you updated with how that’s going as the year progresses!

How do you juggle multiple sites? How are you staying organized?

This is only my third week of therapy, but I’m lucky that my two elementary schools have a plethora of materials to use (the pic below is the materials closet at my “home school”) so I don’t really bring much back and forth with me, which is nice. I keep a binder with me that has data sheets/caseload breakdowns/classroom rosters for each school which has been SO helpful. This binder is like my lifeline. I’m hoping to do a full post about my organization methods so far because I’m amazed at how well everything is working at this point.

How did your graduate program prepare you?

My program prepared me as well as they could have, I think. There’s always going to be things you don’t know and there’s always going to be new, district-specific things that you need to learn. But as far as preparedness, I felt like I had a taste of most things I needed to know to start in the school setting.

Was it easy to transition from being a graduate clinician to more of an independent CF?

It was easy for me to transition to being independent because my spring semester placement let me really be independent with choosing materials and running sessions without my supervisor hovering or being super involved. This was in the SNF setting, though, but I think it still prepared me to have to make decisions “on my own”. I’ve always felt most confident working with kids though so it definitely felt more “right” to be calling the shots independently!

Are planning sessions in your CF similar to sessions in grad school?

Yes! But sessions are much shorter than they were in the clinic so that aspect is different. And taking into account groups and having to work on different skills is more challenging. But the basics are the same!

How did you find your specific CF supervisor?

The company I work for found my CF supervisor! She works in the district with me and is part time.

How are you handling it? Self care ideas?

I think I’m handling it okay so far. I definitely have had moments of feeling stressed and overwhelmed (I cried at my desk on Friday lol). And my first IEP meeting was scary.

I’m working on self care still. This week I’m trying to be more conscious of taking time for myself. For example, I set a timer for 20 minutes when I got home today to read and de-stress. Then I took a 20 minute nap. Then I worked on school stuff for an hour and went to spin! Just trying to be more intentional with my time after work and not spending it on my phone doing things that aren’t that productive.

ALSO not putting my email on my phone has been a huge help (or turning off notifications after work hours). That way I’m not getting bombarded with work things when I’m not at work and I can decide when I want to check my emails and do “work stuff”. Definitely helps!

Thank you guys so much for such great questions! If you have any more, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them all. Definitely going to update you all as the year progresses!