Today I’m continuing our series “Stepping Out Beyond Our Four Walls.” Earlier this year, Jenna from Speech Room News, Desiree from SLPTalk and I presented at OSLHA on ways we were getting out from our therapy walls and promoting our wonderful profession to our districts and communities. We received such a great response I thought I would ask a few of my friends to share ways they are also making a big difference in their districts. Today’s guest post is from Melanie at The Speech Place.  I love how Melanie uses her gift (and yes, it’s a gift and one I wish I had!) to reach out to both her students and her staff. And the kids who signed at a teacher’s wedding? I LOVE that!

To start off I want to thank Nicole for opening up her inspiring blog and allowing myself and other SLPs to share our experiences on how we step out of our therapy room and become more involved in our schools.

I wanted to share with you three key ways that I have made sure that the staff at my school sees me as more than “just the speech teacher” and more like a contributor to our school.

Share what you are good at

I don’t mean your years of training on communication disorders and how to treat them but instead what other skills you have. In college I really enjoyed our sign language courses. When one of my schools was encouraging the staff to start an after school club I started the Sign Language Club. We met for an hour once a week and I taught them basic signs and then we moved onto developing sentences. It was a fantastic experience! One of the teachers even had some of the students sign a song at her wedding. The students gave up their recess to practice the song.

I also helped coach my school’s show choir. Before I graduated I was a dance instructor. I used those skills to teach the students dances to go along with their songs for performances. It was a lot of fun.

Think about what hobbies you have or what hidden talents you can share with others. Volunteer for afterschool detention (if you have extra time), student council advisor (if you have past experience in student government), or supervise a Lego robotics team (if you enjoy science and technology). It is a good way for staff and parents to see your commitment to the school and bettering the students.

Join committees

Many of us already belong to committees that relate to our field but have you ever thought about joining committees that you are interested in but do not directly work with like textbook adoption or technology committee. I really enjoy using technology in my therapy room so I volunteered on the technology committee so I can discuss what is needed and how the students can best use the technology that we have available. It has given other staff members on my committee insight to other areas of knowledge that I have.

Join them for lunch

As busy SLPs our schedules can be crazy and often we don’t have a set lunch time each day. I recommend at least once a week try to eat with a group of teachers. It is important for them to get to know you as a person as well so they are comfortable coming to you with a question or a concern. The same applies in reverse as well. You will learn more about them and feel comfortable speaking to them about classroom modifications or scheduling conflicts. I have been fortunate to occasionally eat lunch with the two grades at my school. It is a relaxing time with many laughs. When you are interacting with children all day it is nice to talk to some adults. The teachers I work with are some of my best friends.

I also organize occasional holiday parties and outings for staff members and their families. It helps strengthen the bound and changes the dynamic from coworkers to friends.

I hope you have found some new ways to make yourself more inclusive within your school. Please read the other post in this guest blog series to uncover more ways to get involved.