2011 CASLPA
Awards Banquet Acceptance Speech Remarks
Leslie Wellman -
Lifetime Achievement Award
Catriona Steele - Eve Kassirer Award
for Outstanding Professional Achievement
Carla Scholten - Mentorship
Award
Janis Carscadden and Pamela
Corsiatto - Editor's Award
Jason Schmiedge and
Cassandra Grabowski - Promotions Award
Catherine Thomassin
- On behalf of all 2010 Student Excellence Award winners
Lifetime
Achievement Award
Leslie Wellman
I want to begin by thanking CASLPA for this award. I like the
idea of an award for Achievement. I am all about achievement.
It's the word "Life Time" that is causing me to choke
up a bit! It's hard for me to believe that so much time has
passed.
I started my first job as a speech language pathologist in
1974 and joined CASLPA that year. Thirty-seven years later I
am still a speech language pathologist and continue to love
what I do. And as I enter the "twilight years" of
my career I don't anticipate my enthusiasm for my profession
waning.
I have had many opportunities in my career to expand my knowledge
and skills in a wide variety of areas for clinical practice
and to participate in research projects. I'd like to recognize
and thank a few colleagues who supported and encouraged me to
take on new challenges- Elaine Heaton, Barb Stoesz and Megan
Hodge.
Finally I want to thank my small but mighty group of Speech
Language Pathologists at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton
Alberta for thinking me worthy of this award and submitting
the nomination. Thank you, Pattie Mallett, Christine Dacyshyn,
Andrew Mitchell, Tammy DeSousa and Victoria Sandhu.
Thank you
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Eve
Kassirer Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement
Catriona Steele
Thank you!
In preparing for tonight, I went to the CASLPA website to find
the list of past recipients of this award. That list contains
the names of a remarkable group of people in our field: from
accomplished front-line clinicians, to highly respected managers,
to academics who have influenced the field both in Canada and
internationally. To be included in this group is truly an honour.
Dr. Eve Kassirer was a social scientist who was instrumental
in advancing the cause of allied health professions in Canada.
She is remembered for her commitment to patient-centered care,
to inter-professional collaboration, and to pursuing excellence
in service delivery through the establishment of professional
standards. These are all issues that have been important to
me throughout my career.
In accepting this award, I would like to thank CASLPA for making
it possible for me to volunteer professionally. As a teenager,
I watched my mother volunteer in her national professional association
as an OT: it was obvious to me that she derived a great deal
of fulfillment and reward from being involved. So, it was a
very natural thing for me to get involved on a CASLPA task force
when that opportunity came up in my first year of practice.
That experience led to opportunities to attend conferences,
and to network with more senior clinicians, and eventually to
a seat on the CASLPA board of directors. Through all of these
experiences, I was rewarded by the knowledge that I was involved
in issues that were important to the profession. After serving
as CASLPA president, I continued my volunteer activities south
of the border through leadership activities in ASHA. For those
of you who have not yet had the opportunity to serve on a professional
committee, I cannot recommend the experience highly enough.
I would also like to thank the many individuals who have served
as mentors to me throughout my career. There are far too many
of you to name. I want you to know that each of you have made
meaningful and important contributions to my career and I am
extremely grateful. I would also like to thank my students,
whose intelligent questions and interest in learning keep me
motivated and honest. Two of them were kind enough to take the
time to nominate me for this award: Sonja and Becky, thank you.
Finally, I would like to thank my family. Greg, thank you for
taking the time to come here tonight to celebrate. Thank you
for giving me the time and freedom to pursue extracurricular
volunteer activities and a field that I love.
Thank you, everyone.
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Mentorship
Award
Carla Scholten
Bonsoir and merci. Thank you to the Awards Committee. A special
thank you goes out to Dalhousie University, School of Human
Communication Disorders and Nova Scotia Hearing and Speech Centres.
Without their affiliation, my opportunities for clinical supervision
would not have been realized.
It is wonderful to be recognized for the clinical training
I have provided to students. I am touched that the students
and faculty of Dalhousie University have taken time from their
busy schedule to nominate me. The Clinical Coordinator, Raylene
Delorey, has been a great support.
I feel that so many of my peers are also worthy of this honor.
Being a clinical supervisor did not exactly come naturally to
me. My first student experience was a very positive one, so
I was able to focus on functionality as a clinical supervisor…..my
form came later.
Overall, clinical supervision has become one of the most rewarding
aspects of my career. As a sole charge clinician in a small
rural community, I really look forward to company of SLP students.
Individual students are generally with me for about 3 months.
I have also had short-term placements with up to 4 students
at once, using the Reciprocal Peer Coaching Model.
Over the years, and about 50 students later, I've learned a
few things about how to be a good clinical educator and thought
I'd share them with you:
Know yourself and be yourself.
Know your student and his or her learning style. A comfortable
student learns best.
Your students are your clients too and we are all about Client-Focused
Care.
Clinical placements are a front-loaded investment – allow
more time and effort at the outset of the placement and it will
pay off in the end.
Start at the shallow end of the pool.
Allow the student to make mistakes and learn from them.
Be flexible and open to new ideas.
Think aloud so your student can examine processes.
Develop student as a colleague.
And remember…
Every student has something to teach you.
As a general Rule of thumb: I use the approach “watch
one-do one”. I allow the student time for reflection and
self-evaluation; asking “what went well, what did you learn,
what would you change, why & how”. I try to remember
to balance and sandwich my feedback, always keeping in mind
that, for the student also, Form Follows Function.
I like to think that students help to keep me hip with the
new generation. I like to think so even though I don’t
even own an iPhone…. or a cell phone. Students keep me
on my clinical toes. They compel me to examine what I am doing
and why.
Many of the students I have supervised have become working
peers with NSHSC. It has been a joy to teach, learn and work
with students. I so very much appreciate this Mentorship Award.
Thank you.
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Editor's
Award
Janis Carscadden and
Pamela Corsiatto
Janis Carscadden:
We were pleased and surprised to learn we would be the recipients
of the 2011 CJSLPA editor's award. We would like to extend our
appreciation to the selection committee.
We are here representing an awesome group of eight.
This project started out as four clinical SLPs having a common
interest. Those SLPs were Pam Corsiatto, Lita Ericson, Robin
Illchuk and myself. We were interested in early intervention
and early identification. But we had no experience doing research.
We were fortunate to get connected with Dr. Scott Oddie and
Dr. Greg Wells from Red Deer College in Red Deer, AB a small
city in central Alberta. They supported and coached us from
beginning to end.
We also had two students from Red Deer College - Carrie Esopenko
and Erin Sterner - that did some fantastic work on this project.
Pam Corsiatto:
Our project included the development of a questionnaire, obtaining
ethics approval, piloting our questionnaire, and writing a manuscript.
We were all pleased to see our manuscript published in CJSLPA,
and then thrilled to learn of this award.
We'd like to encourage all frontline Speech-Language Pathologists
and Audiologists to consider research involvement. It was a
rewarding experience for us, and we are pleased to be an example
of a successful outcome.
Thank you.
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Promotions
Award
Jason Schmiedge and
Cassandra Grabowski
Wow! It's hard to follow up a speech like that. Pat and Alison
spoke so well, we should have just had them come say a few words
for us. I've know them for years, so I'm just throwing a plug
for them.
Promotions and awareness has become one of the most rewarding
areas of our practice. We've had to continually think differently
about how to promote ourselves and our profession. Many people
still do not know who an Audiologist is, so education for the
consumer is very important. For the past two and half years,
Cassandra and I have done a monthly radio show called Talk to
the Experts. Each month, we provided the listeners with information
on hearing, hearing loss, hearing protection, choices for hearing
aids and assistive listening devices, as well as hearing protection.
We also have talked about the difference between Audiologists
and Hearing Aid Practitioners. Last May during Speech and Hearing
Month, we took ear impressions of three radio personalities
live on their morning shows. Newstalk Radio and ROCK 102 allowed
us to create awareness about the need for hearing protection
and how most noise induced hearing loss is preventable. They
were great sports and had a lot of fun going through the process
"live" on the air. We will continue to educate the
public on how precious hearing is.
Thank you to CASLPA for this award.
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Student
Excellence Award
Catherine Thomassin
Thank you!
Premièrement, j’aimerais remercier l’ACOA
d’offrir aux membres étudiants ce prix d’excellence.
Le prix Isabel Richard offre la chance aux étudiants
de s’exprimer sur divers sujets reliés à
nos professions, et d’être reconnus pour leurs contributions.
En particulier, ce prix nous donne l’opportunité
de non seulement appliquer nos connaissances acquises au cours
de notre programme d’étude, mais également
d’aller plus loin, de donner notre opinion, et d’innover.
Lorsque j’ai pris connaissance des sujets d’articles
proposés, j’ai été un peu perplexe.
Deux d’entre eux m’ont semblé particulièrement
intéressants: le bilinguisme et l’emploi de la technologie
dans les domaines de l’orthophonie et de l’audiologie.
En premier lieu, le bilinguisme a attiré mon attention.
Au cours de mes stages cliniques, j’ai souvent eu à
travailler avec une clientèle qui ne parlait ni anglais
ni français et je devais être très créative
dans mes interventions. Ayant demeurée à Montréal,
Calgary et Vancouver, le multiculturalisme a toujours fait partie
de ma vie. Il n’est donc pas surprenant que j’aie
été naturellement attirée par ce sujet.
Le sujet de la technologie a aussi suscité mon intérêt
mais pour une raison complètement différente.
Je ne suis pas particulièrement ferrée dans ce
domaine, mais je réussis habituellement à me débrouiller
sans trop de difficultés. Cependant et malgré
moi, au cours de ma thèse de maîtrise, je me suis
retrouvée pendant plusieurs mois, face à une multitude
de problèmes reliés à des programmes d’ordinateurs
ce qui a eu comme effet de retarder substantiellement l’achèvement
de ma thèse. Cela peut vous sembler peut-être utopique
mais c’est justement lorsque j’étais au milieu
d’un de ces interminables problèmes que j’ai
décidé de prendre une pause et d’écrire
sur le sujet. J’ai alors repensé aux discussions
que j’avais eues avec mes superviseurs de stage, mes professeurs
et mes amis. J’ai lu plusieurs articles, et j’ai repensé
à certains clients avec qui j’avais eu la chance
de travailler au cours de mes stages. Enfin de compte, je me
suis convaincue de l’importance de la technologie dans
nos interventions mais surtout du rôle crucial des orthophonistes
et audiologistes utilisant ces technologies. Je suis très
heureuse d’avoir eu l’opportunité d’écrire
cet article et de pouvoir le partager avec vous.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the wonderful
professors at the University of British Columbia, some of whom
are here tonight. My experience over the past 2 years has been
extremely positive, and I know they’ve well prepared me
for a career in speech-language pathology. I would also like
to thank my clinical educators for sharing their expertise with
me and for being so encouraging.
I also wish to thank my classmates and friends for sharing
this experience with me. Most of them have been working for
a few months now, and all I keep hearing is how much they enjoy
their work, how much they are still learning, and most importantly,
how unbelievably cute all the kids are. Now that I’ve completed
my thesis, I’ll be starting my career in just a few weeks,
and I’m sure I will soon be the one telling them how much
I enjoy my work.
Once again, I’d like to thank CASLPA for this award. I
am honoured to have been selected as this year’s recipient,
and I hope that students will continue to take this opportunity
to share their thoughts and opinions on issues related to our
professions. Thank you!
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