Speech Language consultants and school contracts

Nov 23, 2015 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

One of the most challenging things about promoting a niche book is how to get it into the hands of the people the book is meant for. I’m sure most of my book sales have been to SLPs who hopefully share it with their administrators or at least find it supportive.

A couple of weeks ago I received a message on Facebook from a consulting service, mentioning that they purchased a couple of my books. The purpose of their purchase was to give the books to school administrators. The information I provided in the book not only explained the role of the SLP in schools, it helped outline and justify time needed to properly service the schools they contract with. I was blown away and thrilled. I had not even thought of this as a use for my book The Speech Language Pathologist, An Administrator’s Guide to understanding the role of the SLP in schools along with strategies to aid staffing, workload management and student success.

Where I live most schools provide their own staff to service Speech and Language students. Occupational therapy and physical therapy are more likely to be contracted out because they service fewer students. However, there are a few schools in my area that contract out to hospitals and agencies. I do believe this practice is seen more often in urban areas or areas where SLPs are hard to find.

Agencies who contract to schools, probably have to maintain a delicate balance with schools to develop and maintain contracts. School administrators in most situations probably base their needs on the time written into the IEPs or number of students. The problem with this is that an SLPs workload far exceeds the number of hours spent on direct service.

The School Speech Language Pathologist, An Administrator’s Guide to understanding the role of the SLP in schools along with strategies to aid staffing, workload management and student success, is organized to first explain the role of the SLP, what areas we service and who we might service. Then the book goes on to explain the workload tasks involved, time needed to complete workload tasks and variables that may increase both direct services and workload tasks.

If you are a speech and language consulting service looking for a guideline you can offer schools, this book might be right for you. Please take a look at reviews on Amazon or read excerpts on my publisher’s site, Booklocker.

Teresa
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