By: Lisa Milliken, MA, CCC-SLP, FNAP, CDP, RAC-CT, Vice President of Professional Services

This is the time of year when I reflect on the amazing steadfast commitments of our awesome Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association (TSHA) volunteers. I’ve been blessed to work with so many talented leaders, including the chairs and members of the eight committees within the vice presidency of professional services. When looking at the big picture, I see the work of 78 volunteers who collaborate with their team members as well as with other committees and TSHA leaders to each give their time, energy, and ideas toward making TSHA the great organization that it is. As you’ll see below, these efforts resulted in multiple resources, courses, and responses to the needs of our members throughout the state.

Public School Advisory Joint Texas Speech-Hearing Language Association/Texas Council of Administrators of Special Education (TCASE) Committee (PSAJC)
Chair: Cherry Wright
TSHA Members: Dalan Gore, Erinn Hengst, Nathalie Lebrun, Margarita Limon-Ordonez, Sherry Sancibrian, JoAnn Wiechmann; TCASE Members: Kami Finger, Cynthia Gann, Karen Hallowell, Molly May
The Public School Advisory Joint TSHA/TCASE Committee has been extremely busy throughout this year, including participating in two meetings via Zoom with TCASE representatives, presenting their Annual Public School Forum at our TSHA Convention, developing a survey for public school speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to identify issues in the schools, and working with the Public School Committee to distribute the survey, compile results, write its summary, and then to publish an article in the Communicologist. They also have been proactive to send out alerts and calls for action, including information about the Teacher Shortage Task Force, and they have developed reference materials related to the new Schools Health and Related Services (SHARS) rules, which were then posted on the TSHA website. In addition, they presented a webinar on the individual Medicaid application process and posted the recording of this webinar to the TSHA website. They have continued to respond to questions from members on this topic throughout the year. Finally, they have developed information for self-advocacy in the schools and have created a public school administrator’s reference guide posted to the TSHA website.

Business Management Committee 
Chairs: Cathleen Swallows and Mendi Lancaster
Members: Ronda Polansky, Pam Ragland, Sara Newman, Stephanie O'Silas, Janice Aranda, Amy Cantu, Erin McDaniel, Jordan Rudd (student member)
The Business Management Committee has worked to achieve their goal of publishing three articles for the Communicologist this year and also has worked throughout the year to prepare a presentation for the TSHA 2023 Convention. They responded to member questions related to reimbursement, credentialing, employee management, and served as a resource for optimal business practices for all settings across the state. Based on the questions they receive, they also continue to design resources for TSHA members and post them to the TSHA website. 

Medical Committee
Chairs: Melanie VanNoy and Julian Garcia
Members: Lori Taffet, Jesus Santibanez, Sharon Wilson, Christine Carmichael, LaKia Abron, Rebecca Brown, Ashley Brown, Latasha Weatherspoon Bailey, Alyson Ware, Haley Hood (student member)
The Medical Committee has been hard at work maintaining a social media presence, encouraging high-quality education at Convention, and connecting with our medically based TSHA members. They hosted a networking event at Convention with more than 100 SLPs and students in attendance! This committee's commitment to high-quality education has persisted in the form of three webinars hosted throughout the year: Fed with Telemed: Ethics, Considerations, and Strategies for Pediatric Feeding Disorders; Pharyngeal Manometry; and Long COVID. Graduate student connections were made through on-campus panels at UT Dallas with plans for at least one more this year. Be on the lookout for an incredible networking opportunity coming to your city or a city near you on October 13, during which the Medical Committee plans to host an event in Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston! You will not want to miss this chance to connect with your local medically based colleagues. Finally, the committee continues to develop and update resources on its page of the TSHA website.

University Issues Committee
Chair: Theresa Kouri
Members: Deborah Rainer, Janice Lougeay, Jessica Carter, Lynn Flahive, Melissa Garcia, Patti Solomon-Rice, Sherry Sancibrian, Valarie Fleming, and graduate students: Skylar Van Norman, Shandy Smith
The University Issues Committee held a very successful meeting for all university directors at the TSHA 2022 Convention in Fort Worth during which a number of department chairs, program directors, and clinic directors from a number of Texas universities attended. This was the second all-directors meeting of this type. Discussion topics focused on a number of COVID-19-related issues, Council on Academic Accreditation/Council for Clinical Certification (CAA/CFCC), and American Speech Hearing Association (ASHA) updates, academic admissions trends, university student well-being, and essential functions associated with student success, among other academic and clinical issues. Transcripts of the all-directors meeting were disseminated to all Texas program directors. Throughout the past year, a number of programmatic questions and issues have been discussed virtually among university members, which has proven to be an efficient and productive exchange of clinical- and academic-related ideas and information.

Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP)/SLP Assistant Committee Members
Chairs: Venessa Grandjean and Jalily Lopez
Members: Erin Keeling, Kaila Cisneros, Elisa Martinez, Richa Deshmukh
The SLP/SLP Assistant Committee published an article in the June 2022 issue of the Communicologist titled, “How ASHA Certification Applies to Speech-Language Pathology Assistants Practicing in Texas,” thanks to the efforts of committee members Erin Keeling and Richa Deshmukh. Another article will be submitted soon by Venessa Grandjean that exemplifies the benefits of SLP Assistants. The SLP/SLP Assistant training modules are also in the works and will share information about the roles and responsibilities for SLP Assistants (authored by Jalily Lopez) and supervising SLPs (authored by Erin Keeling). One of these modules that has been overseen by Kaila Cisneros and Elisa Martinez will set guidelines and eligibility for working with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) populations. The SLP/SLP Assistant website revisions are currently being reviewed by Kaila Cisneros. The entire committee has worked together to submit a proposal for the TSHA 2023 Convention that will answer questions about the supervisory partnership and give resources for supervision. The committee hopes that this presentation will allow SLPs to obtain two continuing education (CE) credits for the ASHA supervision requirements.

Public School Committee
Chair: Kendall Cain
Members: Hailey Gaida, Denit Pongkho, Kresta Atkin, Kori Clements, Lorenzo Martinez, Alejandra Carrillo
The Public School Committee has collaborated this year to initially focus on updating the TSHA schools webpage, which includes identifying the information that needs to be updated, deleted, and/or replaced and developing a spreadsheet of recommended content. Chair Kendall Cain has developed two TSHA Tuesday webinars to address current topics for public school members, including the topics of Collaboration, Inclusive Settings, and Alternative Means of Service Delivery in the School Setting and Managing Conflict, Stress, and Self-Care in the Public School Setting. The committee also drafted content for social media posts targeted to the public school SLP and school-based issues, including short and interesting topics such as relevant memes, encouragement, and informational links. Finally, they are working on ideas for subsequent Communicologist articles, based on the results and voiced needs from the recent 2022 TSHA school survey. They plan to utilize social media posts to address topics and results from this survey as well.

Telepractice Committee
Chair: Maria Resendiz
Members: Craig Champlin, Farzan Irani, Rosanne Joseph, June Levitt, Sarah Guigineaux, Allison Mitcham, Anna Stewart (graduate student)
The Telepractice Committee began the year with their presentation at the TSHA 2022 Convention and has since worked to develop a TSHA webinar to respond to member questions regarding telepractice rules and protocols and to develop a new proposal for the upcoming TSHA 2023 Convention. They also plan to develop topics for follow-up webinars based on member needs and requested topics.

Cultural and Linguistic Diversity (CLD) Committee
Chairs: Daniel Ibarra, Mirza Lugo-Neris
Members: Maria Resendiz, Christine Jimenez, Lauren Weathers, Diana Vega, Cynthia Godinez, Mona Kaddoura, Quan Nguyen (student member), Arantxa Salcedo (student member) 
The CLD Committee began their year by establishing a list of potential CLD members from a variety of Texas geographical regions and settings. They then focused on refining processes and procedures for CLD Committee operations, followed by the development and dissemination of a needs assessment project in collaboration with the SLP/SLP Assistant Committee on areas of need within the CLD parameters. They have committed to publishing four Communicologist articles this year and have planned to generate additional article topics for the next 18 months with assigned authors and deadlines per project. Finally, they have initiated a revision of the Articulation CLD Companion Disability Determination Guidelines for Speech Impairment in conjunction with the Research and Development Guidelines Committee.

As you can see, each of these committees have worked with their team members to meet the given challenge for optimal support of TSHA members by strategically setting goals and working to achieve them. I anticipate the continued positive outcomes of the ongoing projects from each of these committees, as the sky is the limit from such incredible volunteers!

More Executive Board News

• The current TSHA budget is available for review upon request.