Many people in education and healthcare know that lobbying and advocacy needs to happen; but many people don’t know whose responsibility it is or how to do it.That’s why I invited Michael Campbell, published author, blogger, and licensed bilingual speech-language pathologist to the show to dive into this topic. Michael has spent time as a union member on his collective bargaining committee, and he shared a ton of useful knowledge on the process. If you’re an SLP or other related service provider and you want to know how to leverage your union or build relationships to advocate for your profession, you won’t want to miss this interview. In this episode, he shares:✅What people are actually doing when they’re “lobbying” for a bill to be passed.✅What to say when you email your congressman (plus other people you can email as well to get your voice heard).✅How to learn more about bills that impact you, your facility, and your students.✅Why it’s worth your time to help other union members (like teachers) get what they want, even for initiatives that seem unrelated to you as a therapist.Michael works as a Speech-Language Pathologist in the public schools and his private practice. He started my career teaching and mentoring students through Upward Bound on undergraduate admissions and college success and also served as a Program Officer at the Institute of International Education. He taught for several years in both the US and Mexico before starting his SLP graduate program.During his graduate studies, he built The Speech Blog. You can view the webpage here: https://thespeechblog.com/ To advise candidates on SLP grad school admissions and in 2020 he published a book called “SLP To Be: An Unofficial Guide to Getting into Graduate School for Speech-Language Pathology” To view more about the book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/SLP-Be-Unofficial-Speech-Language-Pathology/dp/1730815073 Currently, he’s  practicing SLP in the school systems and also blogs about professional topics of interest at Think SLP. You may check the webpage here: https://thinkslp.com/ His current project is a workbook for clinicians or teachers with therapy/lesson plans centered on 10 famous people who stutter.We mentioned the following blog post articles during our interview from Michael’s site:> Teacher’s Unions – Just for teachers?    Link here: https://thinkslp.com/teachers-unions-just-for-teachers/> Four Things I Heard at ASHA’s Listening Session, Oct 2022   Link here: https://thinkslp.com/my-four-take-aways-from-ashas-school-issues-advisory-board-listening-session-in-october-2022/In this episode, I mentioned the School of Clinical Leadership, my program that helps pediatric clinicians be better leaders, make a bigger impact with their services, and lead their teams in providing executive functioning support for kids at the K-12 level. You can learn more about how to become a member here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/clinicalleadership
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL and MyFlexLearning. IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you simplify and streamline technology, reliably meet Tier 1 standards, improve assessment performance, and more. Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.MyFlexLearning is the scheduling platform that helps middle and high schools meet the individual needs of all students. Create and manage time for flex blocks, WIN time, activity periods, RTI, counselor and teacher appointments and much more. And with a built-in accountability tool and reporting features, solve your challenges around getting kids where they need to be and understanding how flex time is spent. Make your flex time work for you. Visit myflexlearning.com/BE to learn more and receive $500 o