May is Speech and Hearing Awareness Month

To celebrate Speech and Hearing Awareness month in May, Children’s Treatment Network (CTN) is excited to launch a series of educational videos on ‘Speech Development Tips’. These new resources for families and clients will empower caregivers to progress their child's speech development and help prepare them for speech therapy services. The video series shares tips, tricks and strategies used in speech therapy to improve various areas related to a child's speech development including listening skills, speech clarity, reading skills and repairing communication breakdowns. The interactive, virtual modules will add to CTN’s resource base so that families have a trustworthy avenue to access reliable information for their kids.

Check out the videos on CTN’s YouTube Channel.
 

1. CTNKids: What Can I Do Now To Help My Child’s Speech Development
2. CTNKids: What To Do When You Do Not Understand What Your Child Says
3. CTNKids: Common Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
4. CTNKids: How Does Speech Impact Reading
5. CTNKids: How to Listen For Speech Sounds

During the month of May, we would like to shine a spotlight on CTN’s speech services offered through our School-Based Rehabilitation Services (SBRS) network. CTN provides a range of speech and language services through its extensive network of community partnerships to support kids and youth in their homes, communities and schools. SBRS provides speech therapy for kids and youth in publicly funded schools to help them fully participate in their school curriculum. CTN has agreements with a network of service providers to deliver SBRS in the communities we serve.
 

• In Simcoe County, CTN works with The Speech Clinic and Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH)
• In York Region, CTN works with Closing the Gap, RNS Healthcare Services, 1 to 1 Rehab, Monarch House, and Oak Valley Health (OVH)
• In Central and West Toronto, CTN works with 1 to 1 Rehab, Closing the Gap, and Speech Specialists

Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) are healthcare professionals who work on identification, assessment, treatment, rehabilitation, education and prevention of communication and/or swallowing disorders in kids, youth and adults. SLPs play a vital role on clinical teams. These include CTN’s Diagnostic Autism Clinical Services, Ontario Autism Program services, Feeding Assessment and Consultation Services, Augmentative Communication Consultation Services, and School-Based Rehabilitation Services (SBRS).

SBRS services were transitioned to CTN in December 2018. Since the transition, CTN has been working on coordinating service delivery, streamlining SBRS processes, improving consistency of services and enhancing service quality in Simcoe County, York Region and Central and West Toronto. We are expanding our resources families can use to positively impact their child’s speech development.

In 2022, CTN piloted an SBRS-Early Intervention Speech Language Pathology (SBRS-EISLP) service delivery model by partnering with Preschool Speech and Language (PSL) providers in York Region and Simcoe County within CTN’s network. These new partnerships with OVH and RVH made it possible for the youngest kindergarten-aged children on CTN’s SBRS speech waitlist to be seen at the right age and at the right time. With the success of the pilot project, CTN committed to making this SBRS-EISLP service permanent, allowing for added capacity in the system to deliver early intervention speech services to kids and families.

In February 2023, CTN hosted a two-day workshop for our SBRS speech frontline providers to share current, evidence-based information on speech sound disorders, with the goal of improving service quality to clients and families.

CTN’s network model allows for collaboration, sharing and engagement across SBRS service provider organizations. Through CTN’s SBRS speech clinical modernization initiatives, our speech service providers are joining us at the planning table to help us identify areas to improve service delivery. Family engagement is an essential component of this clinical modernization work. CTN will also work with families through focus groups to gain feedback on what is important to our families who access SBRS services. The feedback received through these focus groups will help us make improvements to our SBRS speech service delivery. CTN’s network model in SBRS makes this level of collaboration across three geographical regions possible.

Guided by our strategic directions of striving for excellence, keeping people at the centre of what we do and fostering a culture of accountability and stewardship to support our community’s needs, CTN’s SBRS speech clinical modernization initiatives use innovative approaches to improve our SBRS speech program. CTN’s network model and collaborative partnership with eight SBRS speech service provider organizations, paves the path for system transformation, service quality improvement and positive change for the kids, youth and families that we serve.

 

2023-05-10