Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.

RESOURCES

Learn more about Tiffany Marino and our team of specialists.

For past meetings and videos, click here.

For upcoming meetings click here

And stay up-to-date for more on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

MORE QUOTES

“We want to do the work that is meaningful and timely. There is going to be a lot of investing in the process to help change grow as quickly as possible. It can look like meeting once a week for a few weeks in a row or twice a week for the first few weeks to get that momentum going. There is nothing typical about the work we do. We think about the individual personally and how we can personalize the plan to fit their needs.” - Tiffany Marino

“It’s amazing to witness the empowerment clients experience for themselves.” - Tiffany Marino

TRANSCRIPT

Uri Schneider: All right, should be, should it be up test one, two. Tell me if you see it there. I'm not seeing it here yet, but I see it says live on my computer. So I'll take that for its word. Uh huh. All right. Great. So let's just see if we can confirm that it's up, then we'll get started and we'll do our little presentation and then, uh, And then we'll take comments and questions there.

Yeah, I see. We're live. Fantastic.

Me too.

Tiffany Marino: Welcome.

Hi.

Tiffany Marino. We have our, um, running supervision meeting on Monday mornings. Is it safe to say the dedication that you have? Whatever we have our supervision meeting, it's safe to say that we're both pretty dedicated to making time right in early, right? Nearly let's just say it's accompanied by tea or coffee, right?

So Tiffany and I are gonna are going to just talk a little bit, make this a nice, really casual chat. We'll present a little bit about, you know, the work we do our philosophy, um, a little bit about who we are and what we bring to the work and what we, what we take from the work, what we learn from the people we work with.

And then we'll try to attend to the comments and questions on the feed and get to those. So we'll just present a little bit and, and then circle back to that. And without further ado, I hand you off to amazing Tiffany Marino.

Thank you. You Schneider. Uh, hi everyone out there wherever you are. Thanks for taking time to join us.

Um, I'm learning more and more now than ever just how many options we all have on what we want to devote our time with and log into. So we appreciate, um, everyone. Taking the time to join us a little bit about me. My name is Tiffany I'm here, zooming in and from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Um, some of you might be familiar with my dog Perry.

He's next to me sleeping. Maybe he'll wake up and he'll be able to say hi. But we featured him in an Instagram post that we did a few weeks ago when we were all just kind of doing some comparison of like where we were working then and where we work now. So now it's my office, living room, gym entertainment center, TV room, et cetera.

Yeah, exactly. Pushed out the nine feet walls to make some more room. Um, so I'm an associate with Schneider speech and I'm also one of the staff developers for the New York city department of education, district 75, um, working with a ride, a wide range of people and doing lots of different things. And now happy to be here with everyone this way.

Three. Where am I? Yeah, I am. Hi. Are you there? Yeah, I'm here. I'll be at any company I'm torn to pieces. That's the truth. I just came off another meeting. So I introduced there and I forgot as we began, it kind of felt like a fluid flow, but just important upfront to recognize that the current events, which are really the sitting on the shoulders of, of, of.

Centuries decades, years, lifetimes, uh, generations of injustice and, uh, unfairness and life experiences that have been harder than they should have been and needed to be. And, uh, just to acknowledge and stand in solidarity in that recognition of the black community and our black friends, colleagues, clients, neighbors.

Fellow citizens. Um, and I spent a lot of time in the past week reflecting and having some pretty, pretty significant conversations internally with our team, with my family and with, uh, with many individuals. And today we put out a blog post. If anyone wants to see it, you can go to the webpage. Um, and that was crafted by me.

Um, so no one else is making that statement except me, but it was run by many of our, of our black, uh, friends that we love and respect. And, uh, their input was instrumental just to make sure that we, we struck the right tone, um, because we don't know what it's like to be black. Um, but we know enough that it matters and we know enough that we care to learn more and to do better.

And, uh, with that, I'm going to cry. So just wanted to put that out there. So where am I? I'm in shambles. Um, Um, yeah. Now I'm everywhere online, Tiffany, which is amazing. So I created this little studio set up, which is, um, just two standing lamps and this, uh, screen behind me. And, um, other than that, Yeah, today, I've been, I've been literally around the world meeting with different people and looking forward to this.

Um, so yeah, what's been most amazing. Honestly, I think for both of us is seeing even my father, who's a whole nother generation. You know, the idea that zoom was something we were doing for so long for the past several years before COVID-19 our calendar always send out a reminder for the appointment, with a link for zoom in case someone couldn't drive in that day, or if they were choosing to do it from school or from the office.

Um, and, and then it was like 20% of the work. I think you were doing a few anyway before college and stuff. And then, and then boom, we had to shift to a hundred percent, but it was pretty. Surprising how well it went and how quickly and how much are our clients really transferred over. But for sure, there are people that are feeling, you know, the financial hit of, of this whole thing and, and are going to continue to have the ripple effects of it.

So we're very conscientious of that and mindful of that. And we'll talk about some things we're doing for that. Um, but as I was saying, the most exciting thing was that if. If anything is a true Testament to how well zoom can work. It's that my father really transitioned full on to working on zoom to the point that he is officially closed his existing Riverdale office at the time, when he's ready to see people in person he'll have a space, but he's transitioned to currently to working totally online.

And he reported at our team meeting. What did he say, Tiffany? That the work is wider than ever better than ever. Um, so yeah, we're finding all kinds of advantages to staying in contact and, and, and I think the biggest challenge that people tell us is carry over. Right? So a lot of things are possible when you're sitting with your.

Whoever, if it's a therapist, if it's a coach, if it's at the gym, if it's your nutritionist, the hard part is when you go home and it's 11:00 PM, uh, and you got the crisis of looking at the freezer or, you know, it's wake up time to go for the run and trainer's not there. Um, but my father was saying, and I think all of us feel this as well.

When we, when we. Remove the barriers of physical distance and the needs to travel to the office and all of that. And we open up a line of communication that has a lot less barrier. If you've got a good internet connection, or if you have messaging, you know, you're able to stay in touch and really help people get through things.

So that's been a big. A big gain that we have found with this whole situation. And yeah. So zoom has been amazing and we have these group meetings. Do you wanna just mention what you did this week? I know you did a teen and adult online stuttering group and just share any, any observations or highlights.

So that's right. We have a teen and an adult group, the adult group on Tuesday evenings and the teen group meets on Wednesday evenings. The adult group has been really amazing. We've touched on some really important topics. I mean, obviously with all the current events going on right now, there's so much to speak about and it's been a really great opportunity for everybody.

Um, including myself and my colleague, Julie, who I run a group with. To share how we're feeling about things and how, um, things might be affecting our communication and how we're feeling about communicating. And we've also been able to work on and talk about things on the physical side of stuttering, um, last night or two nights ago, right?

Thursday. So two nights ago, Tuesday night, we started to you do some love. Voluntary stuttering. And we made some phone calls and, um, Julie called the pizza place and did some really great stuttering. And we all had an opportunity to be on the other side, listening to her and listening to the person that she was talking with, who was.

Super patient and heard her out and let her ask all of her questions while doing some really great stuttering. Um, so it's been really dynamic. I mean, some days we're talking some days we're working on strategies, um, everyday we're listening and I know the teen group is just as exciting from what I'm hearing from Julia and Jacqueline.

Yeah. It's been amazing. And I think, uh, yeah. Echoes some of what we did with the teen group, with the teen group, we had a guest come on, um, a woman who stutters who's a real advocate in the community. And she logged in from Scandinavia. And we had another person who logged on one of my associate colleague from Georgia down South, and she logged on and, um, the teens did also like.

Some fooling around with their stuttering. I think that the power of that exercise is like, you've got this monster in the closet and you're, you're kind of tiptoeing around it. And when you can play with it, You know, that's when you're ready to really move ahead and stop letting it control you by fear.

You know? So I think the analogy of, uh, Carol Westby, right? One of our colleagues who created one of the best assessments, the Westmead play scales, and she talks about you can't teach a kid anything until he's comfortable. And that's why we worked through play. That's where children are comfortable.

That's where children learn. So the same thing is true with swimming. You can't learn to swim if you're terrified of the water. So if you can play with stuttering and actually instead of only wanting to ramp it down, you could fool around with ramping it up a little bit and be comfortable being in that space.

Wow. It's an amazing desensitizing experience. So we did this with all these kids and at the end, my colleague, who just wrote a book. She sent that she sent that book, a copy of the book, a free copy of the book to all the teens. And then they also got gift cards in the mail to kind of incentivize this brave activity.

And here were all these people from such different backgrounds, connecting around this common, common issue, stuttering. So to some degree, that common experience and the amounts of buildup and concern. It's so solitary and isolating, and here we are creating these opportunities for people to kind of come together.

I feel so isolated and so remarkable. And watching you do that and our other, the rest of our team, Jacqueline and you and Julie. Um, has been amazing, amazing. And I think that taps into, you know, the COVID-19 and the economy and the recognition that the way we work, the frequency, the needs, the needs to stay connected.

Um, so all of those things, we were brainstorming very early on and we said, you know, what, what are some ways that we can make things more affordable? What are some ways that we can add a model? That's not just one-on-one with some. Some guy in a collar shirt and some amazing, uh, Tiffany Marino. One-on-one like, what if we could get some of their peer groups together?

And so we came up with this idea. So whether someone's doing private therapy and wants to do this, in addition to that, or this is a more affordable and accessible opportunity instead of private therapy, um, that was part of the idea of the group. And then of course we still have the private therapy and then we're adding on this other part.

Which is this, I don't know if it's a Magnum Opus or. An obsession of mine to kind of figure it out. If we could take all the wisdom. Yeah. All the pearls that come out of the work that we do and the conversations we have internally and try to capture those gems that, that Tiffany has shared, or the clients have shared, or that my father shared that I've come up with and try to put it into these little bite sized pieces of an online course, which would be a choose your own adventure.

Um, customizable, personalized personalizable, and driven by yourself. Um, but you would have access to all the good stuff that we try to do in the office. So that's something that just now is, is available and you can get the first course, which is basically a free overview, but it's a self contained course and you go to.

Schneider speech.com/online-course. So Schneider speech.com/online-course or on the homepage. There's a link for it. You could sign up, give us your email and we'll send you the free course to see the whole overview. So those are different ways that we're thinking about different realities people are living with in ways to create less barriers of access to helping yourself get ahead.

Um, Yeah, something I love about all of those things. And we can also talk about that. Some of the stuff we're trying to do like this on social media is the idea of wanting to build on and have people know that, right. There's a community out there. Um, it can be, yeah. I feel isolating sometimes too. You know, even, even for myself, I'm zooming in and I'm talking to so many people and it's so amazing, but you know, sometimes you do feel like you're alone.

If you're alone in your apartment or alone in your house, Um, so we really wanted to make sure to have a place where people could go and feel like they had a community there. So whether, you know, it's linking people up. Who we see in individual sessions and almost having like a speech like pen pal or through these groups or creating a community through the online course.

Um, we just want people to know that you're not alone. Um, there are other people thinking like you, there are other people that want to listen and may have similar experiences that may be able to relate to you. Um, So just again, wanting to build that community. And I think all of these different platforms have been accomplishing that.

Yeah. I think for people who stutter in general, there's always been a beautiful slogan of, you know, you're not alone. There's organizations like the national stuttering association friends for young people who stutter say I'm starting an association for the young stuttering foundation of America. Uh, I can't think if I'm missing any at the moment I might be, but these are all amazing organizations that have really championed that very cause.

And we're just trying to see what we can contribute to, to these times and to offer something in addition. Um, but for people that are looking for community, no one should feel alone. There are plenty of options, both free, uh, affordable and of course, private to be connected and get it. Yeah. The biggest surprise for you with zoom, what would you say would be like an interesting story of success that maybe someone wouldn't think would be possible, you know, sort of level of connection, the fidelity of the connection or the ability to kind of do meaningful work when you're actually not physically with the person at this point?

I think we've got. Several people we've never been in the presence of. Yeah, what's something surprising that people would think would be impossible. So I guess just going off of that, um, people that we're working with now that we've never met in person, and then even take that a step further working with parents, um, Who have preschool children and I've never met the preschool child, even through this video way.

You know, all, all of those meetings are done with, um, one or both of the parents. And, and maybe they're sending me some sample videos or voice recordings. Other than that, um, the work is just between us and it's about empowering the parents to be the speech therapist, empowering the parents, to understand the importance of.

Good communication. Um, and building that good communication foundation for, for their child. So that's really exciting. Being able to get feedback from parents that wow, my child is communicating now more than ever. My child is happy. My child's just thriving. Um, and then yeah, feeling good about themselves and about the activities that they're doing.

Um, So that's been really great for some of my team signs that I'm working with, giving them the opportunity to have a sounding board, the resume, and to, I guess, in a sense kind of practice what it's like zooming in so that they're confident and ready to be a part of their classroom zoom calls. Um, You know, giving them the opportunity to practice the technology so that they feel comfortable on the communication side of things.

Um, we're doing so much, especially, uh, from you are, you're always pushing, asked to get out of our comfort zone. So trying new things with Google docs and sharing that way. Um, I shared with our team, one of my new favorite activities is making top 10 lists. And seeing what comes out of that and hearing from our clients.

Can you explain what you mean about that? Sure. Yeah. So, um, I was, I was inspired from the SFA, one of their most recent issue or their, their most recent issue. They put out, um, a bunch of letters that kids from all ages, roll it to people who stutter, just giving them advice. So I was inspired by that and I wanted to, um, put my own twist on it.

So what I started to do with a lot of my teen clients that I see is we're making the top 10 things people should know about stuttering, according to. And then their name. And from there, it's just starting such amazing deep conversations about how they feel about stuttering, what they want people to know about stuttering and how they experienced stuttering, how they experienced communication.

Um, So it's gives them an opportunity to feel empowered, to put their thoughts out there, but to do it in a fun, like top 10 list kind of way. And, um, some of them have felt comfortable with wanting to share it and eventually put it on some of our social media platforms. Some of them have sent it by email to their parents.

And just kind of left it there, you know, um, some of them had have added artwork to it. So it's been a really fun activity that people are enjoying and that is really meaningful. Yeah. It's amazing. It's, it's really amazing, you know, after we had that meeting and you share that, I think everybody was running with that idea, but you know, I think the challenge of these times is how do we stay connected?

Like fundamentally. The assumption is that if my kid is dealing with something so personal, so maybe inside, you know, how is it possible? You're gonna meet some stranger over a computer screen. And, uh, you know, these top 10 lists, what you're doing is it's really creating a window or a path for you to kind of get a sense of what's going inside.

What's going on inside the. Insides of that other person. Um, I know that Monica, Bert and another one of the associates, uh, shared with me, she's been encouraging one of her clients to journal and using Google docs and he's shared it with her and so wonderful. Cause he was so blunt. He said, um, look, I didn't come to speech therapy for therapy.

I came to work on my speech and I want to be doing more of this than I really want. I liked when we did this. And I didn't like when we did this and that's the kind of stuff. We love straight access to kind of like getting a sense of what people want. We're not here. And I think that differentiates us a bit from some of our, you know, friends and colleagues.

We're very comfortable being flexible. We're very comfortable having the client. In the position of being the boss and we're contractors for them, all of us, um, really put ourselves behind the client's interests. So yeah, there's nothing we love more. So I think that's one of the things that, as you said, Tiffany pushing on the comfort zone is really, you know, if my dad is zooming and doing virtual backgrounds, I think, and what Google docs allows us to do is yeah, today I was working with a young man in New Jersey.

I'm a young young person and, and we were working on some stuff and he's really interested in baseball. And so even though there's nothing new happening, we were reading about all the negotiations and news that we could pull up. We put her on a Google doc. We're both accessing it. We're able to chalk it up with little chalk, you know, pausing and ways that we can Mark up the document collaboratively in real time.

Totally remarkable. And then his dad, you can get on the call. I can see what we did and what we're doing and how he, the father can take it forward. And all of this is happening in these incredible challenging times. And I'm pretty sure it would have been harder for me to get that debt in the office. In other words, this is weird set up working with them in the home, actually enabled an opportunity.

To loop that in and become an active participant in a change agent. Um, you know, Tiffany, you touched on something with the young kids, something that I get on the phone a lot. And by the way, just to mention, you can call us, you can email us the website, Schneider speech.com. There's a contact us page, or just go straight to it.

Schneider speech.com/contact. You can schedule a real call with Barbara. Um, she's our office manager and success and, uh, and then she can provide all kinds of basic information. And if you want to get on a call with me for 10 minutes to see if we can be a good fit for you, totally can do that. I have times on my calendar and usually within a day, we could be on the phone together.

So feel free to reach out. Um, if we can just highlight that for a second and just how, um, I think important and meaningful that is, you know, just to make sure that. We want to make sure that who's ever coming to us feels comfortable and feels like it's a good fit. We want everyone to be good consumers. I remember one of the, at one of the NSA conferences that that was a whole workshop for families to go to, to be a good, good consumer.

So that's, that's really important for us, for people to know that. We want to make you feel comfortable. We want you to make you feel heard and listened to. And you know, it really does devote much of his time to our clients, um, past present and future. And you know, he's really willing to hear you. He says in minutes, it's, it's not always 10 minutes.

It goes way above and beyond that. So, um, We could, we should be publicly thanking you right now. Are you, so thank you for all the time. Does that mean more than that? But yes. If someone wants to have a chat, the point is that we want to be accessible, we want to make it human. Um, so the website should make anyone feel like it's, it's a bigger organization or it's harder to reach the right people.

Right. You know? Once you're working with us, you have the direct information of the person you're working with. And, uh, and like I said, anybody, any time can reach out. So the office and we can schedule, you know, a good portion of time to discuss your concerns, see if it's a good fit. And we're happiest if we can have that conversation.

And determined that we can give you a couple of tips and give you the permission to make the choice that maybe you don't need to come for therapy right now. But if you have it in your pocket and you know, you have somebody, you can talk to four weeks from now, eight weeks from now. So one of the things we're doing in that direction and to alleviate it is hard.

And as Tiffany said, You know, if I have several of those calls, I mean, it's not hard for that to totally consume a day or two of the week. So what we started to do is try to take together what are the most frequently asked questions? So we have a website I need to continue to put up more, but if you go to Schneider speech.com/faq, um, we're starting to put together a.

Collection of, uh, of the answers to the most frequently asked questions. One of which Tiffany is my preschooler stutters. Um, how exactly am I gonna get my preschooler to sit for a 90 minute consult in front of zoom and then, you know, sitting in front of the zoom for like, I don't think my three-year-olds is going to be able to do that.

I just don't think so. So, um, You're probably right.

Yeah. I can barely get my, uh, my nephew, unless like, unless I'm holding up my dog to even look at me through, through the FaceTime. So, uh, yeah, that, that would certainly be a challenge. Um, so the answer to that would be, you wouldn't have to, um, Again, going back to what we said earlier. It's all about us. Um, in these cases, empowering the parents to feel confident, to do, build that foundation of good communication for their child.

So, um, learning about their child, through them, learning about their child through videos or voice recordings, that's important. Um, learning about the family dynamic through them, and then talking about what that. Kid loves and building activities on that to help foster that good communication. So short answer is they wouldn't have to sit in front of the screen.

We're going to do the work through the parents, um, and empower them to be the therapist. Oh, wait a minute. You're not going to work with my child. So, you know, I think, I think the fundamental thing here is, as you said, Tiffany, you know, you are now in a position working in the board of ed. Helping therapists be great therapists.

I think a lot of people think of speech therapy and they think of a true, a traditional. You know, model, maybe a stereotypical model of, you know, your child is getting services at school or a therapist coming to your home and you step in the other room and the therapist does their thing. And then thank you.

When's the next appointment? The way we work is different than I find that there's a, there's a need to set the expert. Um, so when someone says, I don't think my three-year-olds could sit in front of the screen for nine years, clearly we need to, you know, Reset the vision of what this is going to look like.

So when working with Tiffany or working with me or working with Malka or Julie or Leah or Jacqueline, one of the exceptional people on the team or working with my father, you're going to be working with someone who. Basically the goal is to fire us, you know, get us out of the way from the first time we meet our goal is to help you help yourself and make ourselves redundant.

And hopefully we'll stay in touch with great regard for one another, but firing us in a favorable way means you're no longer dependent on us. And so, and we have that as our goal upfront. Right out of the first phone call. And in that first 90 minute meeting, as Tiffany said, we're gonna try to learn about your child through you.

So if it's a preschool child, uh, if, if both parents can be on the call, if there are any other shareholders and come with video of the child at their best. Not just capturing the problem, but kind of capturing the, the spirit, capturing the ability, capturing the language ability, capturing the communication ability and capturing everything about that child that makes them so delicious.

And at the same time, being able to describe maybe with video or maybe just describing what are the concerns. And then we have a really good picture of the child and we can already begin to give the parents something to do right out of that first meeting. After the first meeting, the parents are going to be spending 10 minutes a day with the child.

If we're going to engage in therapy, which is not a foregone conclusion, we may have the first one meeting and decide, maybe we just need three or four meetings with the parents to kind of give them some ideas, some tips, some things they can put into play on their own, or we might engage in therapy or we might decide.

His first meeting was, was one and done and really gave them what they needed to feel like they can, they can wait a bit longer, but if we do therapy, what it's going to look like is right out of that first meeting, some practical things they could put into play 10 minutes a day with the child recording those meetings.

And this is where my dad's at his work has really become even better than before, which is hard to believe with my deep respect and appreciation and admiration for my father's excellence. But the fact of the matter is he's right. You know, he's even doing better because the video allows the family to send us the video.

And sometimes even before the next appointment, but definitely the next appointment, we can review how those 10 minute sessions are going. And in effect, we're training the parent who didn't know much about speech and language, or maybe they did. We're training them to be the change agent in their child's life.

And it makes sense. I think about it. Like why would a young child come to an office to a stranger? Now we may be the knowledge, well experienced experts, but the fact of the matter is what influence do we have on that child for half hour, once a week? The reality is the parent knows the child. Has a bond with that child is going to be communicating with that child one way or the other, whether they're in therapy or not.

So, if we could sprinkle into that, if we could inject into that, something really, um, helpful, something that's going to strengthen that bond between parent and child something that's going to help the child flourish and develop further. And at the same time, give the parents the confidence and the guidance as to what things they might worry about or think of doing that might get in the way of the child's natural development.

Those are kind of incredibly exponentially valuable ways that without working directly with the child, we actually have a bigger impact on the trajectory. So the more we do the video work, the more we see that playing out. So that's another surprise in this COVID time is more and more of this work happening on zoom.

It means the people that choose to do the work realize. Obviously there are going to be the change agent because it's not an opportunity to come to the opposite and have us work directly with the child. So that's been a fascinating, surprising, and really positive clinical outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Another question.

What's the typical, you know, frequency. Um, so the evolution of, okay, so the first appointment is like a 90 minute consultation. After that first meeting, let's say it's a. School age or teenage person who stuttered, what would the evolution of frequency and how long are the appointments and how long things go.

And then what's the next phase. I think going back to what you said before, where in the business of getting fired. So we want to do the work. That's going to be meaningful and you get it done in a way that that's timely, right? People's time is valuable. They're going to be investing in this process. So we want to think of a way that's going to make that investment grow as quickly as possible.

So it might look like. Meeting one time a week for a few weeks in a row for about 40 minutes each time it might look like meeting two times for the first few weeks to really get that momentum going, um, to start the therapy process off a little bit faster. So, um, You know, you say typical, but I don't think there's really anything typical about the work that we do.

I think that we really think about the individual. We think about their life, um, where, where this can fit in, in a way that makes sense. Um, and we come up with that plan involving that person, making sure that we hear everything that they need. Um, and you know, especially now going back to what you were saying about Phil and how he's been, um, seeing his work evolve, you know, it could look even different than that.

It could look like a few 20 minute sessions a week. Um, if that is what makes sense for that person or that family, um, So again, it's, it's about making it work for the person, making sure that they are, are feeling the growth and the change that they want to feel and making sure that we get a good momentum and move things forward.

Um, so there's a few different ways it can look, but most importantly, we want to make it feel right for that person by listening to them and what they need. Yeah, no, you're really spot on Tiffany. And I think, you know, there's nothing typical. We don't come in with any work on conclusions. And often as you're smiling, I'm smiling with you.

Like we learn on the go. Um, I think that comes with a lot of experience. He starts to become much more flexible, you know, early on in our careers. We're very. We need to be very structured. We need to really be following the plan. And as we, as we gain the experience that we have, we're able to kind of, um, have the confidence that we have that in our pocket, we can pull it out quickly and lean on different audible adaptations, but we can follow the client's lead.

I think someone's pushing me on the comments, you know, so, but, but how does it go? How many times? So I would say, you know, in the beginning, it's typical. Typical that we would in the olden days before the COVID-19 days, we'd usually do once a week. And I think that was a function of cost, as well as time it would take to dedicate to travel to, and from the office, we would do that for as long as it needed.

Often it was several weeks, maybe. Maybe we'd say to be prepared for about, you know, three months, 12 meetings like that, and we'd reassess. Should we continue on that frequency? Because we really, in that first stage of really moving the ball forward, or we've gotten really to a really good place. And we feel like we can shift into almost like a maintenance mode and a maintenance mode would mean we're shifting into meeting less frequently.

What we're doing during these times is for people that. Have the ability financially and otherwise more people do have the time. So we're sometimes having those meetings in a much more compressed period of time. So instead of having, let's say, you know, 12 meetings, once a week, over three months, we might have two meetings a week or even three meetings for a week or two, and then start doing two meetings a week.

And what we see happen is. We're not losing time. It's not like we're pushing a process that can't go quicker, but having more frequent touch at the beginning, we are seeing a quicker, you know, ramp on and, uh, getting traction early on with momentum. And then we hit that maintenance mode quicker and sometimes with fewer meetings.

So that's been really exciting. We can do that. Um, but fundamentally we're looking at a phase and as Tiffany said, there's no. We don't hold ourselves or hold anybody else to a certain number of meetings, which means it could be a lot less, a person might really take off and run with it. Other people may need a bit more longer, you know, a bit longer.

I think of our late mentor, dr. Joel Starkey, can't push a river. So you got to go at the pace that's right for the person. Um, so we're coming to the tail end. Were there any other things Tiffany, that you saw or that you wanted to comment on? Hmm. Well, maybe do we want to spend a moment just highlighting that, the work that you've been putting into some of the social media stuff and using, um, the words from the people that we work with to really springboard, um, our ideas off of and highlight those things.

Yeah. That's definitely been the most exciting thing for me. Um, yeah. Yeah, no, for real, because, um, you know, for a lot of people, social media is like an echo chamber and, um, meaning your, your, your, your pressure to create content, to put out into a space. And there's no real people on the other end and it's been delightful.

Uh, well, my experience has been delightful and again, again, Corona, COVID social media as a place to give people a feeling of being connected, virtually, uh, to create conversations with people you otherwise wouldn't have access to. So we're trying to be there and I'm so glad we were there. And actually Tiffany, our Instagram, you know, is all credit to you.

I'm not the Instagram generation. Neither are you. But I think, you know, someone who, who said, Hey, you gotta be there. And it was your suggestion that gets all the credit for anything we do on Instagram. I won't credit you with LinkedIn. I won't credit you with Twitter. I won't credit you with Facebook, but you got into, so, uh, next week, actually I'm doing an Instagram live conversation with a dentist.

Who's doing some, uh, Tuesday conversations, dr. Linda for kids. And she reached out to me with an Instagram message. She said, Hey, do this Tuesday talk. I'd love to do this, but actually we moved it to Thursday. It's going to be next Thursday. We'll post it, you know, a day or two before. But, but the point is these connections, these opportunities, these conversations we're doing right now are beautiful opportunities to give people access.

So just what I love about the social media is. On the content production side. What we started to do was encourage everyone on the team to sure. Those golden moments, the moments that our clients do, something great, the moments our clients say something brilliant. The moment that our parents, that we're working with.

Just feels such a victorious win and feel like they're clicking with the work and clicking with their kid and seeing things happen that they really wanted to see happen. Capture those moments, put them into a shared document that we have. And then our interns are amazing in terms, take that and craft it into the social media that you see.

And then sometimes I put a little touch on there or Tiffany puts her magic sprinkled, very dust on there, and then it goes out to the world. And then the most amazing thing is. We'll be at a conference somewhere, uh, not lately, but you know, we'll be at a conference or wherever we are and people will. I was at, I was at a funeral right before Corona, really?

Um, stop things like that. So it was in March. I was at a funeral and someone said to me at the funeral, Oh, I just want to tell you love your stuff on social media. And I was like, Oh, I've never seen you comment. I know who you are, but, uh, but the idea of it impressions and just giving people a taste of what speech therapy could be giving people a taste of what lies on the other side of whatever the challenge is, whether it's stuttering, it's voice, it's language development, it's, you know, social, social thinking, uh, executive functioning, whatever it may be.

It's been exciting to be able to share the wins of our clients in a confidential way. Sometimes they love having their name on it. Sometimes they don't, but almost everything we produce is a product of, you know, the team and the genuine amazingness that happens, you know, through the work we do. So, um, thanks for something that, if I could just say that I love about then showing that to the person who created it right.

Um, is just reminding them that they're. They have that teacher inside of them and they, they are the person, they are the hero. And, um, we're able to just kind of amplify that for them. Um, so to see that and to be a part of that feel really, really lucky. You know what, so I, can't not show right now, the backstory to your skateboarding.

Uh, I'm going to pull up the screen share on that, but you could tell a story. Um, I'm get the lucky opportunity to work with this teenager. Um, he's 16. He lives in Queens and he has a really great stutter. And, um, he's also a. On the student council, he is top of his class and he's a great skateboarder. And so we were just making some comparisons to things and he started talking a lot about skateboard thing and sharing about how, you know, he's really like leaning into working on going on all these downhill.

Um, Escape things. So, um, you know, when you go and you're going downhill on your skateboard, you really need to lean into it and you have to have your mindset on staying balanced and no, I think we're screen sharing. Yeah. We are I, cause I, I hope we are. I see it. So, um, but you know, you can, you can then can see in the, in the picture that it's just all about going with the flow and how we were able to then compare that to speaking, um, and to stuttering and just about leaning in and like the word say here, feel it, ride through it.

Um, if you think about. Falling you're going to fall. Um, our thoughts, our actions, and we see that in skateboarding. We see that in stuttering and, um, this amazing teenager was able to teach me that he, he was my teacher and what's so cool. I think both of us enjoys, like having our professional training and background and our groundedness in.

Research and data, but at the same time, nobody taught us that analogy about skateboarding and stuttering. That was the no textbook and no research study. And so while we have all the professional training and research behind us and the experience, we're constantly learning new things and that's what we're looking to do.

And so each person has their own perspective, their own lens and their own wisdom. And I think as Tiffany said, Empowering the person to realize that that, that lies inside of them, the teacher, and whether it's a teacher for social media or it's a teacher for themselves, you know, really, even when it seems so difficult.

And sometimes it is for us to see the potential inside another person to really believe that they have it in them. And I'll finish with this story that just came to me because I think it's appropriate for these times. And it's appropriate for what we're talking about. It was in the Queens office where Tiffany works, um, and a family came in.

And they were bringing in their son. Uh, he wasn't social, it wasn't socially connected enough. He wasn't talking and looking at you when he talks and he would kind of get stuck in his own circle of talking about the same things again and again. And so they scheduled an appointment and, um, I stepped out of the room with my associate would come back into the room after welcoming them and, um, black family.

Beautiful people, mom, very nicely dressed that boy and his sister and dad, dad was dressed like Corona times. It was kind of like pajama pants and a loose t-shirt the kind of thing we all find ourselves wearing most of the day. And he had this long dreadlocks and he was a very large person. He was like, He had the body of like an offensive lineman for an a football team.

So, um, I I'll be honest. It was a little bit, there was something about the way he positioned himself. It put me off and it made me feel defensive. And then when I came back into the room, I find he's not sitting on the side where. The clients would sit. He's sitting in my chair. He's the big executive comfy, you know, armrest chair.

Not that that's the chair. I prefer, I prefer to be on a very small chair as Tiffany knows, but the point was, it was sort of self evident that that was the other side of the table. And that there was another point where there were these nice open chairs for the families that together. So I was a little threatened by that.

And as I sat there with this black family and mom is so eloquent and dad is so eloquent. I had thought that this dad based on how he was dressed was not the most involved father and maybe not toeing the line in terms of bringing home what he should bring home in terms of the relationship. It seems like mom was, um, a very high level professional, and he seemed like a much more simplistic maybe.

Not as sophisticated kind of person. The story that emerged was one of the most powerful stories and, and ended in a traditional atypical way, which is what ended up happening was they talked about why they came to us and they weren't just using the system. Was that his dad, dad started to say, he doesn't want his son to get trapped in the system.

I said, why not? He said, well, I grew up in the South. And when I was young, uh, they thought that I had a learning disability. And when I did, you got put into special ed. Okay. Can never get out. And I remember years of being in special ed classes with other students who did not have the cognitive ability that I had did not have the linguistic ability I had.

And I knew I didn't belong there because of the circumstances, my family and my life couldn't get out. And so I went through all of my schooling in special ed. I said, wow, what do you do now? He says, Oh, I'm a freelance writer. So this dad who I sized up as an unsophisticated deadbeat, Was in fact, one of the most articulate people I've ever met and he's actually a freelance writer.

And when he's not writing, he's attending to the kids, cooking breakfast, cooking, lunch, cooking dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the house because his wife works very long hours at her job. At the end of the meeting, he started crying. Talking about how much he just didn't want his son to go down the road that he had gone down and we started crying a little bit.

And then his wife said, you know, it's his birthday today. And then in atypical, but somewhat traditional fashion, I asked, would it be okay to give you a hug? And so we had some laughs. We had some moments that we didn't connect, but by the end, There were tears. There were hugs, happy birthday. And ultimately that's the story that we need to be listening for.

We need to listen to the stories that need to be told that otherwise get missed because we all tell stories in our heads. So we listen to people's stories and I think fundamentally that's, that's what we do. We believe in people. So even at the moment that I had a moment of feeling threatened there, I did in, in the forefront of my mind, press myself to say, I know this dad can do it.

Even before I knew he could and then emerged the story that obviously is the winning piece, which is going to be, what's going to help his child get ahead. And for sure, this dad didn't have a dad that was so savvy and his pain and his journey is actually going to be transformed into something. That's going to be an asset for his kid and the next generation.

And those are the stories that we love. And we learned from. So thanks for sharing the time. As Tiffany said, everybody's busy and Tiffany is no less busy and I'm a little busy, but we want to do more of these kind of just like have opportunities to connect and give access. And if you have questions or comments, you can send us an email to help@schneiderspeech.com.

You can join us on the website, sign up for the mailing list. You can check out the blog for tons of free content, videos, movies, transcending, stuttering, going with the flow to incredible documentaries, lots of podcasts, infographics. Our statement on what's happening now in America and our care and concern for the black community.

And, uh, we should all get to where we need to go. We should all be safe and healthy, and we look forward to hearing from you. And if we can be a part of the journey or be there for you, we're here.