We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Long recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah , thanks for joining us today. Have you ever experienced a times when your entire field felt like it was taking a U-Turn?

Being a speech therapist for 5 years, I have seen a shift in self-advocacy for new clinicians that I don’t feel I had when I first started out. In speech therapy, after one graduates from a graduate-level program new clinician’s first year in the field is known as the “Clinical Fellowship”. During this time, there are supervision requirements but overall (and most realistically) clinicians are thrown into a placement and sometimes the mentally is “sink or swim”. As a professional newer in leadership, and specifically at my agency (Comprehensive Therapy Center) I have committed myself to not only being a supportive supervisor, but to meet all my employees where they are at regardless of title or level of practice. It is important to me that as each generation of SLPs graduates and enters the workforce that the culture shifts to being excited for fresh eyes, instead of dreading the supervision requirements they bring as new employees.

Sarah , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I began my career in speech-language pathology by moving to Grand Rapids, MI to attend Grand Valley State University’s Allied Health Science program with an emphasis in speech-language pathology/audiology. After graduating in May 2016, I moved back to the east side of Michigan, near Ann Arbor, to take a year hiatus to be a co-teacher in a preschool program of a day care center I previously worked. During that time, I decided that I wanted to pursue the SLP route and attended Eastern Michigan University’s graduate program from 2017-2019.

At the start of 2020, my husband (Riley) and I had recently married and moved into our first home. In March, the world was turned around with the COVID-19 pandemic. Being stuck at home for weeks on end with no answers, it became apparent that our current lifestyle was not fulfilling us in a way we could maintain long-term. Like many people, we were worried we would lose our jobs and made plans if we needed to make some major life changes. My husband at the time was a corporate engineer and I was attempting speech therapy on a virtual platform. While the money was good, it became clear that my husband’s passion was not in engineering. After some time and a lot of discussion, we decided that he would pursue his true passion – esports. Shortly after deciding to put our house up for sale in summer 2021, Riley got his first esports job at Aquinas College. We then made the move to Grand Rapids, MI – A town we loved and hoped to come back to post-college some day. I then found a job with Comprehensive Therapy Center. With our salaries significantly reduced, he had to make a lot of lifestyle shifts, both financial and spiritual. We found out what was most important to us when faced with a lot of changes a discovered what we truly valued in life.

Working at Comprehensive Therapy Center has been a transformative experience. As a non-profit, the business model is unlike any of my other jobs I’ve worked in the schools. I have been able to see firsthand the struggles to fund such a noble effort of serving those who normally wouldn’t receive the level of service CTC professionals can provide. Not only that, but being able to be in a leadership position has opened my eyes to a lot of strengths in the workplace I didn’t realize I possessed. I also get to apply my graduate school passion the importance of disability advocacy in schools to provide children the tools needed to avoid confinement, (referred to as the School-to-Confinement Pipeline) and to see the real-life consequences of literacy and language difficulties playing a role in this pipeline.

It is no secret that the education system has systemic roots in racism, forced compliance, unequal resources, the list goes on. This is an analogy that makes sense to me: It is a unique perspective to be a player on a team you don’t want to score points for, but the alternative is to not be there for the fans at all. As a team player, my hope is that my contribution to the game changes some of the rules.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

I almost did go a different route, but I’m so glad I did not.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

I believe relationship-building skills, such as building rapport with a student/client and family members is a skill that is difficult to teach but makes the therapeutic experience so much more worthwhile and increases the chances that the person receiving services is all in. Having those interpersonal skills is key to being a successful therapist/clinician.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://therapycenter.org/
• Instagram: @ctc_gr
• Facebook: Comprehensive Therapy Center
• Other: CTC’s office phone number and email: 616-559-1054, [email protected] My email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Jessica Reaves Photography, Comprehensive Therapy Center