Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chelsea Peralta. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Chelsea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.

Early Days:

I was newly married and wanting to have kids. After finishing serving in the Peace Corps, immediately prior to marriage, my husband and I didn’t have much to start out with! I was working full-time at University of Phoenix and getting my MBA while he was going to school full-time. Every quarter we were threatened with layoffs at work (2009). I was dreaming of a job where I continue to serve others around me but would have stability. I looked into going to school to become an SLP but at that time there were not hybrid programs that would allow me to continue to work so it did not seem feasible. So, I stayed at my job.

Fast forward to my pregnancy. I ended up having severe medical complications putting my baby’s life and my life at risk. After a month in the hospital, they delivered my baby 8 weeks early via emergency C-section. During his time in the NICU, he had difficulty with feeding and swallowing…thus enters the Speech-Language Pathologist! This was the most trying time in my life but even then, I knew instantly as soon as I was well I would start my path to become an SLP. My son continued to receive services from an SLP for the following year and a half.

I kept my job at UOP and started the long journey of pre-requisites and grad school. I didn’t know the field was competitive! I was rejected from every grad school but one. My little family moved to Flagstaff and I got my second Masters degree during my second pregnancy. My second son was born in time to cheer me on at my graduation.

From then on I was motivated to do all I could to become a medical SLP in the hospitals. An externship at Phoenix Children’s Hospital got met off on the right foot and I went on to get loads of hospital experience with both the pediatric population and adults. I was also able to work at schools and clinics in between hospital shifts throughout my first 5 years of practice.

5 years into practicing, I was ready to branch out on my own. Having my MBA, that was always my plan, to start my own practice. I started seeing a few clients on the 1 day I reserved for my business as I continued working at the hospital. Eventually, my own client list grew and I worked less and less at the hospital until I was seeing my own clients full-time. 2 years later, I hired another SLP to support my growing client list. 2 years after that, I have a team of 15 therapists to support our growing client list and beautiful clinic! I love what I do! It is hard. I learn something new every day about how to run a business. I still have my own caseload and continue to enjoy interacting with my clients, both kids and adults. Though it is few and far between, I still get in a hospital shift every now and then.
The only thing I would have done differently is done everything I could to get straights As in the prerequisite classes that were the determining factor for grad school.
Advice? Don’t tell yourself you can’t do it. There will be plenty of people around you telling you that. Be the one that tells yourself you can do it and go for it!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am bilingual, Spanish/English. As a Speech-Language Pathologist we provide support from “cradle to the grave”. This means when babies are born with difficulties feeding and swallowing to young kids that are having difficulty learning how to speak and comprehend language, people diagnosed with Autism and ADHD, to school-age kids that need help with certain sounds or reading comprehension, Traumatic brain injuries, cancer rehab when the brain or swallowing is impacted, strokes that impact cognition, swallowing, communicating and comprehending and then in old age when swallowing once again becomes a problem or dementia is impacting memory. Some diagnoses will warrant speech therapy for a life-time as the client learn compensatory strategies to function despite their challenges and some diagnoses will require speech therapy for a few months as a patient recovers and continues their life with confidence.
One of the things that sets our clinic apart from others is that we have a skilled team that can support all ages. Many clinics focus on either pediatrics or adults but we can support both! We also have multiple bilingual therapists that can support Spanish speakers! This is hard to find! I am most proud to have the personal expertise and to have gathered a team that can support both kids and adults in Spanish or English. This took a lot of work! I do all I can to avoid having to turn away a client or let them know we can’t support them.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting in business is something that happens frequently! Don’t get me wrong. We have a clear mission statement, goals and objectives. However, sometimes the path to reaching those objectives is simply not what was planned and anticipated. The ability to recognize that something isn’t working and change direction, is essential to survival. Here are three ways I had to pivot last week as we recognized our plan wasn’t yielding results…

1- We recently opened a new office since we outgrew our original one. The plan was to rent out some rooms in both offices to enable us to keep both of them. Once we started using the new office, we realized we needed all of the space. The new plan was to rent out rooms just in the original office. After several weeks of trying to rent out rooms, it seemed nobody was interested. The back up plan was to offer several classes in the original office to help it pay for itself. Again, after several weeks of advertising, we didn’t have the enrollment to run any classes. There had been an enthusiastic response to the sensory gym we have been using in the new office. Last week, we decided that we would turn the original office into a sensory gym and allow access to any interested parties via a monthly membership. This is going to launch in 2 weeks and we have already had a great response and tons of interest! I can’t wait to see how this goes!

2- We are not giving up on the classes because we know it can meet a huge need! Since we weren’t able to get the enrollment we needed through our advertising, we are trying a new approach. We are offering a free parent education night related to the topics that will be taught during our classes. We will use this parent education night to explain how we can support the families with our classes and dive into what will be taught. In this way, we hope to get increased interest in our classes to be able to run them!

3- We just hired our first Occupational Therapist! We will be offering Occupational Therapy in December. It is time to revise our mission statement to include other services and consider a change in business name to better represent what services we offer; The Sensory Space (sensory gym membership), OT services, and more services to come!

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

Yes! I love what I do! It brings me so much joy to be a part of helping my clients reach their goals. My background and personal experiences have culminated in the perfect recipe to offer something unique to my clients. I am learning every day how to better support them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.peraltaspeechtherapy.com
• Facebook: Peralta Speech Therapy
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits

Jeff Krieger