Rewire, Don ’ t Retire: Volunteer Professionally

Instead of retiring from our careers as speech-language pathologists, my friend Claire Gilgannon and I decided to look for volunteer positions incorporating our skills as SLPs. That’s how we met. And here’s how we went about volunteering. For both of us, our love of New York City combined with our interest in art led us to volunteer at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took a chance and YES! We still could learn a new skill even after 30-odd years of being SLPs! Volunteer training at The Met is intense, but over about 18 months we successfully transitioned, almost without even being aware, into our new roles as tour guides for school groups with special needs. We had been in the speech biz so long that those skills were reflexive, and we naturally integrated them into our new roles. Two experienced SLPs use their skills at promoting inclusion to lead tours for special education students at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So don’t be afraid to try your hand at something new. Museums love volunteers, and if you like children of any age then you, too, can be a volunteer and pair your love of speech-language pathology with your interest in art, history, science or just about anything. We’ve made a new group of good friends and realize that we can still have teachable moments and continue to be lifelong learners. If your interests lie more with performing arts, theaters also look for dedicated volunteers, and our skills as SLPs parlay into many different communi...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Schools Slider Speech-Language Pathology Autism Spectrum Disorder Language Disorders Professional Development Speech Disorders Source Type: blogs