We are SO excited to share that we have partnered with Options Northwest to utilize their amazing Rheal's Room (a Snoezelen room located in their centre).

Rheal's family graciously funded a significant amount towards this room as a tribute to his life, for people of all ages in our community to use.

Halle will be able to see current clients at the centre using this room, for no extra fee. We are hoping to have more HAEPI staff trained soon, to see clients here as well!

Halle's current clients can reach out to her about these sessions. She is so excited to see kids in this amazing room!

A new favourite community-based session this winter has been the swimming pool! 

Community sessions are so valuable because they allow us to work on goals in real-life settings, while in a motivating and regulating environment. Speech and language are important in every environment and aspect of our lives, and we love working outside of the therapy room to allow for ease of carry-over to daily life.

For pool sessions, we have targeted goals such as:

1. Moving towards self-generated language given verbal modelling and support (stages of Natural Language Acquisition).
2. Self-advocacy
3. Sharing with others and building relationships in the community
4. Bonus: We have a ton of fun!

If you're a current client and are interested in pool sessions, reach out to [email protected]. 

P.S., We love hearing your suggestions on other ideas for community sessions! 

I wouldn't be a true Canadian SLP without a session at Tim's, eh?

Community-based sessions (at a park, a coffee shop, the pool, mini putt, etc.) are SO valuable because they allow us to work on goals in real-life settings. The truth is that working on these goals wouldn't be nearly as effective in a clinic or in-home setting. That's why at HAEPI SLP, we love our model of home-, school-, or community-based sessions!

For this AAC session, we had a number of goals:

1. Customizing the client's AAC device
2. Ordering a snack and a drink
3. Educating coffee shop workers on non-speech communication
4. Commenting on food, using vocabulary such as yum, good, hot, cold, all done
5. Bonus: we had a ton of fun!

If you could choose anywhere, where would you like to have an SLP session? (We may even be able to accommodate!)