President's Initiative 2024: OpportuniTEAM
What is OpportuniTEAM?
“OpportuniTEAM combines the word ‘opportunity’ with ‘team’ to describe a group of individuals coming together to work collaboratively toward a goal. Sharing a vision and feeling unity. Being proactive and innovative. Creating opportunities for the successes of others. This teamwork can be seen through interprofessional practice, interprofessional education, and professionals working with families, friends, and the community. I want to celebrate members who are doing these things.”
Submit a Team to be Featured
ASHA is looking for members who embody OpportuniTEAM. Are you an ASHA member who has worked in a professional setting with other specialists to help a client or clients? Have you seen the impact a client's friends, family, and/or network can have on health care outcomes? Have you partnered with members of your community to make a difference?
Tell us all about your teamwork, and you may be featured on ASHA's social media and website!
OpportuniTEAM: Connect and Play
Farwa Husain, CCC-SLP, created the Connect and Play summer program in Raritan, N.J. The Connect and Play team integrates speech, occupational, and physical therapies. The team brings their expertise to work together on all activities. The children also have enrichment sessions in art, music, and yoga to complement these services. "Our team members collaborate seamlessly, drawing from their expertise," Farwa tells ASHA. Connect and Play also provides year-round assistance to children and their families, including webinars, book clubs, and face-to-face meetups.
Core team leads: Farwa Husain, speech-language pathologist; Dr. Joni Redlich, physical therapist; and Nina Britz, occupational therapist. Enrichment leaders: Alex Gonzalez, drumming circle; Emily Templin, music; Loring Nagle, yoga; Sarah DeWire, art; and Ali Cho, farm.
OpportuniTEAM: A Visit to The Inspiration Center in Belize
A team of SLPs, SLPAs, and a music therapist who traveled to provide care to children with speech and language needs in Belize. Ebony Green, CCC-SLP, tells us the team joined with the The Inspiration Center in Belize City to support capacity building and access to care in this community. They held a clinic that provided screenings, therapy, and parent education. The team plans to go back again this year. "Many of the parents were happy to get their questions answered. The patients received care in the short term, and parents received strategies for carryover at home," Ebony Green, CCC-SLP tells ASHA.
Members of the team include: Quintina Briscoe, CCC-SLP; Ebony Green, CCC-SLP; Sucheta Kamath, CCC-SLP; Ann Lake, CCC-SLP; Silvia Sandoval, SLPA; Amy Schafer, SLPA; Edgar Serrano, SLP; Nathan Servilican, MT-BC (music therapist); Adrienne Williams, CCC-SLP; Alice Williams, SLPA.
OpportuniTEAM: Cochlear Implant Center
IPP in Action: Cochlear Implant Center
The Cochlear Implant Center at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) uses the teamwork of interprofessional practice to help improve patient care and outcomes, increase efficiencies of care, and enhance patient and team satisfaction. See how they use an “integrative approach to bring a cohesive and holistic view of patient care to every patient, every time.”
