A Day in the Life: Working with Chatterbug
Have you ever been keen to find out what a typical day in the life of a Chatterbug Speech and Langauge Therapist looks like? Aisha, one of our SLTs is here to talk you through it!
In the interest of safeguarding, the names of the children have been changed.
Welcome to a day in the life of a Speech and Language Therapist at Chatterbug. Every day is different, particularly at different stages of the term. However, I’ll walk you through a typical day I might have at one of my favourite schools!
I start off with breakfast during my commute to school to prepare myself for the day. Sometimes this is an iced coffee and a Snickers bar, please spare the judgement!
The school day – morning, 9am-12.30pm
When I arrive at the school, I will usually check in with the SEN provision unit class teacher. I tend to work closely with them and they are a big priority. Doing this regularly has meant I have built solid trusting relationships with the staff here. They know they can rely on me to support them. It also helps me to prioritise and organise my day, particularly if they identify anyone who really needs to be seen or if any training needs to be carried out.
A bonus of this is I get to say hello to all my wonderful children in the class. I even get a few cuddles and high-fives along the way.
Since we’re at the beginning of term again, there have been a lot of reviews to complete. I can then check in on the progress of children who had been given their therapy programmes at the beginning of last term. My reviews typically consist of chatting with the child’s key worker/Teaching Assistant to get an update on their progress. I can then informally assess their specific targets and see if they need to move on.
One review I did was with a child (the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, may I just say) who had intensive interaction and objects of reference as a target. I reviewed him through observation and informal interaction and conversations with staff. He had actually met his current targets and had progressed from when I first met him! He had started making lots of eye contact and requesting more interaction when we’re playing.
I also have lots of children receiving ongoing therapy whenever I have the capacity. My favourite in particular is Antonio, who I work on word finding difficulties and expressive language difficulties with. After doing lots of word maps for different objects, we love playing a guessing game. The person holding the picture has to describe it without telling the other what it is. We tend to use semantic prompts that we go over in the word map.
However, Antonio has a penchant for pretending I haven’t guessed the object right when I have. Now, I have to be sneaky and make sure I see what he’s pulled out without him knowing! This is usually because the cards are see-through and he doesn’t bother to cover them. His new trick is hard to counteract though, he pulls out two cards without me seeing and swaps them around when I’ve ‘guessed’ correctly. It’s a lot of fun. Antonio has made progress from the beginning of term, being able to express himself better and having more functional strategies to help him recall the words he wants to say, like describing the object he can’t retrieve!
The school day – afternoon, 1pm-3pm
I spend my typical day-in-a-life lunchtime having a quick catch-up with my favourite colleagues at school whilst warming up my lunch. Truthfully, I love to spend lunchtime alone in my therapy room watching an episode of ‘Friends’ to help me decompress. The episodes are the perfect length for my lunch break! For me, spending my lunchtimes prioritising my self-care allows me to balance my energy and recharge, making sure I’m always giving the best of myself to my kids.
My afternoons can vary in this school every visit. Oftentimes, staff members will request I model an intervention, such as bucket therapy. I had previously supported the school in sourcing appropriate resources and set up this in their SEN provision class. After all, it is an intervention widely used in the school.
The class teacher organised a group of staff members who had requested to be trained in this to come out to see me. I carried out a modelling session with a particular child with the staff observing to model this to them. It’s really important to support school staff to feel confident delivering the interventions you have recommended, so I will always take time when needed to upskill the staff as they will be working with the child day in and day out!
Back to office 3pm-5pm
At the end of the school day, I make my journey back to the office. This will take around 10-20 minutes. I always enjoy a little music break on the way. The change of scenery from school to the office really helps break up the day.
My back-to-the-office ritual is usually to go straight to my comfort place (the beanbags) and catch up with my colleagues along the way. Everyone tends to make themselves a hot drink or get snacks to wind down a little! It’s a nice time of day to regroup with the team and socialise with colleagues.
Then it will either be time for a private client (we do initial assessments and therapy) or admin. I had an initial assessment recently for a young child with speech sound difficulties that I did via telehealth. I also have blocks of therapy with children who come visit us within the clinic, which is tons of fun. The latest block I’ve had has been working on early play skills, so there are lots of bubbles, balloons and cause and effect toys!
On days without private clients, we have time to catch up on our admin, before we leave and start all over again in the morning!
So that’s a typical day in the life of a Chatterbug SLT – and we’d love to have you on board too!
Interested in a career with Chatterbug?
Our team prides itself on our values, Open, Connected, Fortitude and Dependable. This means that whilst we love to work hard, changing lives, we also have a great environment where you can rely on your colleagues.
Want to make this day in the life your own? You can view our current vacancies here.