Defying Gravity: The Fight for SLP Freedom

Jeanette Benigas1h 2min

Jeanette Benigas

00:00

Hey, fixers. I'm Dr Jeanette Benigas, the owner of fix SLP, a grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech language pathology by driving real change from insurance regulations to removing barriers that prevent full autonomy like the CCC, this podcast is your space to learn, engage and take action in the field of speech language pathology. We don't wait for change. We make it so let's fix SLP!

Jeanette Benigas

00:46

The Fix SLP podcast is a space for open and insightful discussions about speech language pathology and related topics, while we aim to inform and inspire, the content of our episode today reflects the opinions, experiences and perspectives from myself, Jeanette and my guest, we're discussing the Broadway production and movie wicked to draw parallels between ASHA and SPA, hopefully to make our discussions more engaging, these references are for illustrative purposes and may stir up some feelings within you. We invite you to sit and reflect on what you're hearing and know there is not judgment from us surrounding how you identify. We are all doing amazing work, and we are here for the same reasons.

Jeanette Benigas

01:33

Hey everybody, welcome back. It's Jeanette. I've said this before. I'm a little bit of a theater nerd. I'm really into musical theater. I do have a background in theater. Had theater training for quite a few years when I was younger, and so today, I am really excited to do this podcast. We have Niall Taylor from Australia. So if, if you're, if you don't like theater, if anything, you should hang out just to listen to his accent, because it is amazing. But we've got Niall here. He is going to talk to us about wicked and the similarities that we found out we both saw to ASHA and SPA, which is in Australia, and yeah, just some of the similarities to fearless fixers and SLPs. So I'm gonna let him tell you about himself, and we're just gonna jump in. So Niall, welcome to the Fix SLP podcast.

Jeanette Benigas

02:33

Thank

Niall Taylor

02:33

Thank you. It's lovely to be here. I have been a listener, so I've been aware of what you've been talking about, and kind of helped me with the work that I've been doing here in Australia. So I'm a speech pathologist based in Australia. I'm currently living in Melbourne, working at a pediatric hospital here. I used to be in Western Australia, but I'm over here for a short contract to help develop a service. I also work privately as well. People can find me on Instagram and my posts. I have made a post about wicked and the similarities so people can find me @the.nbsp. That's an abbreviation for non binary speech pathologist. Yeah. Happy, happy to be here.

Jeanette Benigas

03:19

I'm gonna assume, take some assumptions here. Most SLPs in the US don't know a lot about being an SLP in Australia, or about who governs you or controls you or regulates you over there. So do you want to tell us a little bit about that so we can just have some touch points as we're talking about both today and your post.

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