Global Teletherapy Is a Crucial Partner in the Battle Against Therapist Staffing Shortages

BALTIMORE, December 13, 2017 (Newswire.com) - School districts across the United States are chronically suffering from a shortage of speech-language pathologists. It has been particularly serious for rural schools. Due to where they are located, hardly any speech-language pathologists are practicing near them. The worst part of these staffing shortages is the negative effect they have on the children living in these areas who are in need of speech therapy, occupational therapy, and mental health counseling.

To combat this, Global Teletherapy, a leading provider in online therapy services, amassed a professional team of SLPs, OTs, and counselors who provide these schools with all of the therapy services they need online via secure, two-way video conferencing. It is called telepractice.

We basically do the same thing that an in-person clinician would, only we are able to serve even more students who would not normally be afforded the opportunity to receive speech therapy, occupational therapy, or mental health counseling.

Rina Goode, Clinical Director of Global Teletherapy

Clinicians who do telepractice, or teletherapy, are held to very high standards. In fact, they are the same as those for in-person therapists. Additionally, online SLPs are required to meet all of the requirements that in-person SLPs must meet, which are defined by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Likewise, they must be ASHA’s CCC-SLP certified.

Rina Goode, one of the SLPs at Global Teletherapy revealed what they have been doing to help schools and children across the nation. She explained, "We basically do the same thing that an in-person clinician would, only we are able to serve even more students who would not normally be afforded the opportunity to receive speech therapy, occupational therapy, or mental health counseling."

By being the link between schools and therapists, Global Teletherapy has been able to help SLPs, OTs, and mental health counselors find work while simultaneously providing crucial therapy services to children who would have lost out on being recipients of such care.

Teletherapy has been used successfully since the late 1990's in tens of thousands of therapy sessions across the United States. It has been found to be an effective and appropriate treatment for speech disorders in 20 years of research by over 40 academic published peer-reviewed studies beginning with a landmark paper by the Mayo Clinic in 1997.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has recognized telepractice as an appropriate method of service delivery since 2005. Based on the substantial body of peer-reviewed research supporting it as an effective way to deliver speech therapy services, ASHA stated, "Telepractice is an appropriate model of service delivery for audiologists and speech-language pathologists."

Global Teletherapy looks forward to continuing to help children and schools nationwide.

Alan Goode
CEO of Global Teletherapy
w: https://globalteletherapy.com
e: [email protected]
p: (888) 511-9395

Source: Global Teletherapy