Continuing Competence Program
Risks and Supports Profile Example Submissions
Competence is the combination of:
The sample reflections all detail how the regulated member’s knowledge, skills, attitudes and/or judgement were impacted by the risks and supports to practice that were identified by the member.
Note that in these reflections, the members reflected on specific:
- Practice areas or diagnoses,
- Population groups, including client age ranges,
- Clinical/non-clinical skills, etc.
where the risks and supports impacted their practice.
Audiology Risks & Supports Reflection Example:
Describe how this risk adversely impacts, or could adversely impact, your professional practice and/or service provision?
Reflection: Providing audiology services through private clinics comes with its own sets of challenges. Apart from providing high quality audiology services, as a clinic owner, I must focus on several aspects of clinic functioning. From being an audiologist to business manager to looking after business finances, I spend a significant amount of time travelling. This fulltime engagement in day-to-day practice sometimes leads to professional isolation.
Please identify at least one support you have in place, or you could put in place to mitigate this risk.
Reflection: I am aiming to prioritize professional development and networking with peers to mitigate this potential risk.
SLP Risks & Supports Reflection Examples:
Describe how this risk adversely impacts, or could adversely impact, your professional practice and/or service provision?
Reflection: There is a very high staff turn over for both teachers and Educational Assistants. We are constantly training staff, which makes effective implementation of AAC tools and strategies challenging (since very few staff are experienced).
Please identify at least one support you have in place, or you could put in place to mitigate this risk.
Reflection: Other – it would be very helpful if my employer could put strategies in place to help ensure that new staff have the required AAC knowledge and skills before they start working in the classroom.
Describe how this risk adversely impacts, or could adversely impact, your professional practice and/or service provision?
Reflection: I have identified this as a risk as it has greatly impacted my performance as an SLP. When I started working within the school district my contract was specific to children in preschool and kindergarten. I was able to successfully support teachers with screening for possible speech and language delays, complete assessments for children identified in a timely fashion and provide intervention directly and indirectly as needed. My clients/students are now at risk for not receiving excellent quality SLP support as the funding model has since changed and I am required to screen, assess and provide intervention to all elementary grades within the 6-7 schools I visit. This has more than doubled the amount of children referred to me with speech-language needs making it difficult to triage and prioritize who could benefit more. It is impossible to provide supports to all children within the schools that could benefit so a great deal of time is spent deciding who would benefit most and how to provide universal strategies to teachers. Additionally, expectations with deadlines and auditing related to assessments are overwhelming and challenging to meet. Time spent of paperwork is taking away from direct client service delivery and time consulting with teachers that could make a difference to a students performance in the classroom. I have limited time to complete continuing education that I believe could improve my practice because of my high workload volume.
Please identify at least one support you have in place, or you could put in place to mitigate this risk.
Reflection: A support I currently have in place is ‘personalized support and feedback’ from my admin and other SLPs at my sites. We have ongoing discussions about caseload management and they have provided some good tips on this. They also provide moral support as we are all experiencing the same issues.
Non-clinical Risks & Supports Reflection Example:
Describe how this risk adversely impacts, or could adversely impact, your professional practice and/or service provision?
Reflection: This year I moved from a clinical role into an administrative role as a manager, and my previous SLP training did not adequately prepare me for the non- clinical aspects of this job. As SLPs, we are trained in clinical skills, and get little/no training to prepare for more managerial or supervisory roles. As such, I had no preparation in areas like leadership, communications, policy, technical writing, collaborator engagement, etc. I am still learning these skills on the job, and this affects how independently I am able to work, how quickly work gets done, and how confident I feel with the work I complete. I am also somewhat removed from ‘on the ground’ clinical practice. Therefore, I am at arm’s length from the actual practice issues affecting clinicians and clients. This can probably have a detrimental impact on the policies, procedures, standards, and practices I am responsible for developing, as they may not be fully informed by current practice experience. This may impact how well these documents can be practically applied to clinical practice.
Please identify at least one support you have in place, or you could put in place to mitigate this risk.
Reflection: Being able to complete continuing education in areas where I feel I still have a lot of catching up to do, e.g., policy development, leadership has improved my work efficiency.