Episode 313: For The Love of Feeding with Cathy Stys, MA SLP, CPFT™, OMT

Hi and welcome to the Untethered Podcast. Today we have our guest Kathy Seiss joining us. Kathy earned her Bachelor's in Engineering and Master's in Communicative Disorders from the University of Central Florida. She's been an SLP for 28 years and has primarily worked as a contractor with Early Steps intervention in the homes. Last year she transitioned to private practice with an emphasis on feeding and myofunctional therapy. She currently shares space with an OT CFT and her business has boomed by word of mouth. She is proud and confident to say she is a certified pediatric feeding Therapist. Quick Disclaimer all information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, pot podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway tether, dural tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose. Let's get started. Foreign. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Holly. I'm very honored to be here.

I'm excited because you. I feel like you've been part of our community for a long time now. Like the past five years. I don't know, it's been a while. Maybe not, maybe not that long, but. But anyways, I would love for you to kind of just jump in and share with everybody because I know way back when you actually enrolled in the MYO method first and you were like, I'm going to go through this MYO course. I'm going to get certified. And then you very quickly enrolled in Feed the peds. And now to come full circle, you're like wrapping up your. You've wrapped up your pediatric feeding certification. So without telling your story for you, I'm going to turn it over to you and kind of let you tell us, tell us about your journey through this whole thing.

Okay, well, it all started with. Is because I've always Had a love for feeding. I worked with early intervention for so many years, more than I'm gonna tell you. And, you know, that was one of the biggest things for, you know, mamas and babies and little ones, they want to feed their babies. They want their children fed and well nourished. And it was always a problem. And I never had a problem working with these kids. I love the challenge. And I had taken so many different feeding courses and different oral motor stuff, and then I stumbled into MYO with this one patient and went down that rabbit hole and just it. It was, you know, a changer. So I researched different courses and stumbled upon yours, listened to all your podcasts and, you know, made a well informed decision that, you know, I enrolled in the MYO method. And then while going through that, I think you started to feed the peds, you know, your week to screen a feed the peas. And I did that. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, I need to go do feed the peas. Because foundationally, what. What it did, because I had all these feeding courses, but would feed the pizza. Just put everything together. It was cohesive. And I'm not, you know, I still will pull from all these other courses. All these other courses were wonderful, but this. Just feed the peds, put it together for me. And then I went on and finished my mayo course, which just was a huge game changer. And then when you came out with the certified pediatric feeding therapy, I was just like, you know, I really thought about it. I really thought about it, and I just felt like that is what I needed to do. And so fast forward, you know, I always wanted to have a feeding clinic. And all of these courses, especially the certified pediatric one, just really gave me the confidence and has been life changing.

So I love that. I love that. And there's like a whole curriculum in there. So did you find that, like, going through all those different, like intermediate to advanced courses, like once in the certification, that that was like, even helpful to kind of bring things home further?

Oh. Oh, well, what is so great is that, you know, it gives you a framework. Okay, I can go old school and say, oh, here's your outline and now let's feed it in. But so you have this framework.

Framework.

And then depending on what type of child and their particular needs, you have the information to go and get and say, okay, this is how I'm going to approach it. It's not cookbook by any means, but it gives you an outline. And depending on that child and family dyad's need, you have all that information, you know, and it's just. There's so much there, and there's so many aha moments throughout it. And all the kids that you think about that you've treated or that are on your caseload right now or, you know, it just. It just gives you what you need, and you feel more confident knowing you're doing right by the child and their family.

I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think, like, one of our goals when we were creating this was, how do we make this super functional? Like, that was our question for Feed the Pete's. Right. Like, I don't want to just. I know there's amazing feeding courses out there that I'm like, my ADHD brain always took all those amazing courses and tried to fit it into some, like, put all the pieces to the puzzle together, if you will. And so my goal with Feed the Peds was how do we kind of take. You know, it's not like a ton. There's some new information, but it's not like a ton of new information. It's more like, how do we pull together everything that is out there, make sense of it, so we can actually go and, like, assess these kids, and then we can treat these kids, and we can truly individualize our feeding approach. And then with, like, the certification, we were like, okay. So we feel like we've done that, and we feel like we got a lot of people started. But then as you get deeper into working with children with different diagnoses, like, obviously more education, you know, is needed. We're all lifelong learners. We're all taking a bazillion CEUs all the time. Yes. Like, how do we create the more intermediate to advanced courses that, like, dive deeper and put it into a curriculum? And one of the things that kept coming up was just, you know, everyone's like, I want a step one, I want a step two. I want a step three. And I was like, well, there really is. There. There's certain foundational things, right. In a framework, like you said, that makes sense across the board. And that's where, like, Nadine Lopo created, like, the flexible, you know, feeding framework. And we were like, but in creating a framework, you also have to still see the individual nature of every kid in every case and every feeding, you know, dyad or family unit or, you know, caregiver situation. Right. And so it's like, how do we not pigeonhole what we're teaching into a certain way of doing things, but rather creating more of a flexible framework? So that you can apply this to which, you know, any child that comes into your. Onto your caseload. And so I'm like. I loved hearing what you said because I'm like, I feel like, check. We did it. Like, that was one of our goals. Yay. Yeah, I.

And it's, you know, all the courses I've taken in the past, I still can use that. I can still reach out there and get that. It's tools in your toolbox. But you said you didn't do anything. You did a lot new. You gave us so much information that I can't think of where I've seen a course on bottle feeding and the different nipples and the different flow rates. And, you know, that's huge when you're working with babies and mamas and, you know, and then there's the G tube. It's like, oh, what do we do? You know, it takes all the scary. This course takes all the scary. Yeah. Out of. What do I do with this kid?

Yeah.

You know, I've got someone here, you know, and it. It takes that away.

I'll retract my statement.

Yes, you need to. You need to.

It's so funny, too, because it's like, when you've been in the field for a while and you've worked on certain things, it's like sometimes you lose sight of, like, what is maybe new information or. Or even how it's presented or how it's combined with other information and then applied, you know, and so it's. There obviously is a lot more information, I think, that is new in Feed the piece and in the CPFT curriculum where, you know, there is. I have to. I have to stop and, like, remind myself, like, okay, Holly, like, there is a lot there.

That's a lot. There's a lot. But it's not overwhelming to the student. Okay. Me being the student. Okay. It's presented there. Okay. It's not hard. It's information. Yeah. Okay. And so, yes, we had five case studies who.

Sounds scary.

But we have the mentorship walking with us through this journey the whole way, you know, so the first couple you do, you're learning. It's like, hey, I got this kid. I'm doing this, this, and this. Okay, that's great. How about doing A, B and C? And it's like, okay, so it's really helping you with your caseload and taking on. And, you know, I was getting phone calls for new feeding kiddos, and I was like, oh, I haven't had this. Let me jump ahead in the. In the Modules and listen to those. And so in the majority of them, I listen to. Yeah, you know, in the car, you know, walking the dogs, you know, you know, because I have a full time job.

Yeah, well, that was our goal. We were like, how do we create a rigorous certification that's truly going to show that this individual has mastered these skills. They have like clinical competencies. Right. But on the same token, it has to be realistic for someone who has a full time caseload and they have a life. You know, it's like, we know people have lives outside of the work that you do, you know. And so I think that it just, yeah, we were like, how do we make this functional? How do we make this, you know, feasible? And so I think that was, that was a big challenge for us. And that's where, when it, when push came to shelve, we were like, we don't want any just like filler stuff. We don't want stuff just because other certifications do this or they say that you should have this in a certification. We were like, no, we want the core coursework. And we know 82 hours is a lot of additional coursework, but like, there were so many topics that everyone asked for additional information on that. We were like, there's no way around that. And at this point, like, we're still developing more information, you know, and more courses. And we're like, we're going to give that to all you guys, so you guys can still have that even, you know, even though your certification has wrapped. And in the second cohort we're about to do, we're telling them that too of like, I don't know about the third one, like in 2026, we may not just, may not give any additional things that we create in the future. But for the first two, you early adopters were like, we are totally giving you guys all these additional CEOs and you can get CEUs for them after the eight months if you want. But yeah, I mean, in the beginning there was really only about 82 hours to start with and for the first cohort. And so in the future it's like, people will have like their core courses that they have to take and then there'll be some additional, the additional ones they can kind of choose from. And to that token, we've also been told by individuals like Taylor was telling me, she's like, hallie, it's so interesting because people who never thought they were interested in NICU took the NICU course and they're like, oh my gosh, I Actually am really interested in learning more about the nicu. Like, maybe I want to go into the NICU one day per week or, you know, prn. Or maybe I want, you know, I just want to understand how to better help these NICU babies when they come out of the nicu. And I was like, yeah, that's really cool.

Yeah. Because I'm getting them from the nicu.

Yeah.

You know, in my area, there is no feeding clinic. We have speech therapists who will do feeding. Okay. But I now have the confidence to market myself as a feeding therapist.

Yeah.

You know, I am if he a certified pediatric feeding therapist. And I'm, you know, I'm very proud of it, and it's my passion. So, you know, when you're passionate about something you love.

Yeah.

You, you know, you strive in it, so. But it has opened so many doors so quickly.

Wow.

Yeah. I actually had a pediatric dietitian call me this morning, and that's never happened before, looking to see, thinking, hey, I think I have a kid that you could help.

Oh, that's cool.

So. But if anyone needs a feeding clinic, they have to drive well over an hour or two to a hospital feeding clinic.

Wow.

So, yeah, no advertising needed.

Yeah. Love that for you. And I know, like, I mean, it comes with the territory. You have the competence. Right. It gives you that confidence. I love that you've actually started, like, your whole goal to start a feeding clinic. And it was funny, too, because I remember talking to a number of, you know, feed the Peets grads that were interested in certification before the. Your cohort started. And there were so many individuals who were like, I don't have this in my area. I don't have, like, we don't have a clinic dedicated to this. And I really feel like this is so needed for my area. And so I love that. It's. It's, you know, obviously giving you the skill set, but it's also giving you some business acumen, if you will, to basically feel really great in going out and creating this for your area.

Right. And it's not like it takes a lot. I did a lot. I was, you know, home health for many, many, many. Until even just a few weeks ago, I told some clients I'm not going to the homes anymore. You know, I do go to a couple ABA facilities, you know, applied behavior analysis. And so I'm seeing their kiddos for feeding. And it's a great collaboration.

Yes.

I've been asked to see speak, and I'm like, oh, man. And, you know, so it it's opening doors without me having to knock on them. And it's, it's pretty cool. It's not like you need a whole lot to get started. We probably have all that stuff in our bags anyway.

Right.

You know, it's stuff we've been using as a therapist anyway. It's not like you have to have this, you know, I'd like to say I have a clinic, but I don't know if there's any requirements to say your clinic. But you know, I was lucky enough to find a friend who's an occupational therapist who offered up some space in her office. And it's just a great collaboration.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's. You just kind of need to hang your hat somewhere. And whether it's home health based or you're physically in an office, it's all the same.

Right.

I mean, you're still providing the same therapy. You, you know, like you're saying you've got the tools already from either the coursework, the certification, now the actual physical tools that you might use in feeding therapy. It's like, it's all there. And I think so much of it is just actually getting started. Sometimes, like so many of us psych ourselves out and we're like, am I qualified to do this? Do I understand enough about business? And I'm like, if you have a passion and a desire and there's a need in your area, just get started seeing some patience and the rest is gonna, you're gonna quickly have to figure out the rest. It's just going to happen by nature of throwing yourself into the fire.

And, and you know, I'm going to make back my investment easily. I've already started to, you know, that's not a problem. I called around all the offices and asked them what they charged privately and then I bumped it up because I'm certified.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, and along with my myofunctional, you know, it just, it all goes together. They are three huge pieces in the puzzle. Yeah. You know, it, it just.

But I know we've had the conversation about like having the feeding background, like as a feeding therapist and then going into like myo, a MYO course and MYO certification you already have as an SLP with the license, you know, to treat pediatric feeding cases. And then the education that like you already have the background that makes myo. It just makes so much more sense. It's so much easier to digest when you have a feeding background because you're like, oh, this is like an extension of what I'm doing. We're just kind of adding in another set of goals maybe, and then we can modify it and apply it to the babies and the toddlers who aren't really myo appropriate yet.

Exactly. Because if you look at the way I practice now, I can't tease out, I can't separate. Yeah, okay. I don't have my own one box and feeding in another box and speech therapy in another box. Yeah, you can't with it. You can't.

Yeah.

It's a blend. And there's no way, even from my other courses I've taken, you can't separate it.

Yeah. And that's why I like to, like, when I talk about feed the peas, I'm like, it's peed feeding with a twist of tots and myo. Because it's, it's basically just layering on more of what you're already doing and looking at it through another lens. And maybe you're working on airway in a different way. Maybe upper airway. We were like, we are always taught in pediatric feeding, like the lower airway stuff and airway consideration so that food is not being aspirated to the lungs and other airway types of issues that maybe we don't treat directly, but we have to know about. Right. And then you come into the myo side and it kind of brings in the upper airway and you're like, oh, no one really explained to me like, oh, everything that we're working on with chewing and, and triggering that initial swallow reflex and all that, you know? Well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we have to nasal breathe.

Right, Right, right. But I, but I do see the need where I do need to get out there. And I would say market, but I would say educate because I had a parent call me last week. I mean, I get new referrals every week without it's word of mouth. I have a teeny tiny little website that came with my simple practice. Nothing special. And, well, I talked to my pediatrician and they said feeding therapy wasn't a thing. What?

What? Who is this pediatrician? Can I have their number?

You know, so like I said, it's more of an educational. But, you know, it's, it's, it's.

That's a new one. Feeding therapy isn't a thing. I thought you were going to say that they told this like, mom of an infant to go get myotherapy. And I was gonna be like, oh, yeah, we still have a lot of educating to do there. Where it's more like pediatric feeding, but. Oh, man.

Yeah, yeah. Huh? No, they're just a picky eater. And that's the other thing too, is, you know, I'm passionate about working with children on the spectrum. And, you know, they get shoved in that box of. Well, they're on the spectrum, so they're gonna have feeding issues. And I'm like, no, that's actually what.

Threw me into pediatric feeding. Like, I. When I worked in the schools, initially, I was told, no, no, we don't do feeding in the schools. And then someone went on maternity leave. I got an entire classroom of children who were very medically complex with like 247 nursing care in school. And watching them, like, pour feeds down these kids mouths with their head and extension. And I was. Their neck and extension. And I was just like, there's something not safe about this, and I don't know how to help them. And so that kind of got me initially, very much so, like, thrown in to the deep end. But then I started noticing the pattern of a lot of these children that I was working with who were autistic. And I was, like, seeing the pattern and the food colors and the textures and their picky eating style, and I was kind of like, this is fascinating. And I started to actually research, not research, but read research on just, like, the gaps, the gut and psychology syndrome diet and SCD diet and, you know, different types of diets out there. And then that kind of threw me into learning about, like, the gut as a second brain. And, you know, from there I was like, okay, how do we work with these children early on? Well, it's all about, like, the sensory and oral motor component. It's not just one or the other. Like, so many teach it. Like, you know, like Lori Overland, I know, was like, one of the first courses I took where she was like, you cannot. The only course I think I've ever took where she was like, you cannot separate sensory from motor. And I was like, light bulb moment. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. And she's like, we teach it in silos sometimes, but, like, you truly cannot separate that out. And, like, let me show you why and how this all works. And I was just like, mind blown. And from there on out, I was like, okay, this makes so much sense.

And your course, the framework, it gives you everything you need to work with these children who desperately need it, who have been pushed aside in a box, you know, so it helps them. And then, you know, this brings up Cheryl, who's one of the mentors, you know, I Can never say your last name.

Pellet. Pelletier, I think.

Yeah. I mean, what she teaches us, I've used so much of that with these children. I mean, she invented the side biter. I use the side biter for so many kids. It's so cool.

So cool. And she only had, like, I think a year or so ago, she only had the adult one or like the one for older kids and adults. And then she, out of the goodness of her heart and financially out of her own pocket, basically created the mold for the pediatric one. Because we were all like, we need that. So everybody go buy a side biter. No, I am not sponsored. No, I get no affiliate income for this. Just please support Cheryl because it's a.

Fabulous tool and she's one of the mentors. Every time you have these, you know, large table discussions, the people you have are amazing. And it's such a nice mix that I am always sitting here writing something down. Like, I can use this with this kid tomorrow. I can use this with that kid tomorrow.

Oh, what a great idea.

You know, and it's stuff you can use the next day.

Yeah, it's functional. That's. That was a big part of our goal, was like, let's bring in these brilliant minds who are still working with patients, right? They're still in the day to day. Because, you know, I just feel like when you're in it, you are more creative sometimes, you know, versus if you've stepped away for it for like a decade. It's like, well, I don't work, you know, so I'm not working with patients. Like, it's hard to be creative. But her mind, like, she just. I had her on the podcast and I was like, we have to work together in some capacity. I don't know what the capacity is yet. There's like, we hadn't. We hadn't like, actually like, put all the pieces together to finalize the certification at that point. And I was just like, but your mind, like, you're so creative, so functional. I was like, let's bring it in somehow.

And I thought about another point with this whole certification is that, you know, when we go to courses and then we're thinking about, well, I got this kid, he's so hard, he bounces off the wall. So I got this kid, you know, we get to see the hard cases. What do I do with a kid who's autistic and blind and in a daycare, you know, so, you know, we've got Beth, who's in the hospital. Great. Nicu Great. I mean, just an encyclopedia of information.

Yeah, yeah.

And Cheryl, you know, with all the different ways to introduce the food and you know, Bridget. And then, you know, we have Nadine who's going out into the homes and the schools and the daycares, you know, which a lot of us do. So we have these. You know, it was so funny. I was like, I want to see what your car trunk looks like. You know, just how do you carry all this stuff around? But then another person showed me their medical, you know, it just, you know, you have that team because, you know, a lot of us lack that in our actual area.

Yes, well, and that's where it was like. And even when you have it in your area, people sometimes get competitive and they gatekeep and they don't want to talk to you. And it's like, it's rare that you find someone that actually wants to link arms and like, be your, your feeding friend. And so it was like, if we can create the community, like, yes, the mentorship is super important, like everything you're talking about. And that's like, obviously a very big piece of it because I feel like there's a lot of gatekeeping there in the feeding world too. I was like, but if we can then bridge these like, relationships between people who are doing the same thing. Right, because we match you with a mentor who's in line, like aligned with your goals for what you want to get out of the certification. But then we also you with others who are on the same journey as you or similar journey. So it's like you're not, you know, yes, it would be so helpful to have somebody in your group who might be in the nicu, but if you're not in the NICU and you're home health based or you're clinic based and you have certain questions and cases and things in a certain setting where like similar goals, similar settings, similar caseload, that's going to really help kind of bridge the gap between finding those people who like, you can continue. You can kind of link arms with people and still connect with them after the certification ends and have like your at least one other person that you can collaborate with and talk about cases with and be like, hey, what, what are you doing for this? And I got this kid that X, Y and Z, like, what do you think about that? Because I'm like, at the end of the day, I think that's one of the most valuable things that I've come to have with like one of my friends and colleagues. And I We kind of did that on our own just by nature of, like, going to a Facebook group and being like, hey, is anybody else going through certification for Mayo right now? And, like, can you, you know, do you want to, like, have a conversation? And that's actually how Autumn Henning and I, like, linked up. And that came out of us just going through a certification at the same time. And so I was like, if we can actually curate that inside of ours, that would be so cool.

It's so cool. And it's like, you know, I can't see all the feeding kids. You know, there's too many. So it's like, I would love to collaborate and love to consult with other people on their cases and help them, but it's just, you know, getting that out there and letting them know, I would love to help you with your cases. I don't want to take them. I have plenty of my own.

Yes. So good. I mean, I love all of this. So is there anything else that you want to share with us or anything we haven't, like, covered in regards to, like, your journey or kind of what you've gotten out of all that you're doing?

Well, I have niched and if you ever look into the business aspect of it, niching down helps you out business wise. I mean, you know, we all talk about how we are under paid and under recognized. Honey, this is going to.

Yeah, I would say niche down to up your income.

Yes, yes. You know, one of my favorite quotes from Warren Buffett, the more you learn, the more you earn. And it's true. It is so true. You never want to stop learning. You know.

It'S interesting too, because, like, in my own private practice, even though we did niche down and we became like the myo and feeding and tots kind of like practice that people were coming to for those reasons, I still have people on my team that treat traditional, you know, SLP type of things that are not in that niche. So people still come to our team for help with general, like, speech pathology needs. Right. But, you know, but we're not necessarily. I mean, and we do have it on our website. But, like, we are really known for this, the niche that we're in. And I'm telling, like you're saying it just drives word of mouth marketing and patients are happy, so they refer friends. Or even if they haven't been a patient, they're like, oh, hey, yeah, Hallie's team does that and they'll tag us into a Facebook group. And like, I tried once to run Google Ads just to see, see like what would happen. I think I paid $200 and never paid a penny otherwise. Because I was like, ah, we don't need that. And in the 10 years almost, it'll be 11 years in June, 10 and a half years that I've had my private practice. I've maybe spent $200 on advertising and not a single penny otherwise. And we've always had a bustling practice. I'm like, that's wild.

I don't even have business cards made up yet. I haven't changed my voicemail. You know, it's like, I do time.

I'll in due time, totally fine.

But yeah, no, I still get the regular kiddos calling. So I'm, I, yeah, but it's, it's crazy, great, crazy fun. It's amazing how much this course has done for me. But also the other ones too. But it just, this just really was the icing on the cake getting that certification. It was so much worth it. And you know, there is, you know, and it's a lot of evidence based. Okay. Every course is evidence based. So it's not just someone's crazy thoughts and feelings about stuff. You do get their real life experiences. But there is lots of studies quoted. It's very evidence based. It's not just willy nilly what they think. A lot of real life and the different people you have teaching all these courses are just, it's, it's amazing. It's not something you've taken before. Yeah, you know, these people don't have courses out there right now. And even if I've taken a course similar to it, it's a different spin, a different viewpoint, a different aspect to help you. A lot of, oh, aha, okay, you know.

Well, and it was really cool because we kind of dove into our Feed the Peas alumni when we were creating the coursework. We basically asked our alumni, what courses do you want? What do you want? Deeper dives into. Okay, great, now that you gave us this list, we're going to put it into another, another survey. And we want you to put them in the order of importance for you so that we could actually see as a whole, like, what is the want? What do they really need? And then we can create in that order as we start, you know, start out and everything. And so then we went out and we were like, okay, is there anybody in our community who feels like you have a certain level of expertise in any of these topics? Basically reach out to us. We had a couple people in mind for some of the Courses and then other ones. We were like, really? We don't know who's going to create this, but we'll find somebody who's like, very passionate and educated and does this day in and day out. And just by nature of being connected through our own community to people. Some of these people hadn't even taken feed the peas, right? And that. That's okay. But they clearly were like, subject. You know, subject matter experts doing this stuff day in, day out with a really good ability to educate on these topics and pull a course together. And some of them were like, they also really value how much time and effort goes into course creation and recording courses now because some of them are like, that was amazing. I'm never doing that again.

I mean, they were. Thank you. I was constantly thinking, you know, where did you find these? I've never heard of these people. And they're so brilliant. You know, they're just brilliant. And it's not that this whole thing. I would say the hardest thing about this whole course is learning how to share my screen. You know, it was. It was more the technology.

That's so funny because I'm like, love hate with technology myself. And everyone's like, you have an online business. I'm like, I know. And just this morning I was running a hot seat, like, call in a kind of mastermind setting for business owners that are creating online courses in my other business, my other program. And I was like, sitting here and I'm like, it's 10 o'. Clock. These people are usually always on time. Like, where is everybody? And I was like, let me go to the inbox and check. And I go and like, one person then texts me who has my number. She's like, hey, are we still on for today? I'm like, yes. I had a feeling that something like tech was going on. Like, team, like, love, y'. All. But like, Hallie clearly cannot figure out how to get into, like, a zoom that does not have a dedicated meeting attached to it. So please schedule out my meetings going forward so I can click the link and everyone else can click the link and we can all be in the same place at the same time. Yeah, I'm like, tech. No matter how many times you use something, I'm like, I just. And people are like, you're so tech savvy. I'm like, I'm really not, though. But, you know, teach their own.

But everyone was there to help us. We all helped each other.

So, yes, we will get you where you need to be for sure.

So it's Definitely nothing to be apprehensive about.

Yeah.

You know, it.

It amazing.

It. It was a community certification community. Very, very warm feeling.

Amazing. And that's, that's really like what we hoped to create too, because, like, we're all in it together. And just again, having even one other person, but having like a whole group of people who are going through the same thing. And the other thing that you pointed out, too, is like, you also get to see other cases. Right. You get to see. And not just like your cohort, because we do some, like, large group case presentations too. And like, those are sometimes kids that you're not typically going to see. And maybe you're a niche because maybe you're, You're. This is the NICU group. But, like, to your point, if you're in private practice, you're going to inherit kids who were once in a nicu, even if it was. Even if they didn't just come right out of the nicu. Now maybe they're in the NICU three years ago. You still need to understand what these children experienced and like, how to under, you know, what is their medical background, their medical history. Well, without understanding what happens in a NICU and understand, which is a whole nother, like, you know, story within itself, it's like, it's. There's a lot of nuances in what we do.

You know, I've never done an mbs. I've never done a swallow study, but I'm getting these kids who've had them. Yeah. And. But yet now I have this course to understand, why did they do that? Or as Beth, one of the mentors would say, why did they do that?

You know.

So it gives you different eyes to look at this. And not just, you know, just because they're doing MBSs and you aren't. They're not gods. You know, you get to critically look at it and say, huh, you know, or prepare the children you have who are going to get one.

Yeah.

And there's stuff I didn't know, you know, so much.

So much in the feeding space.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So amazing.

Well, thank you. This has been amazing. And thank you so much for joining me. And because you have a private practice, tell everybody, like, if they are, tell them where you're located, how they find you.

Oh, okay. It's. And I rebranded, so I rebranded. So I am specialty speech and feeding therapy and my office is in Melbourne, Florida, and this is in the Space Coast, Brevard County. You know, I have. I have a Instagram, but I haven't done anything with it, it's okay.

And we'll share it. We'll share that anyway so that they can find you even if you, you know, at least they can message you, if nothing else.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's. Yeah, so I have that. But I've yet to post anything. But I do have a website, specialty speech and feedingtherapy.com or the email is hello@specialty speech feedingtherapy.com so. But yeah, it's great.

Amazing. Well, we'll make sure everybody knows how to reach you, especially if they're out there in that Space coast area. And thank you for joining me.

Yeah. And definitely if anyone has questions about the course and want to know the nitty gritty, I'm happy to talk to them.

Amazing. Thanks, Kathy.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@halibalkin.com or pop over to Hollybulcan on Instagram to get all the latest updates.