Episode 319: Elevate Your Practice with the Pediatric Feeding Hub, Hallie, MA CCC-SLP, CMT®, CPFT™

Hello my friends and welcome to episode 319 of the Untethered Podcast. This is your host, Hallie Balkan. And as you know, last week the doors to Feed the Peeds were open. We enrolled some of you into the course. Welcome to everyone who is enrolled and has joined. But we have a big announcement and a big surprise today and I am excited to share this with you because we have a brand new thing rolling out. Surprise. So let's jump in so you can hear all about what that is. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast.

I am your host, Holly Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to.

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Okay, friends, welcome back to the podcast. Like I said, we got the surprise coming. So today's episode is a little different because I am dropping in with a surprise that I have been so excited to share with you all. Something that has been in the works for a while, but also we had to table it a little bit with just so many other things going on. So it's, it's finally here. Yay. If you've ever felt unsure or alone when it comes to treating feeding, pediatric feeding and swallowing like you wish you had a place to go, ask questions, or just run things by someone who gets it, that has tons of experience and knows how to mentor, then you're going to love this. All right, so let's, let's talk about it. So over the years, right, Because I've now been in this online continuing education business space since the end of 2019. I have heard from so many of you, like therapists, right, who are you're passionate about pediatric feeding, but you also feel stuck. You've taken courses, you've read the research, but when you're sitting with a complex case or you're making a treatment decision, it can still feel like you're figuring it all out alone. Like you're kind of out there on that pediatric feeding therapist island, right? And sometimes investing in a big course or certification, it may not be the right fit for you either because of timing or budget or life or whatever. And so that is why I created something totally new, the Pediatric Feeding Hub. This is your space for mentorship, community and clinical support. Okay, and so, like, what is it? Here's what the peds Feeding Hub is, right? I'm probably going to go in between, like, the pediatric Feeding hub and the peds feeding hub and blah, blah, blah, whatever, because I feel like they're interchangeable. But anyways, if you want to look, if you want to look at it. We don't have a whole webpage up yet. That'll be coming later. This is like the beta mode right now. We know y' all are interested, but. But, you know, show us that you're interested and then we'll build it out a little bit more. We are starting officially, like right away, answering questions in the group and everything with our first call the week of the 19th. But let me tell you a little bit more like what I'm talking about when I say all this. And you can go to pediatricfeedinghub.com to also see this in writing. Okay, so what is it? A monthly mentorship membership, if that, if you follow. Right. Three M's with. For pediatric SLPs, OTS, PTs, you know, feeding Therapists. Basically, it's designed to help you feel supported and not overwhelmed. And it's a place that you can go to ask questions, get feedback, build your clinical confidence and skills over time. And so, you know, here's what you're going to get. Okay, so I mentioned the. I. Well, I mentioned the calls, but what I meant to say with the calls was weekly office hours on Zoom. We're going to have. These will be hosted by our expert team of feeding therapists. And we're talking like real mentorship from seasoned clinicians, including a group of SLPs and OTS. There are five of them in there to start. And so we've got. On the SLP roster, we've got Cheryl Pelletier, Christina Wetzler, and Melanie Peacock. Shel. Three amazing ladies in this space. We've also got OTs Courtney Lewis and Sadara Braid. And again, genius in their craft in their space as well. And we wanted to bring you both the SLPs and OTs at least to start. Because we want to have a nice marriage of information and perspectives when you're asking about a case. Right. We want people with different backgrounds and different specialties within our, our pediatric feeding world to be able to be part of the conversation. Kind of have these like, almost like roundtable discussions, if you will. But really what office hours is going to look like is just that you can pop in at any time, talk about a case. And we are going to be offering them once a week to start. SLPs and OTS will all will alternate weeks. I can't talk all of a sudden. And there'll be a different days and times of day because we know people have different work schedules and different life responsibilities and different time zones and all the things, again, these do. That does start the week of May 19th. If you cannot make it, live replays will be available. So no worries there. And. And truly one of the other best things. So I have another membership in my business and one of the number one things that everyone says they love most about it, their most favorite thing is the private Facebook group. And we've even tried to get off Facebook and people are like, no, no, stay on Facebook. So, you know, if we have enough of you wanting to try out a different platform, we always can. But for all intents and purposes, and to start, we're going to have a private Facebook group where you can connect with the mentors and your peers and ask clinical questions, get support any time of day. And yeah, we are, because we're calling this our beta round because it's the first time we're launching it. You're going to get a ridiculously good deal. This is going to be affordable no matter what, no matter when you join it. However it's going to. It's so. It's insane. The team is probably like, hallie, what are you doing? We have people to pay. No, but there is. You know, we wanted to make this like super, super affordable for you all. So if you're interested, you're going to want to join, especially during our current open cart, which is right now between May 12th at 9:00am Eastern Time. And I'm trying to think May 12th and May 19th. Yes, Friday the 19th at midnight Eastern time. Because when you do, you'll get our beta pricing. So go to pediatricfeedinghub.com so that you can see what that pricing is and all that fun stuff. I will tell you that you are grandfathered in. You're locked in at that rate. If you, if you leave and come back later it will be higher. So this is, I mean, I've got people in my membership who have been there since the beginning because they also got an awesome deal and got locked in at grandfathered in at an amazing rate too. So just know that we only offer these things like right when we launch something new. This also will spill over into the annual membership price and that is going to be an even better deal because not only are you, not only will the membership, the annual membership be at the monthly discounted rate that we're offering, but we're giving you three months free. So basically, if you commit to nine months, you get a year inside the membership right now if you choose to go annual. So. And I believe that is also locked in, in as long as you stick around. So pretty awesome deal. Everyone thinks I've lost my mind, but here we are. So, anywho, my whole goal here was to make mentorship more accessible, right? And it's really for the therapists who are already doing the work, but you want to feel more confident in how you're doing it. For the one who may is maybe tired of Googling, for the one who just wants to feel supported in the work that they're doing without needing to commit to a big course or a big certification because you're just not there yet. Right? And so if that's you, or maybe you never will be, maybe you'll take the courses, but you don't want to get certified, that's okay. It's not for everyone. So if that's you, this is your space. Join us. Right? And here's the thing, we're starting fresh. It's the very first round, so you get to help kind of shape what this become. And that's pretty cool because if you know me from any of my other programs, you know, I tend to throw in bonuses and a whole bunch of surprises and things along the way. And you know, we've got a whole team behind the scenes that can be creating things for you. And so the fun part of that is if there's a resource that you need or there's something that we're hearing, you guys ask for a lot, we tend to just show up with it, you know, and so don't be shy, be in the group, show up, talk, interact. But anyways, the doors are open right now. We close them in just a few days, as I mentioned, on the 19th at midnight Eastern time. And so we want to make sure that you're in before our first office hours kick off the week of, of May 19th. So if this is speaking to you, your next step is to go to pediatricfeedinghub.com and join us there today. You don't have to figure this out on your own anymore because mentorship is here and it's affordable, it's flexible, it's built for you. I want to say thank you for being here, but before we wrap up, and I probably shouldn't even have even started to, because I know we're going to get some different questions just based on all of my other programs we have. So I want to spend a few moments talking to you and explaining. Right. A little bit more about it, maybe answering some questions. Right. So who is this mentorship for or this membership? Mentor membership for? It is for pediatric SLPs, OTs, PTs, feeding therapists who want real time mentorship and a community to grow with. Right. So whether you're brand new to feeding or you've been doing it for years, and you want a sounding board, like, this is for you. Okay, next question. Do you have to be a past student, student of Feed the Pete, or even cpft, our certification to join? No. No, you do not. So while many of our past students are, I'm gonna guess they're gonna join. This space is open to any therapist that's working in pediatric feeding and swallowing who's looking for support and mentorship. Next question. We always get, like, what if I'm brand new? Like, is this for me? Is this gonna be too advanced? Not at all. So you're gonna be supported by mentors who can. They're gonna be able to meet you where you're at. Right. Whether you're just starting out or maybe you're working through, like, really complex cases, you don't. Who belong here. This again, is open for everybody, but we also get seasoned individuals, therapists in our programs. And it's always such a beautiful collaboration amongst. Because even those of us who are seasoned still need to talk through cases sometimes. You know, we don't know everything. And so it's really nice to have that sounding board and have that group to do that. And so I think as a, you know, a new person, if you're brand new, you're gonna get a lot of support and you're gonna see that even those who've been doing this for a while still need support like that. That's just life. That's life as a therapist providing therapy. Right. Okay, so this is a question that comes up a lot more so around, like our course. But you know, what if I've already Taken a bunch of courses. Is this going to be too basic for me? No, this isn't a training library or like a beginning, you know, beginning type of space necessarily. Like, it is open to beginners and you guys are going to get a ton out of this. This is a live mentorship program, right? And we're having a discussion. It's built to help you have discussions, apply what you're learning and what you already know, kind of grow into your clinical reasoning, help you develop your critical thinking skills a bit further, you know, and, and just stay supported as you evolve in the pediatric feeding space. Office hours I mentioned start week of May 19th. We will give you a schedule as soon as you enroll that will all be available to you. So you can block out time and plan ahead if you. We always get the question, like, what if I can't attend the live zoom office hours? Not a problem. You can submit, you can submit questions, but also they're recorded. Replays are available. You'll have that in a library accessible to you. So do not worry about that at all. And so how is this different from like taking another course? Right? And I know that's probably going to come up. This isn't a course. This is mentorship. You're not getting like, you're not just getting information, right? You're going to get information obviously, when you're being mentored, but you're getting access to seasoned SLPs and OTs who can help you apply, like, what you're learning or what they're sharing with you and troubleshoot, like real life cases. And ultimately it helps you become much more confident over time. It's really, really cool to see the evolution of who comes through our programs and where they start and where they end up, because they are just. Their confidence is just soaring through the roof because they've grown all of their skills and they've been mentored and all that fun stuff. So while this is not a course, we're still going to be discussing skill set and all these different things. And through mentorship, you're going to learn a whole lot of information. And that's again, regardless of where you are in your journey. Because these season, these seasoned SLPs and OT feeding specialists, they have the ability to meet you where you're at and kind of help take you along on that journey. What is the time commitment? So this is a come as you go model. Like you could show up for every single weekly call, show up when you want to watch replays, pop into the Facebook group when you feel like it and ask questions or just, you know, soak up the support when you need it, whatever that looks for you. There's like no pressure to keep up because we do not have any additional types of things built in, like right now. I don't know, maybe that'll change in the future. But for now, we wanted like a very low pressure, easy access. Like, I know what I'm getting and I can pop in when I need it and I can pop out when I don't. Right. So it's really up to you as far as the time commitment goes. If you're hanging out in that group all the time and talking and answering other people's questions, you might be in there quite a bit. But if you're just popping in for what you need and taking what you need and then, you know, popping out, it's really meant to support you in the work that you're doing. If you want to cancel, what do you do? Well, you can cancel at any time. There's no, like, long term contractor commitments. We do keep that super flexible because we know time and budgets and all that really matter. But one thing I will say is you do need to email us a week before, like, so five to seven business days. We'll say five business days before you renew or before your renewal happens in order for it to cancel. Otherwise, we cannot guarantee it will happen in time and it will be a applied to the following month. We've tried to do this with 24 to 48 hours and there's just way too much. There's not enough wiggle room, especially with like, weekends and holidays, for our team to keep up with you all. But because of the program that we use, there isn't an easy way for you to go in and, you know, remove yourself with. You can remove yourself, but you cancel. It has to be done through our support. So we're happy to do it for you. It's not a problem. You can cancel anytime. We just ask that you be cognizant of the timeline and that is that. What else, what else, what else can I tell you? The mentors we went over, they're incredible feeding professionals. They're warm, they're friendly, they are welcoming. They use evidence based, you know, information and responding. They're deeply experienced in the pediatric feeding space. I am so excited for you all. I Wish this existed 10 years ago when I was trying to pay people to mentor me and nobody would give me the time of day. All right, and so when is the mentorship going to open up again? If you miss this. So right now we don't have like a set date to reopen. To be completely honest, we had a lot going on. We were launching like three different things and our COO went on maternity leave and we hired a bunch of new team members and we just had a lot of moving pieces. We had some, some of our amazing team members retire. Like, we just had so much going on. We honestly have not had two seconds to sit down and figure out when are we going to reopen the doors to this. So if you're interested, now's the time to join because the price will never be this cheap again. As a founding member, you only have five days to lock in this beta pricing, so get in now. It could be the fall before we open doors again. I don't know. I don't know. So it could be summer. I really have no clue. Show us a little grace here. I promise we will come back to you on this. But for all intensive purposes right now, if you are looking to get mentorship in the pediatric feeding space and you're not currently in another program or something like this is going to be fantastic for you. So jump in, join us at the pediatric pediatricfeedinghub.com that's where everything is. And as I mentioned, it's going to go right to a checkout cart. Right now. We don't have a whole website set up. That's to come later when, whenever we relaunch it. When I tell you we really don't know when it's coming back. We have some things we need to put in place first. But for all intents and purposes, the mentorship in the membership itself is ready to go. The inside component is ready to go. So we're just, we're looking for those of you who want to join us in the beginning and lock in those special beta rates. And that's it. That's all I've got for you. So I just want to say again, thank you all for hanging with me today and for being here because so many of you have been here for quite a long time with me. Many of you have been in many of our programs. I'm just, I'm so grateful for this community. As I talked about on the last episode, my big mission was to get kids off of pediatric feeding wait list. And the more of you that we can help support, the more we can go out and exponentially, you know, improve those waitlist numbers, get kids off waitlist, get them the services that they so badly need and deserve and truly get them you know, functional for whatever that looks like for them. Right? So I know our team is so excited to support you inside the feed the peds feeding hub. I told you, it's going to be the pediatric feeding hub. The peds feeding hub, we're going to go in between. But the pediatric feeding or pediatricfeedinghub.com I got to get used to. That is the URL, the website that you want to go to. So let's grow together. I cannot wait to see you all in there. I'm excited. I know our team is excited and we'll see you in there soon. All right, everybody, have a great day. 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@halliebalkin.com or pop over to Hollybalken on Instagram to get all the latest updates.