Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hannah Zimmerman. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hannah, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Growing up, I always knew that I wanted to work with people with disabilities. My younger brother is autistic so I was also around his therapists, teachers, and other support staff. It wasn’t until I needed some volunteer hours that I was able to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with my life. This summer camp was run by speech-language pathologists and the amazing Dr. Wiley at LA Speech and Language. They seamlessly were able to blend teaching communication skills to children in fun and exciting activities and outings (like going to Dodger games)! Even though I had known that I wanted to get into a “helping career,” volunteering at that summer camp taught me that the best way to help these children with communication challenges was to give them the tools to advocate and communicate for themselves. Since I became a SLP, I always try to keep that at the forefront in my own private practice: the best way to help others is not to do things for them but to empower them!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Just Once provides in-home and community-based speech and language services to children ages 0-21 with complex communication needs. We serve individuals with a variety of communication differences, including but not limited to Childhood Apraxia of Speech, autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, AAC users, and gestalt language processors. We offer speech and language evaluations, speech and language therapy sessions, feeding therapy sessions, group sessions, summer fun groups and parent/caregiver consultations. Our goal at Just Once is to guide our clients to lead meaningful lives through increased self-advocacy skills, independence and autonomy in communication, and an empowered family support system. First and foremost, we are dedicated to teamwork, respect, and put the priority on relationships and connection. We want parents and caregivers to ask questions, share feedback, share struggles, share hopes, and collaborate with us every step of the way. At Just Once, we will always respect our clients in how we speak to them, speak about them, and act towards them. We presume potential and have high expectations for them! Building connections with clients and families are at the heart of all we do because strong relationships are foundational to learning. We will spend time getting to know our clients, their parents/caregivers, and what is meaningful for them as family so that we can best support them on their communication journey! We are committed to lifelong learning and are constantly seeking out educational opportunities to learn how to better our service delivery even more.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Just Once’s biggest area of growth has been in the number of clients that we have been able to serve. We are so grateful to all of our clients and our families for their kindness and trust in us! Sometimes progress in speech therapy isn’t always linear and sometimes there are some tougher seasons of life, so we are so thankful that they chose us to partner with on their communication journey. We look forward to continuing to serve our current clients with the highest quality of care and being able to serve even more families in the future!
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
Just Once’s biggest area of growth has been in the number of clients that we have been able to serve and we look forward to being able to serve even more in the future!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.justonce-slp.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/just.once.slp
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/just.once.slp
Image Credits
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