Building Parent Trust
Happy July and I hope everyone had a wonderful July 4th Weekend!!
Today's entry will serve as the spirit post for the month of July and will continue to focus on the importance of the initial visit, which is where trust is built and the relationship between therapists and the families we work with begins.
In the last post, Getting Started in EI: Your Initial Visit(s), I wrote that the initial visit is an opportunity to "establish a strong and healthy rapport with the family—first impressions are important!" To achieve this, I always let families know ahead of time that I am going to "interview" them during my first appointment. Also, I explain to them that many times the information I have received regarding their child may be outdated, inaccurate or lacking detail; therefore I want to hear first-hand from them what is happening at home and what their priorities are.
Regarding the child, I am always very friendly, of course and I let them take the lead. I smile and greet them with a big hello, but I construct my focus around the parent—I make my rapport with the parent my priority. Also, if I go out first with a co-worker who has been working with the family previously, which I often do, they are interacting with the child, so I observe and ask questions along the way. I find it is the best way to truly see the child present level of functioning ability.
At the end, I summarize the session for the parent and discuss the ways to address the speech/feeding issues that exist. This part of my visit may actually be the most important. I reflect back to the parent the information they have shared with me, letting them know I listened and I HEARD them. In addition I share with them my professional interpretation of what may be happening with their child, answering any questions they have and present to them my "plan of action" as I like to call it.
My goal is to leave the parent with a complete picture of what speech therapy for their child will look like in the upcoming weeks. By doing this, I think parents realize the importance of our first visit, the value of my observation and interview questions and what the next step(s) will be to address their child speech, language and feeding needs. By doing this, the foundation of trust is created and has solid framework on which to grow and develop as therapy progresses.