Educating and preparing our Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology students to become exceptional professionals requires strong foundational knowledge, coupled with a broad diversity of clinical experiences across the life span and across clinical settings. Our mission is to create a clinical learning environment that provides a continuum of educational opportunities, while focusing on best practices in mentoring graduate students. This task is achieved through collaboration with a diverse network of Audiology and SLP supervisors and facilities across the nation, including schools, birth to three centers, outpatient clinics, private practices, hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities.
UCA Speech-Language-Hearing Center has established affiliation agreements with over 300 facilities to provide quality placements for our students. We partner with community sites and clinicians in the clinical education of our graduate students and we support our clinical educators by way of complimentary continuing education and clinical associate opportunities.
Thank you to all of you who are currently one of our Community-Based Clinical Educators! We couldn’t educate our top-rated students without your help.
Becoming a Clinical Site/Supervisor
Sites often inquire about the possibility of providing clinical experiences to UCA students. The externship coordinator will work with sites to ensure that they have the ability to provide the clinical education that is required. The site will be required to follow these steps and procedures in order to be considered for a practicum placement.
- Identify a point of contact.
- Have an initial meeting to discuss site history and possible opportunities.
- Secure an affiliation agreement between both parties.
- Identify the supervising therapist.
- Supervising therapist must complete the verification process.
- Supervising therapist must complete orientation/training.
- Supervising therapist must provide a plan of communication for clinical assignments
Clinical Educator and Verification/Requirements
Individuals providing clinical education must meet degree requirements, hold the Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from ASHA, state license, two hours of professional development in clinical supervision, and 9 months of full-time clinical experience post-clinical fellowship. Clinical educators are responsible for submitting the required documents to the department administrative assistant. Additionally, proof of certification and licensure should be uploaded into CALIPSO. Completion of professional development should be verified through the ASHA website by each clinical educator.
Resources
Spring 2024 OC Clinical Educator Manual
Clinical educators in need of assessments may request items for loan by emailing the clinic administrator at arehm@uca.edu. If the assessment is available, the administrator will approve and the item(s) can be picked up. Assessments can be loaned for a maximum of 48 hours and only 1 original protocol will be provided. Please refer to the Clinic Assessments Ages & Summaries link for detailed information regarding our assessment inventory.