Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Archambault
Hi Rachel, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I became a Speech-Language Pathologist for Broward County Public Schools in August 2016. In February 2018, I was working as the SLP at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School experienced their nationally publicized traumatic event. After going through trauma, I had a difficult time prioritizing speech therapy and used the relationships I built with my students over the years to help re-acclimate them to the school post-trauma. It was that time I found trauma-informed care and started implementing that mindset with myself, my students, coworkers, and community members. For the last 6.5 years, I have been teaching educators, healthcare providers, corporate offices, and anyone that works with humans how to implement T.I.C in their specific setting. I have been an invited speaker to national conferences to speak on the power of trauma-informed care.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The biggest challenge was deciding how I was going to create change after experincing trauma myself and being diagnosed with PTSD. Everyone’s healing journey are different and immediately after the trauma at MSD, I decided to work on my mental health first. I wasn’t in a rush to become an activist in any way. In June 2018, I was invited to the annual FLASHA Convention (Florida Speech-Language Hearing Association) and met the board who invited me to come speak that next year. I didn’t set out to become a presenter on this topic, but I found how necessary the information was, especially going into COVID when mental health struggles were so apparent. That is when I created the Instagram page, @PTSD.SLP.
Other than that, creating an official business last year was challenging. I didn’t know what the start up costs would be and when I reached out to fellow SLP business owners, they were business owners of private practices and not a consulting business, so it was hard to know where to start.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My specialty is educating employees and businesses about trauma-informed care as someone who experienced a collective trauma at the same time as her community. I would say even further, I specialize in educating healthcare providers and educators on trauma informed care because my job as an SLP is part of both areas. But trauma-informed care is for everyone; and if companies and employees aren’t using T.I.C, they are actively causing harm. What sets me apart from others isn’t necessarily that i’ve experienced a trauma that most people agree is horrifying, it’s that I acknowledge that trauma exists and can pinpoint areas in which we can actively reduce causing harm to our employees and clients.
I i’m most proud of how I’ve built this business by word of mouth. All of my presentation requests I get are from someone who was passed my name or saw me present somewhere and they want to share my knowledge with their jobs. My biggest accomplishment so far was creating a 6 hour in-person in-service for SUNY Fredonia. It’s hard to talk about trauma for 6 hours and still keep it uplifting, trauma-informed, and educational.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
That what is meant for me will come to me. All the presentations I have given are to people who genuinely care and want to know how to do better. TIC is a mindset shift and not a prescriptive therapy technique, which is almost harder for people to acclimate. Although I’d like to do more presentations and make this a full time job, I’m working my way slowly and letting people come to me who show me they are ready for this information.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ptsdslp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ptsd.slp
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/ptsd.slp
- Other: https://www.ptsdslp.com/podcasts
Image Credits
@Moments.By.Mel
