Ohio Master's Network Initiatives in Education (OMNIE)

Designed to improve the day to day life of educators who work with students with communication disorders (SLP's, intervention specialists, teachers, administrators and parents), Ohio's newly restored and renovated SLP Guidelines provide inspiration and helpful tips to inform practice. The newly upcycled resource will be a catalyst for change by providing just in time resources in the busy lives of educators. Participants can access the guidelines on-line informational modules and share the re-designed resources with colleagues, administrators or families in their region.

Local expertise was tapped to develop twenty topic specific virtual resource modules covering daily communication challenges from Apraxia to Workload. The SLP Guidelines were one of the Recruitment and Retention prongs of the Ohio Master's Network Initiatives in Education (OMNIE) collaboratively developed by stakeholders in Ohio to end the shortage of SLPs and retain quality personnel. Following the ending of the original grant, ODE agreed to fund the renovation and re-design of the SLP Guidelines portion of the recruitment project in an attempt to continue to attract and retain qualified personnel. The virtual guidelines provide school-based SLPs , educators, administrators and parents with access to current research and trends particularly in the field of speech pathology and educational audiology but applicable to educators working with children with communication challenges.