NBASLH’s Power to Empower Mentorship Program 

Applications for the mentorship program is currently closed. We will announce new details in mid-April 2024.

As a black early career professional or student, navigating a profession where you are an underrepresented minority can be challenging in various forms. Therefore, NBASLH has relaunched its mentorship program to continue to extend support for early career professionals and students to connect with professionals who have either paved the way or treaded the course through the maze of Communication Science and Disorders (CSD) as a minority. Their shared expertise and community networks provide early CSD professionals and CSD students the opportunity to build and enrich their repertoire of skills and resources, so that one day they too will pay it forward.

The title for NBASLH’s mentorship program stems from that same philosophy which was inspired from the late Toni Morrison…

“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”

Her words reflect the sole relaunch and purpose of NBASLH’s Power to Empower Mentorship Program to perpetuate a continued support system for black early career professionals and students to achieve success, share their expertise, and extend their community networks to those who come after them.

The purpose of this program is to provide an opportunity for students of color who are majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders, or recent Master’s graduates of Communication Sciences and Disorders programs (5 years or less experience) to connect with professionals of color with a Master’s degree or higher in Communication Sciences and Disorders through the activity of mentoring.

Requirements for Mentees:

  1. Must be a current NBASLH member.
  2. Work with mentor to establish goals for the program
  3. Commit to contacting mentor at least once a month via email, phone call, and/or video conference
  4. Make a commitment to one year in the program
  5. Required to fill out a survey at the end of the one year program 

Track 1: Student
Be a student at an undergrad, graduate, or post graduate student in Communication Sciences and Disorders at any institution

Track 2: Early Career Professional
Be a recent graduate with less than 5 years post grad from an accredited institution.

Requirements for Mentors

  1. Must be a current NBASLH member.
  2. Have a Master’s degree or higher in Communication Sciences and Disorders
  3. Have worked in the field for a minimum of 5 years
  4. Work with mentee to establish goals for the program
  5. Commit to meeting at least once a month with mentee via email phone call, and/or video conference
  6. Make a commitment to one year in the program.
  7. Required to fill out a survey at the end of the one year program