Custom University Study Abroad & Faculty-Led Programs

Every graduate SLP degree offers academic classes and clinical practicums, and transitioning to the latter can be a struggle. Our Therapy Abroad trip to Belize provided an incredibly valuable opportunity to ease that transition in an extremely supportive and real-world environment. We performed evaluation and treatment sessions rotating through various supervisors. Our mentors had different styles, so we were able to learn something unique from each of them. We also rotated our small teams of 3 so we could also learn from our peers. We received excellent guidance/feedback during the session prep, the session itself, and the report writing afterward. The supervisors who accompanied us were approachable and experienced. My only suggestion for improvement is to provide students with more prep time before sessions to improve the quality of service we provide to clients.

I had such an incredible experience on this trip! I grew so much as a clinician and really busted out of my comfort zone. It was really great to work with kids of different cultures to see how important it is to make cultural considerations when providing therapy for them. I had so much fun on all of the weekend activities planned. I think this was a really great way to balance work and fun and was a big reason why I signed up for this trip. I also really enjoyed having Ellen as our coordinator the entire week! She was so fun and knowledgeable about the are. She really made the trip a fun and stress-free experience. Going to Caye Caulker the last weekend of the trip was a really great way to end! The island was so beautiful. I especially enjoyed doing speech and language screenings. The children were super friendly and engaging at the school!

This trip was amazing! The support that was given from the faculty within my program was appreciated. Being able to go to them when I had questions about my education or even just about life was extremely helpful. This trip helped me learn what it could be like in the daily life of an SLP. Furthermore, this trip allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone professionally. Having the faculty and the graduate students there to guide me was awesome. I felt very supported throughout this entire trip.
Ellen was also amazing! Her knowledge of the country helped me feel extremely safe while there. Whenever I had any questions about the people, culture, and even the food, Ellen was always able to answer. Having someone who is familiar with the country with us the entire time is a definite necessity.
If fundraising starts early for next year, I would definitely come back!

I couldn’t have asked for a better therapy abroad experience. The amount of culture and therapy observations I learned was so interesting and exciting. Ellen and Chad were fabulous team leaders that constantly kept us on top of things and made sure everything turned out amazing. My group always felt comfortable and safe with our team leaders. Therapy abroad helped me open my eyes to a bigger picture as continuing my college career. Many countries across the world have very slim therapy resources. What challenges these countries the most is not being aware of the resources available to help people who have speech and language difficulties. To be specific, Belize was very unaware of many interventions to help others. There is only ONE speech pathologist available in Belize and in a country with almost a 400,000 population is bizarre. The culture and upbringing of Belize is unique and because of that receiving therapy or seeming “different” is frowned upon. Thankfully, that is what my program taught me is whenever you are able to help others take the chance no matter how much time or money it requires. Tyke’s camp turned out super cool and fun. I was stationed in the play planning and pretend play which was my number one choice. The amount of items available to us was amazing we didn’t have to buy a single thing everything we needed for the camp was provided for us. Obviously, the choices were small but we worked with what we had and made it happen. I can honestly say my Therapy Abroad experience has led me to fall even more in love with what I plan on doing for the rest of my life. Speech therapy has always been my passion but my involvement with this program has absolutely changed my perspective on life. The services at Monkey Bay were wonderful. I really enjoyed the home cooked meals and I applaud the women whom prepared the meals. They will surely not be forgotten. Monkey Bay was clean and surely made it feel like a second home for my group. What I loved most about my experience is being able to be mentored by graduate students. The graduate students made learning easier for the undergraduate students to grasp. The variety of dialects in Belize was tricky to work with. What amazed me was having the first hand experience of the different phonemes pronounced in one language and not the other. Many of us found this the most challenging to deal with over the course of Tyke’s camp. We really tried our best to put our minds together to help the kids figure out what they needed to focus on the most. After all the observations and evaluations of the children took place we were able to talk about it as a group and everyone could agree that we made sure the kids were having fun and learning at the same time. The kids were so cooperative and sweet. Although, it is too funny the last day we were two campers short and somehow we ended up with five boys. They were a mess but they continued to participate. We provided SOAP notes of each individual kid to the schools and health records because they will not get help until they are referred. I am very grateful for the friendships I have formed because of Therapy Abroad. I feel like each girl got close with one another and no one ever felt left out. The girls will forever be my friends and I say that in the most genuine way possible. My therapy abroad experience will never be forgotten and I hope I will be able to go again next year. I love Belize and the stories behind the culture of the Belizeans. What I do know, is that Belize is a hard working country with the most beautiful people. Every encounter I made with any Belizean was positive. Caye caulker was much different compared to the islands I have been to before. The transportation on the island was golf carts and bikes I had never seen anything like it. We went snorkeling the last day of our trip and I had never been that close to a shark before. Yikes. But it was so cool and I wish I could have my experience all over again. Luckily, I look forward to seeing Chad and Ellen again they didn’t disappoint and I hope everyone loves and appreciates Therapy Abroad. Life changing and unforgettable.

This was my first time out of the country and it was the best experience of my life! I had an amazing time learning about the culture of Belize and applying that knowledge to our field of speech-language pathology. Meeting each child and interacting with them through Tyke's camp was such a fun time and I loved getting to know each one of their personalities. Chad and Ellen did a wonderful job of showing us the country, taking us on fun leisure activities such as cave tubing, zip lining, and snorkeling, and teaching us all they know! Each activity was filled with lots of history and educational information for us to learn! This program is great for any student studying speech-language pathology who wants to get hands-on experience through the eyes of a different culture.

I was in Belize with Therapy Abroad for 10 days! We did Tyke's Camp in Belize City and also did screenings at a school in Caye Caulker. This trip was amazing and I learned so much from everyone who went and from Chad and Ellen. I am a junior at East Carolina University so it was an amazing experience to learn from graduate students, professors, and Therapy Abroad staff. It was also a great opportunity for me, as an undergraduate student, to get hands on experience working with kids in the camp and doing screenings. We worked with kids a lot during the week but we also went snorkeling, zip lining, and cave tubing! Belize has so much to offer and Therapy Abroad made sure we got to experience as much as we could during our time there! I really enjoyed my time in Belize and hope to go back one day!

As an undergraduate student, this experience was an adventure to remember. If you're going to do this program, be prepared to work all day long. Although it's a lot of work, the experience gained is worth it. Also, be ready to be flexible, especially when working with the children. Despite how prepared you are before Tyke's Camp, situations will come up that you are unable to prepare beforehand. For example, the day before camp, my group was scheduled to receive five children. At 7 pm that evening, the number went up to seven and the day of camp, five kiddos showed up. The second day of camp, seven children walked through the door, and we had to create more supplies for those children. Other challenges you cannot prepare for are the different types of expressive and receptive language disorders you will encounter in the various children.
Throughout the whole program, you have to be able to work on your feet and be ready for anything. I'm so glad I did this program though. I was able to observe assessments, treatments and even participate when testing a child as an undergraduate student. I would definitely come back and do this again if I could.

We began the trip by meeting our group leader, Ellen, who stayed with us from the beginning to the (almost) end of the trip and then Chad hung out with us the rest of the trip. They always make sure to keep you updated as to what is going on, where you need to be when, safety procedures, etc. They did a very good job about organizing this trip. I felt a little uninformed about the trip as a whole before we came to Belize, but as soon as we got here we had a meeting to go over the itinerary which cleared things up a lot. There was a lot of intensive work/camp throughout the week but the fun excursions on the weekends definitely made up for all the hard work. I really enjoyed doing the work, because then the excursions felt so much more worth it. Overall, this trip and the people who run it was incredible and I would definitely do it again and recommend it to anyone in the therapy field.