The transformative power of mentoring: A conversation with Robin Pollens

Aphasia Access Conversations

Dr. Janet Patterson: Welcome to this Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast, a series of conversations about aphasia, the LPAA model, and aphasia programs that follow this model. My name is Janet Patterson. I am a Research Speech-Language Pathologist at the VA Northern California Healthcare System in Martinez, California, and a member of the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their efforts in engaging with persons with aphasia and their families through a variety of educational materials and resources. I am the host for our episode that will feature Robin Pollens, in which you will hear about the transformative power of mentoring. These Show Notes accompany the conversation with Robin but are not a verbatim transcript.

In this episode you will hear about:

1. the presentation of the Aphasia Access, Sandra O. Glista Excellence in Mentoring award to Robin Pollens,

2. stories about mentoring from Robin’s career as a speech-language pathologist, and

3. the power of a mentoring relationship to affect the relationship with people whom you mentor, from whom you receive mentoring, and with whom you share mentoring opportunities.

I am delighted to be speaking with my dear friend and longtime LPAA colleague, Robin Pollens. Robin is an ASHA certified speech language pathologist and held the positions of adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Western Michigan University, and clinical supervisor and coordinator in the Aphasia Communication Enhancement program. She also provided clinical speech-language pathology services through home health, and skilled nursing outpatient clinics.

In addition to her focus on LPAA, Robin is passionate about graduate education in speech-language pathology, palliative care, interprofessional collaboration and ethics, and has written and lectured nationally and internationally on these topics.

In 2023 Robin was awarded the Sandra O. Glista Excellence in Mentoring award from Aphasia Access. 2023 marks the inaugural award given to both Robin and Leora Cherney from the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago. The “Sandy” is awarded by Aphasia Access and recognizes an exceptional mentor who has demonstrated unwavering commitment, unparalleled guidance, and profound impact on the professional and personal development of others working in the aphasia community. The award is named in honor of Sandy Glista, one of the founders of Aphasia Access, and is a testament to her enduring legacy, and a reminder of the transformative power of mentorship.

Welcome Robin, to this edition of Aphasia Access conversations.

Ms. Robin Pollens: Janet, thank you. Thank you so much for all that intro, and it's nice to be here to talk with you today. I want to also right now, thank Aphasia Access for this honor. It was especially meaningful, towards the end of my career, to receive a mentorship award and to hope there's something that I did, or I said, or I wrote over the years that was meaningful to somebody else. I also appreciate that I'm sharing this inaugural award with a wonderful friend, Leora Cherney, and that this award is named for my close friend and collaborative partner, Sandra Glista. It's a real honor to have received it and an honor to talk with you today, Janet.

Janet: The feeling is mutual about talking with you, Robin, and the honor is certainly well deserved. Robin, as I mentioned earlier, you were honored with the Sandra O. Glista Excellence in Mentoring award. This award recognizes your commitment to mentoring individuals who are part of the aphasia community, including clinicians, researchers, persons with aphasia, and their care partners, students and others. Through Sandy Glista and this award, we are reminded of the transformative power of mentoring.

Robin, how do you envision the value of mentoring to individuals and to the Aphasia community?

Robin: When I received this award, it set me on the road to reminiscence. I remember being in, I think, undergrad, studying Speech and Hearing Sciences and I had not yet done any clinical work. I had the opportunity to sit and observe a grad student doing an aphasia assessment with a patient. I was sitting behind this two-way mirror and I'm watching, and my mind is going, “okay, she holds up this card; and then she writes something down; and then she has someone point.” That's what my mind was doing. Sitting behind the two-way mirror with me happened to be a visiting professor from Australia named Anne. She turned to me and said, “Look at all of that empathy”. And I went, in my mind, “Empathy, what does that have to do with it?” Then I looked through the mirror, and I saw that this grad student was talking softly and looking kindly in her eyes, and kind of patting the client when she got frustrated. I thought, “Oh, I guess that's part of this.” So I'm thankful for her (Anne) and I feel like she was my first mentor. She only said one sentence to me, but it set me on a path for what it means to be an SLP. I know that recently, like in the last five years, there's been more discussion in our field about the importance of counseling, and mental health and people with aphasia. When I would be watching a grad student doing therapy, and I'm supervising, sometimes I would see them having what I would call a counseling moment. I would make sure to let them know later, saying perhaps, “I saw when the patient was frustrated, you stopped the task and you talked with them kindly. They told you about some things that were happening, and you gave an empathic comment.” This is the way that I think about mentoring, that it's a pathway to learning or growth that comes out of your own experience, and then it goes on to others and recreates. I can go on and on with stories.

Janet: Please do tell stories, Robin, because I'm fascinated by stories. I have another question though, Robin, as you continue to tell me your stories, you've led right into the question that's on my mind. People may think of mentoring as one way, such as the experience that you had sitting behind the mirror and watching the graduate student. I see mentoring as an interactive relationship that goes multiple ways. I would love to hear more of your stories and learn about your thoughts about interactive mentorship. Does that make sense to you?

Robin: Yes, I do like that framework that you just said, Janet. And when I knew I was going to be doing this discussion with you today, of course, I went online, and I looked up mentoring to see what kind of definitions I might find. I actually found a website that I liked; it was Art of Mentoring. The definition for mentor they used was a coach, a connector, or even a challenger to help their mentees reach their full potential. The mentee will lead the relationship, inviting the mentor into their own inner dialogue to assist in working through, and I really liked that. I think that's ideally how the relationship can work. So, for example, when I was supervising the students in the ACE program, when it got to be in the middle of the semester, we would have a midterm conference and I would always say, “Tell me about your goals for yourself for the rest of this semester, how would you like me to help you?” The answers were so varied, there were some people that were very focused on the clinical learning tasks, they might say something like, I'm having trouble being in the conversation and keeping track of data, or this patient's talking so much, I don't know how to navigate the session to get everyone involved. So, there were clinical skills. Whereas there were other people that would say something like, I get so anxious before the session, I'm so nervous, it takes me a while after I met it to really be able to focus on what's happening. Those are two very different kinds of goals, and I wouldn't have known as their supervisor and mentor for that situation if I hadn't asked, and if they hadn't, let me know. So, I do think that that's important. I also think sometimes we have to seek out our own mentors; that's part of the relationship. In the beginning of my career when I was in my clinical fellowship year, I didn't have one of these strong clinical fellowship, amazing experiences that some people did, I was in a public school, and I had someone who was my supervisor. During that time, I was able to get a position in a different city, working in the hospitals, and another supervisor agreed to keep following me as the supervisor. In the hospital, I had some new patients that had had injuries, and I wasn't sure what to do. My supervisor didn't know anything about that, and I ended up going to a conference in Braintree, Massachusetts, and they were talking about this new thing called Rancho Los Amigos Scale, and I learned about it and brought it back. Sometimes throughout our careers, I think you need to actively seek out a mentor. I think I remember that Aphasia Access started a program where if you wanted to be a mentor, or you have a mentor, you can let them know; I think that's great, because there's always things that go on as your career continues that you may want to get some guidance for.

Janet: What I'm hearing you say, Robin, if I can paraphrase your words, is as an individual, a good thing is for one to be open to mentoring opportunities, whether you provide them or acknowledge them, when you see a student or a colleague performing in an empathetic manner, or for your own self seeking out someone to give you assistance. The mentoring could be a large role, such as in a CFY, or a lengthy one such as a two- or three-year relationship, or it could be a very short-term kind of mentorship. This seems to me to be what you're saying, make yourself open to learning and interacting with all sorts of people, because they can have an influence on your life, and presumably, you on theirs as well.

Robin: You summarized that great Janet. Yes, and I know that when I was working in home care quite a long time ago, I remember feeling in awe of the family members, the amount of care and the total concern, and they modified their life to care for their loved one. All of a sudden, I remember that feeling, and then fast forward two decades later, when some of my family members had illness, and I was in that role. I was drawing upon what I learned from them, which in turn, I share with our families of the people with aphasia when they're having medical situations. So hopefully, we're just all doing this for each other, throughout our lives.

Janet: What's the phrase “together, we're more powerful”, that's not it exactly, but our thinking together and the little pieces of information about mentorship or actions about mentorship, that you can recall from 15 or 20 years ago, that can help you today, are just as important as the word someone says to you this afternoon, about how you can be a better clinician, or you can give guidance to someone who is seeking it from you. Exactly.

Robin, in your position at Western Michigan University, I know you have mentored numerous students, and we could probably talk for months or years about wonderful stories. Some of them, most of them, I'm sure are successful, but there probably were a few that were less successful mentorship relationships. I know that you've mentored students, what I'm interested in learning from you is have you also mentored persons with aphasia or their care partners?

Robin: Yes, and I think there are different ways to mentor somebody with aphasia. I think the piece of it I'm going to pick up on has to do with helping them express their identity, helping them to reach their level. And again, I think for me, the roots of it came actually long before I knew about Life Participation Approach to Aphasia, it wasn't really articulated yet. I remember working in home care with a woman in her 40s. She had her stroke, and she had severe aphasia. But also, all of a sudden, she could no longer work as a crossing guard. That was her work, as a crossing guard for the elementary school. She also was no longer part of her caring circle at church, she was the one that greeted people, and sent get-well cards. I think that one really struck me because I was also on the caring circle at my temple. So, we ended up in therapy focusing on reading and writing, but in the context of being able to write sympathy or get-well cards. She made a dictionary of phrases you could write and things like that. So, fast forward to being in the ACE program, which was created by myself and Sandra Glista, to be a place where goals were addressed, not only the impairment level, but also the participation level, and there's certainly countless examples there I can think of, even from way back in the beginning, because it's in the article that we wrote. There was an organization in our city called Senior Corps, and it's actually in many states still. We trained some of the volunteers to communicate with people with aphasia, and then matched them with some of our people with something they wanted to do. So, one of the people ended up being, with his conversation partner, part of a bowling league, an accessible bowling league. He was young, he'd always been in sports, and he was just sitting home so that was his identity. Another person was matched with a woman who ended up going into a first-grade art class in elementary school once a week and helping out in that art program with her conversation partner. So, these were things that we started saying, we're working on communication, but we're also in some way guiding them towards a meaningful and participatory life. So that's one way, I hope that I've been a mentor for some people with aphasia.

Janet: I bet you have been a mentor for a lot of people with aphasia, because I can just visualize you thinking, and tapping into all the information from your former mentors, as you try to find ways to help an individual with aphasia, and his or her care partner or friend, take that step to being able to do whatever it is that they'd like to do, as well as they can possibly do it. I'm glad that you've had all these mentoring opportunities, and I think you're a leader in this field.

Robin: Thank you, Janet. I'd also say I think a way to be a mentor with someone with aphasia is also just having an authentic relationship with them, when their communication changes so much and people don't know how to communicate with them, and they don't know how to communicate with others. Being someone that they know they can talk with, they can relate with and laugh with, I think that in and of itself is a valuable way for interacting with somebody who has a sudden change in their communication.

Janet: You're talking about accepting someone for who they are, meeting them where they are, and together, you have a relationship that is built on trust, so that that individual would be more willing to accept from you, ideas that you suggest. They may be wacky ideas at the moment, but they certainly work in the long run. That relationship helps you both accept information from each other. I'm really curious, you've told us several stories about mentoring, and we'd love to hear many, many more. Can you think of a favorite mentoring experience you've had in some part of your career? Tell us one about one of those.

Robin: Sure, I'll name the one that I just got to go through. That was mentoring the next coordinator of the Aphasia communication Enhancement Program, which is Alison Mezcal. I had the great pleasure to stay for a semester while she was there, and we were able to do all of the coordinating. I already knew that she was a great clinician, she already knew the ACE program, she had been our student 10 years before. But the coordination piece, which is scheduling, and contacting people and planning, and all that would be new. So, we got to do it together over the semester and that was so satisfying to be able to do that. I also literally cleaned out the office and all the files and all the things so that it was ready for the next person. I know many people don't get to leave their position with the opportunity to do that, to directly mentor the next person, and it was a great pleasure.

Janet, on the mentoring website, they talked about their logo, and it was two geese flying in, here's what they said, “The geese at the front of the flock improve the aerodynamics to make it easier for the followers to fly; the geese at the back honk to encourage the front geese to keep pushing forward.” And they are constantly shifting position, meaning the mentor could be leading from behind or in front, and sometimes just flying alongside. And that's what I had the opportunity to do with Allison. So that was a great pleasure.

Janet: That was a great story, Robin. I just imagine the warmth it brought to your heart as you watch this living thing that you and Sandy created many years ago, move on to the next generation. But you know, I thought about something else, too, that this is part of, I think, what might be thoughts that a mentor has to consider. So, you've invested a lot in your ACE program, quite a bit over the years, and your heart and soul are in that, and you have mentored the next generation beautifully. But now you have to step aside. The next generation may have different ideas or may take it in a slightly different way, or may do things that you never even thought about. So, part of what a mentor has to do I would imagine, is also take a deep breath and know that you've done the best job you can. But then step aside and maybe your job now is to be at the back of that flock of geese and keep honking as the program moves forward under a new leader and a new director.

Robin: Excellent. Yes, and that's very fun. I have great confidence and hope, and in a couple of weeks Alison and I are meeting for coffee, and I want to sit back and just hear all about the things that she's creating.

Janet: That's wonderful. You are indeed a wonderful mentor, Robin, you've been a great mentor to me over the years, sometimes you knew it, sometimes you didn't, as a result of the conversations we've had, and through the different projects that we've done over the years.

Let me turn to a slightly different topic now. We've mentioned this a couple of times already, that for many years you worked with Sandy Glista, who is a dear friend to both of us. I believe that being honored through this award, receiving the “Sandy”, it must bring warm thoughts of your days working together. Please tell our listeners about how Sandy's friendship and collegiality have influenced you during your career.

Robin: I would say in the beginning, which would be the late 1990s, I'd say Sandy initially was a mentor, the kind of mentor that many people spoke about. In this regard, she was a connector, she connected people together. Well, she connected me to you, Janet, when you and myself and Ellen and Glenn did a project years ago on Cybersafety for people with aphasia.

I was doing homecare and Sandy was working on a project with keeping elders communicating. She invited me to be involved in this project and start having some Western students intern with me. Then she invited me to do a presentation on a topic she was starting out investigating, interprofessional education, which was a new thing. We were in a college, and we had OT and social work and all the different disciplines together. They did a presentation, I brought in my team, my home care, OT PT, social work team, and we proudly presented a case. It was after that, that she was going to be going on sabbatical and she asked me if I would take her place in working with people with aphasia at Western, and that's when I began actually working at Western, in 2002. Once she came back, we started talking, and creating and planning this new version of an aphasia program and for a couple of decades, we were collaborative partners. We would add to each other, fit to each other, enjoy being together, and have a wonderful creative experience, creating these ideas that we had and seeing them happen. If we did anything such as write something or present something, it was always Sandy Glista and Robin Pollens, or Robin Pollens and Sandy Glista, whether they were even present or not, because the ideas germinated from both of us. So, if you ever have the opportunity to have a work relationship like that, it's a real gift.

Janet: Our listeners can hear, I hope, the joy in your voice, as you're talking about that relationship you had with Sandy. I know that was a very special relationship for the two of you. I can see because I'm looking at your face right now, I can see the joy in your face. Recalling the close times and close work that you and Sandy had together, I'm sure that there were some disagreements or seeing things from different perspectives, but your last statement saying that it was a wonderful working relationship and you you'd like to see everyone have that kind of close, creative relationship, is admirable. So, thank you for that insight. Robin.

I'm also wondering who were some of the mentors that you and Sandy drew upon?

Robin: When Sandy went on sabbatical, she visited national and international aphasia centers, and she brought back the inspiration and the sense of community that she experienced there. I was reading the World Health Organization ICF with its impairment, activity, and participation parameters, and I could envision how we could use this concept to create goals for clients, and to create participation groups where clients could work on their impairment-based goals in the context of an activity of choice. Sandy and I studied relationship centered care, which came out of the Fetzer Institute here in Kalamazoo, and we envisioned a program where family members or care partners were part of the mission of a program. Finally, in our collaboration, we created a sequential way to educate the students through the semester to be able to provide this type of SLP treatment. On the first page of the article we published in 2007, you'll see a long list of people who inspired us. Those were ACE program mentors and as ACE continued, Elizabeth Nadler, Marie Koss-Ryan and Suma Devanga added their creativity supervisors. And I would add that once Aphasia Access was formed, there were many people in Aphasia Access, who became our collaborative mentors. So, thank you to everyone.

Janet: Robin, you said something about interprofessional education and interprofessional practice, and it kind of got lost in a sentence, and I'd like to circle back to that and acknowledge that you and Sandy were visionaries in this area. Nobody else was talking about interprofessional practice, or publishing about it, or making it happen. You and Sandy were at the forefront of that. I remember those papers that you wrote, talking about the value that each one of the rehab professionals could bring to the treatment of the patient and how they we can all reinforce the goals for the patient, the various goals. So, we all owe you a debt of thanks for that, as well.

Robin: I didn't realize that was that different. I just realized that we had the opportunity since we were at Western and there were the other professionals there, that each semester, we ended up creatively finding ways to coordinate with OT, or bring in a social worker or whatever it was. I have enjoyed watching the growth of this area of interprofessional over the last years and seeing how it's appreciated.

Janet: I think it's very important. A previous Aphasia Access Podcast, #84, was with Mary Purdy, who talked about interprofessional collaboration and related a specific story where she and a physical therapist work together to achieve the particular goal of one of their clients. Another podcast, #78, with Michelle Gravier, Albert Mendoza, and Jennifer Sherwood described an interprofessional exercise program. I'm so glad that there is a greater appreciation for interprofessional education and interprofessional practice these days.

So, Robin, as we bring this conversation to a close with thoughts, or as I like to call them Monday Morning Practices, do you have ideas that you could share with our listeners, things that they might either think about in the long term, or that they might do on Monday morning when they see their clients?

Robin: Well, I almost feel teary as I'm answering this, but I'm going to work through this teariness. I'm thinking about beginnings. And I'm thinking about endings. And so, I'm thinking about making sure that in the beginning, if someone's in the hospital and has new stroke or new aphasia, whatever it is, that you are giving them hope, as described as important in the article way back by Avent, Glista and others, and I can't talk without giving a story, Janet.

I’m remembering in homecare, seeing a new patient with severe aphasia, not much talking. The wife left the room while I was in the session, and I noticed a deer’s head on the wall. So, I took out a piece of paper and I wrote down some written word choices, you know, baking, gardening, hunting, whatever. I said, “Tell me, I want to learn about you.” And he pointed to hunting, so we ended up having the whole conversation using supportive communication strategies and written words. At the end of the almost hour, his wife came in the room, and I said to her, “Oh, I just was hearing about the time that he and his brothers went up hunting up by Lake Michigan, and they had that rainstorm, and then the roof was leaking.” She looked at me and said, “How did he tell you that?” So, I took out the piece of paper, and I showed her our conversation, basically, with words and drawings. He had already gone through acute care, and inpatient rehab so I said to her, “Didn't anybody show you this along the way?” And she said, “No.” So that's one of the messages that I often like to express - the importance in the beginning of giving the family a method to be able to communicate because that's a way of giving hope. I can also quote another colleague of mine, Marie Koss-Ryan, who did some acute care pretty recently: same thing - she went in the room, new stroke, new severe aphasia. He was trying to read his menu to order breakfast and couldn't do it. So, she took out her iPad, pulled up a page of juices, and said,” What kind of juice do you like?” and he pointed to tomato juice. A little while later the tray came and then his wife came for the day visit and she saw the tomato juice, and she burst into tears? Marie asked what was wrong, and she said, “How did somebody know he drinks tomato juice every morning for breakfast.” She took out her iPad and showed her how you can pull up pictures. To me that's giving hope through a way to communicate. So that's the piece from the beginning. And I can't help but mention just briefly, to also remember if you are working in palliative care and end of life care, to also show up as a speech-language pathologist that can help people to be able to communicate as best as they can, even if it is at the end of their life.

Janet: Those are, are very important points, I think, to start us off to remember the power of communication. And then also to know that there are lots of messages people wish to convey towards the end of their lives. How can we help them convey those messages?

Robin, this has been an amazing conversation. And I know that you and I will have many more opportunities to talk to each other. I just wish we had many more days right now to listen to the stories and share the thinking and the insights and the bits of mentorship we have received from each other and from people in our clinical worlds. So, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I am proud to call you my friend and my colleague, and again, congratulations on receiving the Sandra O. Glista Excellence in Mentoring award. I know Robin, that when I asked you to be interviewed for this podcast, you were initially reluctant, as is your style. I'm so glad that you finally agreed because the messages that I'm hearing in our chat today, they're far beyond you and me. They're about the power, the transformative power, of mentoring, no matter who you are, or who you mentor. So, I thank you, and on behalf of Aphasia Access, I want you to know how humbled I am by your long-standing commitment to mentoring. I believe that even though you are retired from Western Michigan University, you have many future mentees that will also be humbled by your long-standing commitment to aphasia, to people with aphasia, to their care partners, and to mentoring.

Robin: Thank you, Janet. Thank you very much. And I guess I will say this ended up being a gift that you gave me to be able to do this. I mean, we should all do it for each other to give them a chance to reminisce and tell their story and get perspective and life. So, thank you.

Janet: You are more than welcome, Robin. I would also like to thank our listeners for supporting Aphasia Access Conversations by listening to our podcasts. For references and resources mentioned in today's show please see our Show Notes. They are available on our website, www.aphasiaaccess.org. There, you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy. If you have an idea for a future podcast episode, please email us at [e-mail]. For Aphasia Access Conversations, and again thanking you Robin Pollens, I am Janet Patterson and I thank you all for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access.

To engage in further conversation about mentoring, Robin can be reached at [e-mail]

Reference List

APPENDIX B: Rancho Los Amigos Scale-Revised. (2011). Continuum (Minneapolis, Minn.), 17(3 Neurorehabilitation), 646–648. https://doi.org/10.1212/01.CON.0000399079.30556.03

Avent, J., Glista, S., Wallace, S., Jackson, J., Nishioka, J., & Yip, W. (2005). Family information needs about aphasia. Aphasiology, 19(3–5), 365–375. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687030444000813

Glista, S.O. & Pollens, R.D. (2007). Educating clinicians for meaningful, relevant, and purposeful aphasia group therapy. Topics in Language Disorders 27(4), 351-371. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.TLD.0000299889.62358.6f

Pollens R. (2003). Home care. Hom Healthcare Nurse, 21(5), 348. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004045-200305000-00015

Pollens, R.D. (2020). Facilitating client ability to communicate in palliative end-of-life care: Impact of speech–language pathologists. Topics in Language Disorders 40(3), 264-277. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000220

URL

The Art of Mentoring

https://artofmentoring.net/what-is-mentoring/

Aphasia Communication Enhancement Program, Western Michigan University https://wmich.edu/unifiedclinics/vanriper/aphasia

Fetzer Institute

https://fetzer.org/

Aphasia Access Podcast Conversation #84 Interprofessional Practice and Interprofessional Education: In Conversation with Mary Purdy

https://aphasiaaccess.libsyn.com/interprofessional-practice-and-interprofessional-education-in-conversation-with-mary-purdy

Aphasia Access Podcast Conversation #78 A Llama, a Resistance Band, and Neil Diamond Walk Into a Bar - An Interprofessional Exercise Program for Individuals with Aphasia: A Conversation with Michelle Gravier, Albert Mendoza, and Jennifer Sherwood

https://aphasiaaccess.libsyn.com/a-llama-a-resistance-band-and-neil-diamond-walk-into-a-bar-an-interprofessional-exercise-program-for-individuals-with-aphasia-a-conversation-with-michelle-gravier-albert-mendoza-and-jennifer-sherwood