From the Executive Director 

 

Imagine for a moment what you would do or say if you found yourself in a room with the leading experts in stuttering therapy. Many of the well known speech therapies, such as Walt Manning, Peter Ramig, and Bill Murphy, grew up with a stutter themselves.

Well, if this sounds interesting, you just may have the opportunity to meet and talk with these and other experts - Jeanna and Glyn Riley, Gene Cooper, Nan Radner, Woody Starkweather, Charles Healy, and Hugo Gregory to name a few - who will be available to you at the International Fluency Association (IFA) Conference in San Francisco, August 18, 1997.

For the first time, IFA is sponsoring a consumer and parent track at their biannual conference now being planned collaboratively by consumers and professionals.

I want to thank Lee Reeves and Susan Reed for giving their input into our newly drafted 1.3- and 5-year Strategic Plan which was submitted to the NSP Board in February. It emphasizes chapter development, chapter facilitator leadership training, collaboration with the professional community, expanding opportunities for members to participate in SLP state conventions, expanding regional workshops to include parents, teenagers and adults who stutter, utilizing NSP members for community presentations on stuttering and development of parent groups.

The Board charged me with a number of projects to work on over the next year - coordinating the Year of the Child Who Stutters activities, professional relations, development of peer counseling models for our self help chapters and serving as a resource person to the national office. I look forward to working with you on these projects.

Please vote!!! It is your opportunity to have a voice on the NSP Board of Directors.

Finally, I want to thank 1500 members for their renewals and continued support.

Michael Sugarman
Executive Director