When Roxanne Bois opened up her business, RBois Speech & Language Services d’orthophonie, in Sudbury, Ont. in 2017, she realized she needed to help fill service gaps.
That passion slowly led to the expansion to full-time operations in August 2022, and a concerted effort to offer services others were missing.
“I started with casual, after-hours work on-the-side in 2017, but eventually the need for services in Northern Ontario showed I had to move to full-time operations and take my business to the next level,” said Bois.
“I had initially transitioned away from high school language teaching after my son’s birth. Entering the field of speech language pathology was deeply influenced by my personal experience as a special needs mom. My son, who is now 15 years old, is non-verbal. He communicates with an iPad, some sounds and gestures. Seeing his therapies as a toddler pulled me in and made me want to do this work.”
From a philosophical point of view, Bois says communication is key to understanding each other in this ever-changing world.
“It’s just the biggest means of connection, and I’m passionate about making sure connection is established in the best way possible. I value clear and authentic communication, and the potential for my practice to help make that more achievable.”
The organization is consistently sticking to their core values, including family, passion, eco-friendly work, accessibility, acceptance and more.
“We have a huge commitment to eco-friendliness. We want to have a sustainable practice and buy materials second-hand. We get recycled office supplies and aim to get a hybrid company vehicle. We also are big on accessibility and acceptance,” she said.
“We are neuro-diversity-affirming, and we celebrate clients for who they are. We don’t want people to just fit into a mould. We are client and family-centred and go above-and-beyond to provide the best treatment. We can travel to people to make things easier for them.”
Among the services they are most proud of is gender-affirming voice intervention.
“The affirming voice therapy is something that’s hard to find here. It’s catered to transgender or gender-non-conforming or non-binary people who are looking to change how their voice is perceived by others. Whether it’s a change in modulation or modification, this is an important thing we want to do,” she said.
“I’m fully trained and one of the assistants here is as well. We just want to get the word out and help people find us. I’m not sure the community fully knows we’re here yet, and we want for it to be known that it’s accessible in the North.”
Another important piece for Bois and her staff is swallowing intervention, which is hugely beneficial for her patients, especially the older ones.
“It’s one of the less-known areas of the career, but because the act of swallowing stems from the head and neck, it’s contained within the practice of a speech pathologist. We go in and essentially watch the client eat, and see where the difficulties lie,” she said.
“We offer treatment to make swallowing safer and more comfortable, as issues often arise where people are choking while eating or drinking, having difficulty swallowing foods, struggling to chew, or have heartburn causing issues. There’s real evidence-based value in intervention to improve swallowing, and we’re happy to offer it.”
Finally, Bois is excited to be able to offer services from herself and her staff in multiple languages, something she says the area needs.
“We offer in-person services in Sudbury, but also in most of Northern Ontario and virtually throughout all of Ontario whenever appropriate. We are expanding the variety of languages we offer communication intervention in,” she said. “We offer in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, some Indian languages, and we’re expanding.”
Bois has a lot on her plate, but there are even more incredible things coming for the business that she’s excited to share.
“We have a partnership coming with a health centre on Manitoulin Island, and we’ll partner with a school board for a contract. We also hope to open an express autism hub, which is a huge passion of mine. It will be a meeting place where autistic youth and their families can go to have their needs met under one roof,” she said.
“We also hope to cater our adult services more, and branch into aphasia (post-stroke) intervention. We will continue gender-affirming and swallowing intervention, and also focus on addressing caregiver burden by partnering up with a psychotherapist. We have really big things on the horizon.”
For more information about Bois’s business and their core values, visit her online here.