Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Cato.
Jamie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Growing up, I had opportunities to interact and connect with children with disabilities. I also fell in love with sign language, as well as the field of communication. After finishing my degrees (undergrad at Baylor & graduate at UTD), I worked both in the public school setting and for UTD Callier Center. At UTD, I was able to work closely with families with children on the autism spectrum in early intervention. In addition to partnering with families, I was also able to train graduate students, which to me was critical to impact the next generation of speech pathologist to provide exceptional care to children and families.
After having my own children, my perspective of parent training and support intensified. My son, Jude, needed physical therapy for over a year. Being on the other side of the therapy process had a big impact on me. Starting Holland was two-fold — I wanted to be able to have more time to provide support for my son while he was needing PT and I also wanted to design intervention with a strong partnership with families.
Years ago, a mother of a child that I worked with shared the poem “Welcome to Holland” with me. The poem describes planning for a trip to Italy only to arrive in Holland. Once in Holland, all of the guidebooks about Italy are irrelevant, so new guidebooks are needed for Holland. My goal as a speech pathologist is to be a guide to families. I want to celebrate with them, learn with them, work through challenges with them, and see their child develop and grow.
I left the consistency of my job to pursue my own practice not knowing it would survive. In the beginning, I would often say, “If Holland is still around…”. What I didn’t know at the time fully was that my passion for how children and families are served, as well as the fruit that comes out of a strong partnership with families, would drive me to grow in ways I didn’t expect to make it happen. “If Holland is still around” became “What IF we could”. I quickly learned in the early days of Holland that although the DFW area has many options for treatment for children with communication disorders, not every treatment approach includes the family. There is a difference in saying we resource the family and actually equipping the family.
Today, Holland is a team of passionate clinicians and individuals who are excited to serve families. We are able to provide a variety of services in partnership with individuals & families, schools, and the community.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I started Holland at a time, in which I was actually reducing my work schedule for my family. This meant I had to be creative and effective with my time. I took calls in the grocery store, I made plans and wrote reports in evenings after my kids went to bed. The interesting thing is when you are driven, you are able to learn to make things happen. I never thought I would be learning about the backend of website hosting or legal terms of a contract. In small business you take on many hats, IT support, sales and development, clinician, custodian, and so on. One of the greatest blessings is at every stage of Holland I have had my husband, Chris, support me. He was walked alongside me and encouraged me and done countless things to make Holland run smoothly.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Holland Speech & Consulting story. Tell us more about the business.
Holland specializes in providing speech therapy services in a way that emphasizes looking at the individual and a family as a whole. We want to provide services that affect everyday life, whether that is being able to relate and understand peers, make friends, have a successful job interview, know how to facilitate early language development for your child or communicate your emotions.
Holland is a true partnership between patient and clinician. The goal is not just the result of a therapy session, but the stage we set to make communication happen in a motivating context. We want to know that a family feels supported to be a critical part of the process.
We constantly are brainstorming to innovate new ways to serve. We provide a variety of camps targeting areas under the umbrella of speech therapy (social language, receptive/expressive language, fluency), as well as reading and handwriting foundations.
We have a team of speech pathologist who are specialized in their area of expertise and are passionate about serving individuals and families.
A big part of Holland is also that it is a family business. My children are being raised seeing their mom as an entrepreneur who serves others. They see the hard work and the fun that comes from that. It never hurts that mommy’s clinic has tons of toys & games, as well as a snow cone truck at our Open House.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I say often that Holland would never have happened without my son needing physical therapy. If I hadn’t walked away from my job at the university, I wouldn’t have seen the impact it had on families to lose a trusted clinician and not know who would be their resource.
I truly believe Holland is where we are today because we answered the need of equipping and valuing parents in the therapy process. Of course, much hard work and strategic thinking as well, but ultimately, we look through the lens of “how can we serve” and “what if”.
Contact Info:
- Address: 580 S. Denton Tap Rd. #270
Coppell, TX 75019
*we also provide services in Dallas & Plano - Website: www.hollandspeech.com
- Phone: 469-763-9459
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hollandspeech
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hollandspeech/
Image Credit:
Courtney Christianson
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
