What a year 2020 has been! It has been a year full of changes, challenges and difficult new normals. However, it has also been a year of opportunity and growth for us at Family Chatterbox. Today we are excited to introduce you to the newest member of our Family Chatterbox team, Tricia Armstrong. Tricia is joining our team after 20 years of work at Children’s hospital as a Speech-Language Pathologist who started, ran, and is largely responsible for the success of the Feeding program at Children’s. Tricia brings a lot of experience to our team but she brings even more passion and love for providing therapy for any little one who needs help with their speech, language, or feeding needs. We could not be more excited to have her join our team and our family! Here is a little more about her!
First tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Tricia Armstrong and I am so excited to be joining the Family Chatterbox team! I’m a Minnesota native and was born and raised in White Bear Lake. I went to college at the University of MN Duluth for both undergrad and graduate school. After 6 long cold winters in Duluth, my roommate and I decided we needed some warm weather, so after graduation we moved to Las Vegas, NV. I lived and worked in Las Vegas for almost 2 years when I got a call from a friend telling me about a job opportunity at Children’s Hospital back in MN. As wonderful as the weather was, I wanted to get back home to my family in MN so packed up my car, moved home and have lived here ever since. I have been married to my husband Ron for 19 years and we have two kids, Tommy is 17 and Jillian is 15. We live in St. Paul with our two Labradoodles Penny and Annie. In my spare time you’ll likely find me crafting, at a dance competition with my daughter or a baseball or basketball game with my son.
Why did you choose Speech-Language Pathology?
I first realized I wanted to be a speech therapist when I was at the 3rd birthday party for my cousin. I was a tweenager at the time and I remember standing around the table singing happy birthday and passing out cake and ice cream. Next thing we all knew the birthday boy was at the head of the table crying because he didn’t have a spoon or a fork but didn’t have the skills to ask for one. It was at that moment that I realized the power of communication and knew what I wanted to do with my life. There was never a doubt in my mind that I would work with pediatrics. I adore kids and the power of play and cannot imagine any other career!
What is your work experience?
When I moved to Las Vegas, I worked with birth to 3-year-olds for the county doing both center and home-based speech therapy. After just less than two years there I was able to land my dream job at Children’s Hospital in St Paul. I moved home and started at Children’s in 1997 and have been there ever since. I have worked with a very wide variety of patients including inpatients, outpatients, neonates, infants, toddlers, school age kids and young adults with every single diagnosis you can imagine. During my years at Children’s I became especially interested in feeding difficulties and disorders. I worked in the outpatient Feeding Clinic for all my years there and have given countless presentations and trainings on oral motor, feeding and swallowing difficulties. I love picky eaters (yep that’s what I said) and love finding ways to make meals something the whole family can participate in with as little stress and anxiety as possible. For my entire career I’ve been blessed to work on speech, language and feeding skills and I look forward to continuing to do so in the most powerful place of all, the home.
What are you most excited about when you think about joining Family Chatterbox
I am so excited to get to work with kids and their families in their homes. There is no place that can duplicate the home environment and being able to work with a child and their family in the place where they are most comfortable is so exciting for me! I am also excited to get to work with all the gifted therapists at Family Chatterbox. It took only a few minutes with Kasey for me to know what I wanted to be my next great adventure.
Lastly and most importantly … what’s your favorite food:
Easy… chocolate.
We could not be more excited to have Tricia join our family and believe she will help us grow in many ways. We may have only met a few weeks ago but we love having her on the team already and we know that you guys will as well. Welcome aboard Tricia!
-Kasey-