Progress is not always immediate. Some students make quick gains, while others require months — or even years — of steady support, consistency, and encouragement.
As clinicians, we often celebrate small victories that others may not even notice:
The work can be challenging, and sometimes growth happens slowly.
But meaningful progress is rarely built overnight. It is built through persistence, consistency, and continuing to show up.
This idea of grit applies not only to students, but also to the professionals, school teams, and organizations supporting them along the way.
As providers, grit often looks less like dramatic moments and more like steady commitment over time.
The concept of grit also closely mirrors the story of how Next Level Speech Therapy began.
Next Level was founded by Dayna Sanders and her husband Mike in April 2018. At the time, Dayna was working as a middle school SLP while raising a young family and preparing for the arrival of her second child.
After hearing about teletherapy and seeing a growing need for quality provider support, Dayna began exploring what it could look like to build something different.
Using relationships she had built throughout her career, she stayed connected with a former Special Education Director and secured Next Level’s very first contract — a maternity leave coverage position for a school district in Eastern Washington.
Like many new beginnings, those early days required a tremendous amount of grit. Dayna and Mike spent late nights building contracts, learning systems, and navigating the many moving pieces that come with starting a company from the ground up.
Over the years, Next Level has continued growing intentionally while maintaining a clinical-first mindset.
Today, we offer in-person, hybrid, and teletherapy opportunities as well as positions for SLPAs — but our core mission remains the same:
To support high-quality speech and language services for students while creating meaningful opportunities for providers.
Because we understand how much grit this profession requires, we work hard to support providers in ways that allow them to focus on what matters most.
That includes:
At Next Level, we believe great providers are not defined by perfection. They are defined by their willingness to keep showing up, adapting, learning, and continuing forward — even when growth takes time.