For more than 50 years, Saskatchewan’s Occupational Therapy and Speech Language Pathologist communities have advocated for a university program in our province that would educate and train students in these professions.

That dream will soon become a reality at the University of Saskatchewan.

You will meet Kara Broks and Tami Turner in this episode of YXE Underground. They are designing the province’s first Master’s program in Occupational Therapy and Speech Language Pathology and share with listeners why this work means so much to them.

For decades, if you were interested in becoming an Occupational Therapist or Speech Language Pathologist, you had to leave the province. That will change in September of 2026 when the University of Saskatchewan launches Master’s of Speech Language Pathology and Master’s of Occupational Therapy programs. Both of these programs will fall under the School of Rehabilitation Science at the University of Saskatchewan.

How these new Master’s programs will work together to meet the demand in our province is just one of the questions I had for Kara Broks and Tami Turner.

Kara is an SLP, creator and owner of the Speech Language Network business in Saskatoon, and is the Speech Language Pathology Implementation Coordinator with the UofS. She was also the third ever guest on this podcast in 2018.

Tami is an Occupational Therapist who has worked with universities across Canada developing OT programs and recruiting students and is the Occupational Therapist Implementation Coordinator with the UofS.

They have worked together for the past year building these new Master’s programs from scratch, with the help of many new colleagues, and are so excited for the positive impact it will have on people throughout Saskatchewan.

Kara and Tami are passionate about making a difference in our communities and I love how they have become dear friends through this process. You would never guess they didn’t know each-other until the university tasked them with creating two new Master’s programs.

I met with Kara and Tami last week in the University of Saskatchewan’s Health Sciences building to learn more about how all of this came to be and the impact their work is going to have in our communities.

Listen to YXE Underground wherever you find your favourite podcasts including Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the YXE Underground website.

Please feel free to leave a 5-star review if you like what you hear. Positive reviews really do make a difference in getting the podcast discovered by more people so thank you in advance for your help!

Thank you for continuing to support a local, independent podcast here in Saskatoon.

Cheers...Eric

• Host, Producer, Editor: Eric Anderson
• Theme Music: Andrew Dickson
• Website: https://www.yxeunderground.com
• Recorded: On Treaty 6 Territory and the traditional homeland of the Metis

It’s an overcast Saturday morning in late March and Station 20 West, located on 20th Street West and Avenue L South, is buzzing with activity.

People have gathered to learn more about Naloxone, how to safely administer it to someone overdosing from opioids, and to talk about what can be done to help our community get through this difficult point in time.

Saskatoon’s drug and overdose crisis has been all over the news. A CBC story notes the Saskatoon Fire Department has responded to 935 overdose incidents or suspected opioid poisonings since the start of the year. That’s compared to 376 incidents in the same time period last year.

The Saskatoon Library closed two branches for a month over safety and overdose concerns, and Prairie Harm Reduction, which we have featured on the podcast several times, temporarily paused its operations in March to give its staff an opportunity to deal with the trauma they are seeing every day in our city.

I think the local media and the Hard Knox Talks podcast have done an exemplarily job of telling the stories amidst this crisis, and I struggled to find a way to get into the crisis through the podcast.

Then I learned about this gathering at Station 20 West and thought there might be some people who would be willing to share their stories. So my wife and I went on this Saturday morning and we met some pretty incredible people. We also learned how to administer Naloxone, which you will hear in this episode.

We met Colleen Christopherson-Cote, Board Chair for Station 20 West, University of Saskatchewan doctoral candidate, Maryellen Gibson, and Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Saskatchewan, Barbara Fornssler. My sincere thanks to them for sharing their passion for helping others and their community in this episode.

You can listen and follow YXE Underground wherever you find your favourite podcasts including Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on the website.

Please feel free to leave a 5-star review if you like you what you hear. These reviews help the podcast get into more podcast feeds so I really do appreciate the support.

Cheers...Eric

• Host, Producer, Editor: Eric Anderson
• Theme Music: Andrew Dickson
• Website: https://www.yxeunderground.com
• Recorded: On Treaty 6 Territory and the traditional homeland of the Metis

Welcome to a special bonus episode of YXE Underground featuring a really wonderful person named Kyle Zurevinski. He is the Digital Media Program Assistant at the Remai Modern Museum and one of his largest responsibilities is curating and facilitating the film program at the museum. I have had the pleasure of working with Kyle on a few community projects in my role at Sherbrooke Community Centre over the past few years and he's just really great guy who loves his community and loves bringing people together.

Kyle brings people together by selecting thought-provoking, interesting and compelling films to the Remai, and we discuss how he chooses the movies in this episode. He also talks about the role movie theatres can play in forming community in Saskatoon and what it feels like to experience watching a film in a packed theatre.

I am so excited to be partnering with Kyle and the Remai Modern for a special community screening of the Pixar classic film, Wall-E, on April 17th. The show is free to the public (bring the entire family!) and will be screened at the Remai's theatre which you can find on the second floor. It starts at 7pm and I will be giving away free YXE Underground swag to everyone who comes! I love Wall-E and I think it connects in so many meaningful ways to the mission and values of the podcast. We will also be screening the short film that Saskatoon videographer, Molly Schikosky, and I made last summer to celebrate all things YXE Underground. I can't wait to see it on the big screen!

I hope to see you on April 17th and a big thank you to Kyle for not only being on the podcast but for making this community screening event happen. You are awesome, Kyle!!

Cheers...Eric

• Host, Producer, Editor: Eric Anderson
• Theme Music: Andrew Dickson
• Website: https://www.yxeunderground.com
• Recorded: On Treaty 6 Territory and the traditional homeland of the Metis