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Creating sustainable services: Minority world SLPs in majority world contexts
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JCPSLP
Volume 18, Number 3 2016
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
Bea Staley (top)
and Suzanne
C. Hopf
required for developing a speech assessment tool for the
Vietnamese context. In Atherton, Davidson, and McAllister,
a participatory research project reveals the voices of
Vietnam’s first SLP graduate cohort as they embark on
the next stage of their professional development journey.
All papers have in common a focus on future professional
growth that involves international collaboration but
importantly is not defined by that collaboration.
In the papers by McAllister, Woodward, and Nagarajan,
and by Barrett, our lens turns to the lessons minority-world
SLPs learn through international collaborative relationships.
McAllister et al. describe the transformative learning
experiences of volunteer minority world-SLPs in the role
of clinical educator (CE) in Vietnam. The authors report
that many skills learned by the CEs in Vietnam are readily
transferable to the CEs’ work environment in Australia
(e.g., working with translators, developing intercultural
competence). Barrett then draws upon experiences as
a minority-world SLP in East Africa to critique whether
available cultural competence theories can be applied
to an increasingly mobile speech-language pathology
workforce. Barrett suggests that current theories of cultural
competence need to evolve to reflect changing concepts
of culture.
As we think about change, this can be extended
also to the way services and training SLPs has typically
been conceptualized. Olszewski and Frank remind us
that if communication is a basic human right – one we
are passionately striving to work towards on a global
scale – we may have to re-consider and re-envision the
way we train service providers and implement services
in our field. Olszewski and Frank describe an innovative
model for training SLPs through NextGenU, a free online
program which partners with organisations, governments
and universities. Their paper suggests that technology
may break down the financial and environmental barriers
that often prevent people living in majority-world countries
from receiving specialist training and pursuing careers that
support PWCD.
What is abundantly clear in reading these papers is
that no single framework for service development suits all
contexts. For example, we see Wylie, Amponsah, Bampoe,
and Owusu directly apply the social, environmental,
and economic dimensions of sustainable development
embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals (United
Nations, 2015) to their own experiences in Ghana
People in all countries have called for a development
agenda that is more consistent with the realization of
their human rights, and which reflects the day to day
reality of their lives.
(UNDG, 2014, p. iii)
T
his quote from the United Nations (United Nations
Development Group [UNDG], 2014) ushered in
a global conversation in which 4.5 million people
from almost 100 countries discussed the “future world
that people want” (2014, p. 1). As speech-language
pathologists (SLPs) advocating for the human rights of
people with communication and swallowing disabilities
(PWCD) globally, we want our services to reflect the needs
of the communities in which we work. There is considerable
interest in the development of speech-language
pathology in global regions experiencing poor availability
and accessibility of speech, language and swallowing
clinical services. This is particularly the case for services
in majority-world countries. Consequently, this issue of
JCPSLP
discusses the varied roles of minority-world SLPs
working with our colleagues in majority-world contexts.
There is a long history of minority-world clinicians working
in varied international contexts. In the late 1990s SLPs (e.g.,
Hartley, 1998; Marshall, 1997) began to write about their
work in majority-world contexts (e.g., Kenya and Uganda)
and to develop frameworks for other SLPs to apply in
their own work (e.g., Hartley & Wirz, 2002). These authors
highlighted the need to document speech-language
pathology work in new locations so that a knowledge base
could be developed and drawn upon by other clinicians.
The papers in this special issue build on the ideas of these
SLPs and the many more published since.
Ensuring that the voices of the local context are
heard is a recurrent theme of this issue. Nearly all of the
articles presented include the voices of SLPs, or their
local equivalent, native to the majority-world context
discussed. For example, three papers from Vietnam
provide insight into how the relatively new speech-language
pathology profession is capitalising on past – and indeed
continuing – minority-world SLP collaboration, and
indigenising
international speech-language pathology
concepts and curricula for the local context. The Nguyen,
Dien, Sheard, Xuan, Tâm, Va˘ n Quyên, and Dao paper
provides an account of the history and current clinical and
advocacy practices of new graduate Vietnamese SLPs,
while Pham, McLeod, and Xuan describe the process
Special issue
A diverse global network of speech-language pathologists
Bea Staley and Suzanne C. Hopf