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Creating sustainable services: Minority world SLPs in majority world contexts

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

JCPSLP

Volume 18, Number 3 2016

121

KEYWORDS

CLINICAL

EDUCATORS

SPEECH

THERAPY

SPEECH-

LANGUAGE

PATHOLOGY

VIETNAM

VOLUNTEERS

VOLUNTOURISM

THIS ARTICLE

HAS BEEN

PEER-

REVIEWED

Lindy McAllister

(top) and Sue

Woodward

T

he Australian Bureau of Statistics (2015) figures for

2014 revealed that 5.8 million people in Australia

(31 per cent) reported they had volunteered in the

previous 12 months, contributing 743 million hours to

the community. There has also been significant growth in

international volunteering in recent years (Baillie Smith &

Laurie, 2011). As the opening vignette shows, volunteering

internationally can have a profound impact on the volunteer.

It can also have significant positive and sustainable impacts

on host organisations and communities if volunteering

programs are well designed and well managed (Sherraden,

Lough & McBride, 2008; UNV, 2011). Conversely, negative

impacts such as cultural imperialism, reinforcement of

inequalities (Sherraden et al., 2008), and neocolonialism

(Karle, Christensen, Gordon & Nystrup, 2008) can

arise from poorly considered or managed volunteering.

Volunteer tourism or voluntourism, where volunteers

combine a holiday and tourism in a developing country

with engagement in a short term, humanitarian project,

has attracted considerable criticism in recent years

(Palacios, 2010). These projects frequently do not require

professional skills; for example, projects may simply require

free labour from people without construction or engineering

backgrounds to build a schoolroom, or a playground for an

orphanage. Outcomes may not address community needs,

or have sustainable outcomes for the host site, even though

volunteers may experience a sense of well-being arising

from their activities.

Lack of sustainability of volunteer endeavours has

been critiqued (see for example Devereux, 2008). There

is a lack of literature on the impacts and sustainable

outcomes of volunteer programs generally (Sherraden et

al., 2008), especially for health professionals engaging in

knowledge and skills transfer designed to build capacity

of host sites and training recipients (Meyer, 2013). Most

of the existing literature pertains to medical and nursing/

midwifery volunteers (e.g., Pieczynski, Laudanski, Speck, &

McCunn, 2013). There are few studies about allied health

volunteers, and to the best of our knowledge none about

SLP volunteers. Hickey, McKenna, Woods, and Archibald

(2014) noted that research is required into best practices for

volunteering in SLP and audiology volunteers. This paper

investigates the impacts on speech-language pathologists

resulting from volunteering as clinical educators (CEs) for

students in Vietnam’s first SLP course. It is important to

note that the evaluation of the impacts and outcomes from

the perspectives of the Vietnamese partners is critical to

Few studies have investigated the impact of

volunteering on allied health professionals’

personal and professional development. This

paper presents the findings of a study

exploring the volunteering experience of

speech-language pathology (SLP) clinical

educators in Vietnam. Twenty four volunteers

placed through Trinh Foundation Australia

provided clinical supervision to students in

Vietnam’s first SLP course during 2010–12.

Returning volunteers were invited to

complete a written survey and provide a short

summary of their experience. Twelve surveys

and six summaries were returned. These

responses were analysed using content

analysis and five categories were identified:

motivations for volunteering, managing

challenges associated with a different

culture, language and working with

interpreters, impact of the volunteer

experience on professional development and

clinical practice back home, and enhanced

skills and interest in clinical education.

Participants described the applicability of

knowledge and skills gained in Vietnam to

their practice in Australia.

I am a speech pathologist with over 30 years’ experience

in a number of different clinical settings including 12

years [in a specialist area]. … At this stage in my

career I was thinking that maybe my days as a speech

pathologist were coming to an end and I would pursue

other interests. The idea of volunteering in any capacity

had always interested me so when I discovered that

there was an opportunity to actually use my speech

pathology skills I was definitely interested. …

Volunteering in Vietnam was an incredibly worthwhile

experience which provided me with a challenge on

both a personal and professional level, and allowed me

to utilise my existing clinical skills and experience as a

student educator to assist in a small way in the clinical

education of the … Vietnamese students training to

become speech pathologists.

(Lisa – returned

volunteer speech-language pathologist to Vietnam)

Professional and personal

benefits of volunteering

Perspectives of international clinical educators of

Vietnamese speech-language pathology students in

Vietnam

Lindy McAllister, Sue Woodward, and Srivalli Nagarajan