JCPSLP Vol 18 No 3 2016

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Creating sustainable services: Minority world SLPs in majority world contexts
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