Speak Out Dec 2016

Member profile

After a career as a lawyer and a pharmacist Julia Martin travelled a new path into speech pathology and discovered that her new role married her old life with her new. Multidisciplinary career path

“I’m one of those speechies that comes to the profession with what could be described as an ‘unusual background’. After qualifying as both a pharmacist and lawyer, and subsequently working in a number of different organisations including Baker and McKenzie (a top international law firm), I accepted my dream job in an overseas, senior leadership position. Nevertheless, after many years spending time on numerous planes and having lived and visited more cities and countries than I care to remember, I decided to return home and embark on a ‘sea change’. But what should I do? “My family stepped in with a plan. My parents and sister work together in a practice for children primarily with literacy- based special needs. They joke that it was only a matter of time before I returned to the fold. My father is a psychologist who was one of the founders of SPELD (Specific Learning Difficulties Association), now a national charity. My mother is a special education teacher and my sister is also a psychologist. They suggested I retrain as a speech pathologist so that we could work together in a multidisciplinary context. I did some research and contacted Dr Elisabeth Harrison, the convener of the Masters program at Macquarie University. I asked if I could have a chat with her the next time I was in the country and she obliged. I then made up my mind to undertake her program. I’ve now been practising in Sydney for two years. “I thought I’d left my old world behind but a new initiative, significant to speech pathologists, has allowed me to marry my past with my future in a way that assists the most vulnerable in our community, being our children. “I first heard of this initiative while reading Speak Out. The article discussed an upcoming pilot program to be trialled in Sydney and Newcastle for allied health care professionals (psychologists, social workers, OTs and speech pathologists) to work as witness intermediaries with children who have been sexually abused, by assisting them to communicate with both the police and the courts. I applied to the Department of Justice and was fortunate to be selected. Wow, my two worlds just collided. “Witness intermediaries are, in the first instance, requested by police to informally assess the communication skills of the child. Witness intermediaries then discuss the assessment results and make suggestions to police on how best to facilitate communication when they conduct their interviews. The interviews are taped and are later replayed in court. “Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans, APM, who is attached to the NSW Police Child Abuse Squad, reports that

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December 2016 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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