Speak Out April 2018

Hydrate and

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the survey by the cut-off date at the end of January (response rate 1.90%). • Reported use: 78% of the survey respondents had displayed the poster in their centre, 74% used it to get information and discussed it with their colleagues. • Ease of use: Over 90% of respondents found the poster visually appealing. 89% found it easy to understand. Two rural centres suggested that the poster size could be reduced due to limited display space available at centres. • Relevance: 89% found the poster relevant to their work. • Change in knowledge/understanding: Over 70% agreed (slightly to strongly) that staff learned new information from the poster, and have a better understanding of what speech pathologists do, including how to contact speech pathologists. Feedback from the speech pathology community and general population was informally collected via SPA’s Facebook post promoting the online toolkit. As of February 2018, this post has been “liked” by over 1,800 Facebook users and shared over 1,300 times, with many users tagging colleagues and parents. User comments included: • “...printed, laminated and up in the [hospital] clinic waiting room. Also distributed to the child health nurses and paed OT/PT teams. Thank you SPA and the team who made this happen.” • "Was happy to see it published… I think it will be very useful – although we all know the effective communication is much more complex than ‘tick a box.’ The emphasise [sic] on the importance of early referral if any concern exists can never be overemphasised.” Recommendations Following the highly successful outcomes of the resource, the following has been suggested to the SPA Board: • A nationwide rollout of the poster, • Modifications to suit a wider audience beyond that of ECEs, • Distribution to parent support and early childhood organisations, • Promotion within a range of settings, e.g., hospitals, GP clinics, child health services, libraries and pre-prep programs at schools (and interstate equivalents), • Translation and adaptation of the content of the resource for various cultural and linguistic populations within Australia, • Ongoing promotion of the contents of the resource via social media. The Queensland Advocacy Portfolio and Communication Milestones working group thanks all who were involved in the realisation of this wonderful resource, and hopes to continue its collaboration with SPA National Office in scoping and implementing the next phases of this project.

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April 2018 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

Speak Out