Speak Out OCTOBER 2019 V3 DIGITAL EDITION

Strategy for speech pathology advocacy work

Northern Territory

This year the SPA NT branch have come together for two afternoons of advocacy planning to focus our energies and maximize impact around our strategic planning for 2020 and beyond. In February, 18 speech pathologists were joined by SPA’s Chief Executive Officer Gail Mulcair for a 4-hour Saturday afternoon discussion about the priorities around branch membership and professional advocacy. The final activity included an identification of issues surrounding our work. We nominated three key areas to discuss further. These were: 1. Waitlists – including the need for Public awareness around the 1-2 year waitlists for young children to receive services. 2. Recruitment and retention of speech pathologists in the NT – including the need for training pathways and support for new graduates in the NT. 3. Advocacy and engagement with Aboriginal health services. In a follow up meeting in May, 11 speech pathologists were joined by SPA’s Policy and Advocacy Advisor Mark Smith for a 3.5 hour Saturday session to discuss the three identified priority areas, brainstorm around the issues, choose a focus area and put some steps in place for moving forward. Through these activities, on behalf of the NT SPA branch we decided to work towards identifying key Aboriginal health and child related organisations and building relationships with these organisations. Further, we intend to better develop our own speech pathology resources to share with parents and partner organisations to both promote the profession and support families and community members with referral pathways, identifying service providers and what to do when they find themselves stuck on waitlists. We discussed the opportunity for pushing on politicians we meet in and around Darwin. The key branch message chosen was: Did you know that we have a real problem around waitlists in the NT? Our kids who need help eating, drinking, and talking are waiting 12 months or more to see a speech pathologist. temporary/short term programs to bridge gaps created by NDIS; Advocacy for increased services;

We need more speech pathologists to be embedded and employed within education settings and primary health care settings. Currently the SPA NT Branch executive are working on the strategic plan for 2020-2021 and will consolidate the suggestions from the advocacy day into actions for members. We also plan to map our activities against SPA’s Reconciliation Action Plan when launched. Events will include a member function in February/March 2020 where we invite Aboriginal organisations to meet with SPA NT to share what they do, and consider how we might support them in their mission (if appropriate). We also discussed the feasibility of presenting at NT community festivals (e.g. Barunga Festival) for awareness raising about the profession, and speech pathology presence for answering questions in the community. The Branch intends to author a paper in 2020 identifying what the speech pathology professional looks like in the NT including the needs and limitations of the current speech pathology services. The timing of this may well suit the commencement of the new Speech Pathology course at Charles Darwin University. Bea Staley, Erin Coonan, Kalee Dodd, Kate Lalor

NT 65 members as at August 2019

NT speech pathologist gather with SPA’s Policy and Advocacy Advisor Mark Smith to discuss advocacy priorities for the Branch.

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October 2019 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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