Speak Out August 2018

From the President

Meeting at national conference, we accept nominations all year! If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact National Office or Belinda Hill, Vice- President Communications. Talking of conference for 2019, the call for papers is open with abstracts currently being accepted for proposed papers, workshops and posters. The conference is co-hosted with the New Zealand Speech Language Therapy Association and promises to be an exciting event. The keynote speaker and the Elizabeth Usher prize winner are announced in this edition of Speak Out . With CPD in mind, it is timely to take a minute to recognise the contribution of Sharon Crane, the Association's Senior Advisor Professional Education and Certification, for her 20 years of service to the profession and Association. Sharon has worked tirelessly (and very hard!) over the last 20 years for the Association to bring us the professional CPD program that we have today. Sharon is always the friendly helpful voice at the end of the line, and her focus on working with and for members has achieved a strongly subscribed and valued continuing professional development program. This month the Board of Directors of Speech Pathology Australia will meet, and we will be discussing the direction of the Association and how we are meeting members’ needs. Later this month the Speech Pathology Ethics Board will be meeting to train its members and to discuss how best to continue to support the profession to practice ethically in the changing landscape of service provision. Together with Speech Pathology Week , it promises to be an eventful month! I hope that you can find some time this month, amongst the mid-year busyness to take some time to read this edition of Speak Out and find out more about the projects that your Association is completing, and your colleagues are participating in. Best of luck with those Speech Pathology Week activities – I look forward to reading them about them!

Communication Access is Communication for All is our theme for Speech Pathology Week this year from 19–25 August. Through highlighting the impact of communication disability on participating in everyday (and special) events and the simple steps that can be made to ensure that everyone is able to participate, we aim to increase public awareness of communication disability. I hope that your planned event at your workplace, participation in your Branch event or social media posts go well, and I look forward to reading about them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with the hashtags #SPweek. As part of our strategic plan and to achieve our aspiration of Communication Access for All, Speech Pathology Australia is working with SCOPE Victoria to receive the Communication Access Symbol, to ensure that our Association's National Office is accessible to all seeking information on speech pathology services. Continuing our work towards the Speech Pathology 2030 aspirations, the Association is working to develop its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Reconciliation Plan. A workshop was held at our national conference in May to further develop actions for the plan and we have sought advice from the Association's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members. Over the next few months, Branches and members will be consulted through a survey to seek input into the plan, in readiness for its release in mid-2019. This edition of Speak Out also celebrates the 2018 National Conference held in Adelaide. It was a succesful conference, congratulations to Barbara Lyndon, and the CPC and Pam Richards on a stimulating event. Congratulations also to our award winners this year: Robyn Stephen, Alison Smith, Helen Smith and Roslyn Neilson – your achievements are inspirational. As you read the summary biographies of our award winners, think about whether anyone that you work with could be nominated for an award. While the awards are presented at the Annual General

Gaenor Dixon

Gaenor Dixon National President

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August 2018 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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