JCPSLP November 2016

Creating sustainable services: Minority world SLPs in majority world contexts

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

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 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) culture, language and working with interpreters, impact of the volunteer

KEYWORDS CLINICAL EDUCATORS SPEECH

THERAPY SPEECH-

LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY VIETNAM VOLUNTEERS VOLUNTOURISM THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN PEER- REVIEWED

Lindy McAllister (top) and Sue Woodward

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JCPSLP Volume 18, Number 3 2016

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au