October2013_SpeakOut

NT’s SPWeek

Raising awareness about speech pathology in the Northern Territory

S peech Pathology Week was another busy week for speech pathologists in the Northern Territory. Starting a week early, the NT Branch hosted a stand at the Darwin and Alice Springs Careers Expo. While many students thought we were dentists at first, the stand gave us a great opportunity to share what speech pathology is and all the amazing things about choosing a career in speech pathology. Year 10, 11 and 12 students were particularly interested in the tastes of thickened fluids and we found this a good way to start the conversation about speech pathology. We launched SPWeek with a stall at the largest shopping centre in Darwin. While this had its challenges (in that people were wary of us trying to sell things or that we were politicians), we were able to talk to members of the public about communication in both adults and children. This included answering questions from concerned parents as well as connecting people to other services such as aphasia groups. We again displayed our banner on a busy Darwin road, this time opposite the Mindil Markets and on show to many locals and tourists visiting the iconic Darwin Markets. The week closed with two local speech pathologists, Amy and Margeux, running a Singing Group at the local library

From left: Melissa Lovell and Ashley Harling at the Darwin Careers Expo; Pari Kulkarni, Amy Southwood and Penny Mogg held a speech pathology stall at Darwin ’ s largest shopping centre..

Melissa Ridd and Amy Southwood displayed a banner near Darwin’s Mindil Markets to raise public awareness about speech pathology during SPWeek.

child’s development. The feedback was all positive with parents wishing they could attend something similar more often. A big thanks to all members who volunteered their time to assist with all the activities we managed to

accomplish over the week. Hopefully we have started the conversation around the NT and this will continue as we look forward to the International Communication Project 2014.

to spread the word about communication and how parents can start the conversation with their children. This was very useful as we were able to answer questions and provide information to parents who had concerns, such as the effect of prematurity on their

Melissa Lovell NT Branch President

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Speak Out October 2013

Speech Pathology Australia