SP 2030 Report

What if… What if Australia’s economy was on the brink of collapse and public speech pathology services were drastically cut?

It took a decade for the economy to stabilise and for the country to recover from the natural disasters. Over this time, many new patterns of work were established. Professionals and clients alike recognised these new approaches as bringing significant benefits to the community, to efficient service delivery and to the job satisfaction of professionals. The lessons learnt resulted in a much greater investment in transdisciplinary training for pre-entry students. The application of technology to assessment and intervention was embraced and speech pathologists in all contexts (public, private, and not for profit) were working closely with a rapidly growing support workforce. Research reflecting some of the new and emerging ways of working began to be done and lessons were readily applied in practice.

• How willing would the profession be to delegate tasks and take on new roles?

• What factors would need to be considered in prioritising services?

What if transdisciplinary practices became the norm?

• What cultural and practice changes would be required to improve integration across health and human services? • What education and funding changes would be required to support transdisciplinary practice? What if technology was used much more extensively for clients to undertake their own speech therapy? • How would this effect the role of the relationship between clients and speech pathologists? • What access, financial, capability and equity issues would arise in implementing these approaches?

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www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/SP2030

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