Speak Out August 2018

Capacity building from within: Speech pathologists working with early childhood educators in children’s centres

Speak Out • Why should we become communication accessible? • Becoming communication accessible – phone calls, resources, written information. Speech Pathology Australia has commenced the process of accreditation to obtain a Communication Access Symbol awarded by SCOPE as communication accessible communities is one of the aspirations in the Association’s strategic plan. National Office staff attended a training workshop on 27 June conducted by Libby Brownlie, Speech Pathologist and Meredith Allan (Disability educator), from SCOPE’s North-West Regional Communication Service. The workshop covered the following topics: • What is communication access? • Communication challenges for people with complex communication needs. “Incy wincy spider climbed up the water spout”. Two adults and a group of toddlers are sitting in a circle, the adults are enthusiastically singing and doing the actions and all of the children are joining in with some of the words and actions. It’s an unremarkable scene in an early childhood education and care setting. After the group ends the adults, one an early childhood educator and the other a speech pathologist, excitedly note that two of the children who rarely say a word whilst at childcare had joined in with the singing for the first time and appeared to be enjoying participating. The educator and speech pathologist have been working together with this group of children for several weeks using a capacity building approach to support the educator in engaging in responsive caregiving and promoting children’s communication, social and emotional development. Together they run sessions that involve play activities, book sharing and singing songs with actions. Before the session, the speech pathologist and educator discuss the underpinning rationale for activities. They are partners in this process with the educator drawing on her familiarity with the children, their daily routines and the curriculum to inform their planning. During the session they focus on responding to the children’s needs and using strategies and responsiveness skills, and afterwards they reflect together on their experiences of interacting with the children, using the strategies, and how the children responded. These two colleagues work in a children’s centre in South Australia. There are currently 45 Children’s Centres for Early Childhood Development and Parenting (children’s centres) under the SA Department for Education. Children’s centres are hubs for integrated community development, education and care, family support and health programs. Speech pathologists are employed in 0.3 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in most of the metropolitan centres, and mostly in 0.5 to 0.6 FTE positions in regional centres. Speech pathologist positions in children’s centres were created to facilitate early engagement and intervention with young children and families in centres that are often perceived as being less stigmatising than other early childhood health and disability services. While a major part of our role in children’s centres is working directly with families of young children, in this article we look at the role our speech pathologists play in building the capacity of their colleagues to support children’s communication, social and emotional development. Educators spend significant periods

of time with the children in their care, furthering their skills and confidence in using a relational, reflective approach to engage with children, which promotes optimal outcomes for development and wellbeing. Speech pathologists work with educators to build their capacity in a variety of ways including: • Coaching during routine activities in child care (for example, the speech pathologist might join the educator and a group of children playing with blocks and coach the educator in tuning into the children’s cues and interests, describing what the children are doing and lifting up and linking in reluctant or struggling speakers); • Running group programs together with some or all of the children in their care in which goals to promote children’s communication, social and emotional development are enhanced through strengthened relationships; • Running group reflection sessions where educators reflect on their experiences of interacting with children, their own positive responses and also unhelpful reactions that might have been triggered in the interactions, identifying children’s needs and ways of responding to them in future; • Providing tailored professional development. A 2013 evaluation of the benefits of having speech pathologists employed in children’s centres showed that families and staff found it helpful having ready access to speech pathologists in children’s centres and that working together was perceived as having had a positive impact on children’s development.

Jane Backhouse Speech Pathologist Jo Gerangue Speech Pathologist

Communication Access Accreditation

Next steps include the development of a communication board for the reception area and a communication access assessment will be scheduled to occur within the next six weeks. Once the Association is awarded this symbol it will indicate the following messages to the community: • Staff at this service treat people with disabilities with dignity and respect • People working here have skills that help them to communicate successfully with people with disabilities • Resources are available to help people get their message across (e.g. pain charts, reception boards) An update will be available in the next edition of Speak Out and in the national e-news.

August 2018 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au Mary Gornik National Advisor – Education, Early Childhood and Projects

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