Speak Out August 2019 Digital Edition

Branch News

ACT/ New south wales

Right-O PBC Expo In late May, Members of the NSW Branch represented Speech Pathology Australia at the Sydney Pregnancy, Baby and Children’s Expo. Branch member Akshata Ajit Manelkar wrote about her experience helping out with the SPA stall. “I have attended the expo before a couple of times as a parent and have always found it impressive. This time I had the privilege to give back to our SPA association. The SPA stall at the expo had an ongoing mission of increasing awareness about speech pathology and what speech pathologists did in general as well as specific information and guidance to public regarding services and resources. Fifteen of us volunteers participated in this event. The expo itself was a huge event with a myriad of stalls, hosting everything you need, right from baby products to cell care stalls. It was a colourful place with people from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds. Everywhere smiling parents and bubs with balloons. Our SPA stall was simply yet neatly decorated with attention to minute details. We had bubbles and balloons which caught public attention and encouraged them to have a look at our valuable information and the kids to have some fun! The walls of the stall were lined with some important yet compact fact sheets from SPA. These provided information about helping babies to talk, ages and stages of typical speech and language development as well as a recently launched one on raising bilingual children. Several parents and would-be parents visited our stall, showing great interest in seeking information relevant to their children as well as asking for specific advice. The most commonly asked questions parents had pertained to bilingualism – whether they should use two languages with their child. Other stakeholders also visited the stall and were interested in knowing about our services and general information. A final exciting activity was the book raffle! We gave out a total of 139 tickets to people who had to tell us if they had heard about speech pathologists or not. A whopping 80% had heard of speech pathologists before, which was very encouraging. The prizes for the raffle were selected from the award-winning books of the year which were fun and informative for the kids and parents alike. All in all, the expo was a huge hit and I had so much fun volunteering at this one. I am sure it was a great learning experience for all of us. A special thank you to all the volunteers who put in their dedication and hard work to make this event a huge success! I am definitely looking forward to the next one.” Akshata Ajit Manelkar photos: Caroline Carmody

ACT 108 NSW 2912 members as at June 2019

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August 2019 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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