Speak Out June 2021

Member reflections INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2021

by Tiyana Jones

International Women’s Day is a distant memory in the lives of us busy speechies. This reminds me of something my mum often says about Mother’s Day, “it’s just a day of celebration, when we should be celebrating mothers every day, they are the women who gave us life”. I agree with her, we should be celebrating women and their achievements every single day, exceptional women who have put our profession on

rivers of NSW) and she decided to apply for a permanent full-time speech pathologist position at John Flynn Private Hospital. Her application was successful, and she is currently in her seventh year of work there. She is now a senior SP, with a special interest in head and neck cancer. Her future plans include expanding the head and neck cancer clinic and outpatient service, providing ongoing supervision and mentoring to students and junior staff, and further developing her own clinical knowledge and skills. What does our profession mean to you? "Being a speech pathologist has provided me with personal and professional learning/growth. I have gained experiences that have shaped the person I currently am. Our profession is diverse, and I have been able to develop skills in a number of range of practice areas. It has given me the opportunity to learn from world renowned academics, to be creative and to make a positive impacts on people’s lives. It has been an extremely rewarding journey so far, allowing me to educate and empower people." In your eyes, how has our profession changed the landscape for women? "Speech pathologists form an integral part of a multi- disciplinary team and play a vital role in ensuring quality of life for patients/clients. With our profession being dominated by women, it has shown how women have made/can make important scholarly, organisational and clinical contributions in this field. Our profession has shown how women support other women, with numerous mentoring groups/programs available. We are fortunate to have such exceptional role models in our field." What does International Women’s Day mean to you? "International women’s day to me is a world-wide day celebrating women’s achievements and raising awareness/ rallying for women’s equality. It’s a day that shows how far we have become towards gender parity, and how far we have to go. This day also acts as an opportunity for me to reflect and appreciate all the important women in my life, and to provide education to others."

the map, who have paved the way. From Pamela Snow to Julie Cichero, and who could forget our CEO, Gail Mulcair. How lucky are we to have learnt from the best and to rub shoulders with those who are most esteemed. Today I bring your attention to a group of speech pathologists that I interviewed, women doing work at the "grass-roots" level and making a positive impact on those they interact with. Below is a little blurb about each of them and answers to specific questions that they were asked. JESSICA SINGH Jessica Singh completed her Bachelor of

Psychological Sciences at Griffith University in 2012 and went on to do her Masters of Speech Pathology and she has not looked back since. Upon graduation Jess commenced a full-time speech pathologist locum position at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. She was eager to move back closer to home (which was in the northern

53

June 2021 | Speak Out