Speak Out June 2021

Association NEWS

Speech Pathology Week theme is set! Communication is everyone's right

In 2021 Speech Pathology Week will run from Sunday 22 to Saturday 28 August. The theme for the week in 2021 is: Communication is everyone’s right! Communication is a basic human right and Speech Pathology Week in 2021 will endeavour to alert the community to the role speech pathologists play in promoting this important fact. With more than 1.2 million Australians living with communication disability, the right to communicate has never been more important. The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted how isolating a lockdown can be for those faced with communication challenges. Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization released the publication, Disability considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak . It highlights the actions that are required to ensure that people with communication disability can always access the health-care services and the public health information they require, during the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond. People with communication disability were also disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak because of serious disruptions to the services they relied on. This meant that during the pandemic the delivery of telehealth for people with communication disability became critical. Public health information, like all communication material, must be fully accessible. This means ensuring public

health information and communications are delivered in understandable and diverse formats to suit different needs; and that there is not a reliance only on verbal or written information. This ensures appropriate means of communication are adopted or put in place so that people with intellectual, cognitive and psychosocial impairments have access to understandable information. Making Australians aware of communication disability, and that communication is everyone's right has never been more important. As in previous years, Speech Pathology Week will be promoted through the general media and a digital and social media campaign. A dedicated campaign kit will be available for members to purchase. Separate marketing collateral will also be supplied to state Branches to help promote their own Speech Pathology Week events. A digital campaign kit, initiated in 2020, will be developed once again in 2021 and will be accessible for download from the Association’s website. For more information about Speech Pathology Week and to order a Speech Pathology Week kit visit the Association’s website: speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/week

Michael Kerrisk Communications and Marketing Manager

www. speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/week

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Speak Out | June 2021