Speak Out OCTOBER 2021 DIGITAL EDITION

Each year the Vic Branch Student Portfolio hosts the SLP2B event. This event is for speech pathology students looking to learn about different areas of speech pathology from experts in the field. This year SLP2B was held online via the Speech Pathology Australia Learning Hub. This year’s presenters were from various backgrounds; some have decades of experience and a wealth of knowledge, while others are early in their careers and forging their futures as speech pathologists. The speakers included Susie Hawke, Marleen Westerveld, Robyn O’Halloran, Sterling Quinn, Holly Mitchell, Lucy FitzSimons, and Bridgett James. Participants were also privileged to hear from Meredith Allan, a highly respected and skilled user of augmentative and alternative communications, who is a passionate advocate for multimodal communication and speech pathology services. This year SLP2B was a two-part hybrid event. The first part began on Sunday 5 September, when videos from six speech pathologists, and one SLP consumer, became available to view on the CPD portal. The second part of the SLP2B event was a live Q&A held on the 27th of September via Zoom. The Q&A event began with a live presentation from Susie Hawke. Susie Hawke is a speech pathologist working in regional Victoria, who is passionate about supporting children to have the best start in life. Susie comes with a wealth of experience across a range of areas including health, disability, and education. BRANCH NEWS Victoria

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Looking back at SLP2B 2021

To conclude the event, audience members had the opportunity to ask all speech pathologists questions about their careers and ask Meredith Allan about her experiences with speech pathology services. Despite the challenges that the student portfolio faced, with the uncertain times surrounding COVID-19, students were able to successfully plan and deliver an event that was accessible on a national level for all participants to attend. Event attendees found the presentations and live Q&A insightful, saying it supported their understanding of what the speech pathology profession can offer and the career pathways available to them. Upon reflection, the student group has found an enthusiastic drive to continue to deliver high quality events for the years to come and will continue to embrace online events in the future. Keep your eye out for upcoming events hosted by the VIC Branch Student Portfolio.

SP Week activities

Brigette O’Leary speech pathologist at Southern Autistic School in Bentleigh East, Victoria shares what their team did to help celebrate Speech Pathology Week. "We had been planning our SP week since late in term 2, and some things had to be postponed such as our AAC morning tea. But we held a colouring competition for students using the colouring sheet from the SPA website and also one that we made on boardmaker. During SP Week Brigette and her team encouraged

parents to take photos of the students “wearing their words” i.e. wearing their communication devices, or communicating with confidence while in lockdown. They shared information in their newsletter, made a video for staff about SP week and AAC inspired by Amanda Hartmann’s recent book “AAC Rhymetime” and ran an information session about AAC for staff. Thanks for getting involved Brigette and team, we hope you will join in again next year.

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Speak Out | October 2021