Speech Pathology Australia - Allied Health Assistant Feature

in focus

to train our AHAs in some of that background on the NDIS and explain our service to them. “I do think there are a lot of people who are a bit hesitant to employ an AHA. I think reaching out to colleagues that have worked with AHAs and learning from their experiences is important. I think connecting with other speech pathologists that are employing allied health assistants or having a community of practice to bounce ideas off would be valuable. “I think that another challenge is that some clients want a particular person to be their allied health assistant. I think there's lots of speech pathologists who are worried about how to structure that and how to provide for that. Sometimes we found the best AHA’s this way. My sister for example has a child with an NDIS plan. If she said, ‘I want to use this person because they've got a good rapport with my child with autism’, we’ve got to consider it. It is hard because we're (speech pathologists) so good at risk managing sometimes we need to put our person-centred hats on and go ‘ok’, that will be ok." "...looking at the values that somebody needed to have were, at times more important than the qualifications."

“So if someone was in private practice, for example, they wouldn't think that in order to expand a business and be more profitable hiring additional AHAs would work. You wouldn't approach it like that. You would probably approach it more from the point of view that AHAs are enablers for the speech pathologist to cover more ground with clients. “They (AHAs) do need most of their day to be billable. “Speech pathologists really need to have a clear budget and financial modeling in place and be keeping an eye on that when employing an AHA. There is also the investment in time that goes into recruitment and training. “When speech pathologists are working with NDIS clients they need to be familiar with the NDIS price guide and they do need to make sure that what they're charging for is covered in their service agreements. For example, if we did a joint appointment with a therapist and AHA, to monitor the program or provide some training to the AHA then the NDIS participant would be charged for both the speech pathologist and the AHA’s time. This would need to be explicit in your service agreement with the client. “You really want to maximise using the AHA, and build into the work culture to look for opportunities to delegate some of the work to an AHA. “Speech pathologists need to consider how working with an AHA fits within their particular business or program model. And to understand the financial implications. “I did a lot of work on accessing the qualifications for AHAs and struggled to find courses that specialised in speech pathology. We started out by calling our positions therapy facilitators. I guess we wanted it to be really clear about what they were going to be doing. There are many AHAs in NSW that support other disciplines and do more general work such as confirming appointments, or managing equipment etc. But it is a different role in speech pathology practice, especially when you are implementing a program. “When you're recruiting, you really need to be clear of their qualification and if their level of experience is appropriate for your team. We found that looking at the values that somebody needed to have were, at times more important than the qualifications. Because they can learn the skills. Coming from that value space was often important. “I think communication and training are very pertinent to the role. As speech pathologists we have got to be mindful that we've completed at least a four-year degree and had many years of clinical practice. Yet this might be something very new to an AHA, so they are going to need support and they are probably going to need to learn things that they may have never done before. For example, we had

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Speak Out | June 2021