Career History & Training Log
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Career History

Qualifications

•  BSc(Hons) in Speech Sciences from University College London (July 1984)

• Licence to practice awarded by the College of Speech & Language Therapists (July 1984)

• MSc in Human Communication from University College London (November 1999)

 Posts held in chronological order

 July 1984 -  July 1986                         Speech Therapist (Senior II)

Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge

Mixed caseload of community paediatric and geriatric

Developmental and acquired language delay and disorder, cleft palate, phonological disorder and delay, voice problems, dysfluency, feeding and drinking problems

July 1986 – October 1988                                Speech therapist (Senior I)

MOD based in Hohne and then Child Development Centre in Munster

Mixed caseload although predominantly paediatric; major issues in service delivery and non attendance.

October 1988 – December 1989                      Speech Therapist (Grade B)

Swindon Health Authority (Wiltshire)

Mixed caseload with community paediatric (3 days) and adults with learning difficulties (2 days) at a time when the emphasis was on closing long term institutions down and accommodating residents in the wider community.

January 1990 to August 1992 

Basingstoke Health Authority (Hampshire)

I held three posts in the course of my employment by this authority.  Firstly as a community based therapist with specialist responsibility for the hearing impaired in the local infant and junior school units; the second post combined this latter responsibility with the language unit for nursery, infant & junior school aged children at two local schools; the final post held was as manager of the Basingstoke service with responsibility for 14 therapists.

In 1992 I left this final post because we moved abroad; my husband’s posting to Germany and the birth of our son precluded working until our return to the UK in 1995.

October 1995 to July 1995       Specialist Speech & Language Therapist

The Loddon School, Basingstoke in Hamsphire (part time)

Specific caseload at this full time residential school for 26 autistic children aged 7 to 19 years of age all with autism and challenging behaviour.

 January 1997 to August 1999   Early Years Development Officer

I CAN, National Charity for speech & language impaired children

(part time)

Employed to set up and then manage and evaluate nursery services for speech & language impaired children in various locations around the country – Newcastle, Worcester, Greenwich, Northallerton, Carlisle, Salisbury, Cambridge, Bournemouth.

September 1997 to July 1998               Clinical tutor

Central School for Speech & Drama in London (part time)

Responsibility for tutoring and examining 10 final year students working towards their first degree to qualify as speech & language therapists.

September 1999 to Sept 2001   Head Speech & Language Therapist

Treloar College, Holybourne in Alton, Hampshire (part time)

Responsibility for providing appropriate level of service for physically disabled students, 16 to 25 years of age, with either developmental or acquired problems.  The College catered for 175 students of which around 10% had hearing problems and another 20% rely on high tech communication devices all of which the department managed.  Developed a fast tracking service model and led the College Total Communication policy and implementation.  The department had five SLTs & three assistants. 

September 2001           Established Speech Sort Ltd

I had begun to contemplate working as an independent speech & language therapist whilst working for the charity I CAN.  I felt that I was losing touch with the issues that my profession faced in providing a service and this provided me with the opportunity to retain and develop my clinical skill.  The practice has a caseload of around 40 at any time and is home, nursery & school based working not just with families but other professionals. 
 
Current Duties to Maintain Standards

• Managing on an individual basis the speech & language therapy requirements of my patients and ensuring good clinical practice

• Ensuring up to date case notes are maintained

• Promoting liaison with NHS colleagues

• Maintaining a professional log and relating this to competency for annual registration with Health Professions Council and the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists

• Undertaking regular peer review and supervision activities

• Attending relevant training courses and opportunities

•  Bookeeping and good financial/business practice

Achievements

• Established a clinical base in 9 fenland villages to provide a focus for Speech & Language Therapy for children in those villages (1985)

• Set up Special Needs Nursery whilst working for the MOD in Hohne Germany (1987)

• Set up volunteer training and support links for service families with speech & language impaired children (1987)

• Promoted and established the North Hants & Basingstoke Local Group for Speech & Language Therapists (1990)

• Secured funding from the Sainsbury Trust (Wessex NHS Region) to run a project to develop audit measures across a number of community based health professions

• Encouraged the setting up of the Special Interest Group for Therapists and Assistants working together (1995)

• Established a Total Communication system with ‘communication passports’ & intensive interaction combined with Strategies for Crisis Intervention & Prevention (SCIP) principles within a school with 26 pupils and 150 staff

• Established a monthly newsletter linking the I CAN Pre school services though sharing their news and views (1997)

• Involved in setting up the I CAN, BT & DTI research project to evaluate the efficacy and potential benefit of video conferencing to provide Speech & Language Therapy services

• Developed with the Salisbury based I CAN Specialist Speech & Language Therapist an expanded checklist for the Ofsted Early Learning Outcomes specifically for use with speech & language impaired preschoolers (1998)

•  Presented a poster on the I CAN pre school services at the 3^rd International AFASIC Conference in York (1999)

• Ran a workshop with another I CAN therapist at the 3^rd International AFASIC Conference on how to set up pre school services (1999)

• Developed a training package for use in any of the ICAN services enabling them to share their good practice locally (1999)

• Presented three separate papers at the RCSLT 2001 Conference focused on Total Communication, Communication Aids and their long term use (2001)

• Trialled a new computer programme for Oxford University aimed to resolve/remediate specific phonological or sound difficulties (2002)

 Research Papers and Publications

• A single case study to investigate the naming skills of a bilingual Welsh & English speaking man with traumatic brain injury and consequent dysphasia (1984)

• A preliminary study to identify the impact of differing training methods in an I CAN pre school service (1999)

• The implementation of total communication at a specialist college for the physically disabled (2001)

• A survey to identify high tech AAC knowledge, application & training of therapists working in the United Kingdom (2001)

• A preliminary research project to evaluate the continued use of Alternative/Augmentative Communication (AAC) equipment by past Treloar College students (2001)

• ‘Making Technology Work’ article for Therapy Weekly (2002)

Current Projects

• Establishing a Special Interest Group for Medico Legal Matters (September 2003)

• A member of the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists Competency Project working party.

• A policy member of the executive committee for the Association of Speech & Language Therapists in Independent Practice (ASLTIP)

• A member of the Clinical Teaching in Independent Practice Working Group led by Newcastle University and the University of Central England

Training Log

2006	Word Finding and Word Learning at UCL  Listening with the whole body with Sheila Frick from Vital Links based in the USA Medico Legal SIG study improving report writing  Study Day on Auditory Processing Disorders in London

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