In an innovative program for Indigenous people, three central NSW communities have secured the services of future speech pathologists from Charles Sturt University (CSU) to assist young local school students.
The program was recently recognised by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Julia Gillard, in the 2012 Closing the Gap report on the current state of Indigenous health.
“These communities were concerned with the numbers of young Indigenous students needing speech assessment and therapy, which could potentially add to the education gap between Indigenous and other students. They approached Charles Sturt University to see if we could help,” said the coordinator of the CSU program, Dr Jane McCormack.
Since 2009, primary school and preschool students in the Lachlan Shire towns of Condobolin, Lake Cargelligo and Murrin Bridge have received face-to-face and online services delivered by CSU speech pathology students based in the School of Community Health in Albury-Wodonga, in collaboration with Albury Community Health Centre.
Dr McCormack outlined how second and fourth year CSU students assessed the children and provided therapy under the supervision of professional speech therapists. They also worked with teachers and school students to identify other useful communication projects such as building students’ understanding of home and school language, language used in Maths and articulation.
“Our students planned classroom lessons based on these projects, linked the lessons with the school curriculum and delivered those lessons in local Albury schools. These were broadcasted live to other more remote schools using the federally funded 'Connected Classrooms' videoconference system,” Dr McCormack said.
“They also developed teaching resources with teachers in these schools and shared these via Smart-board technology and email.”
The initative was part of CSU's broader Schools' Projects run over the past eight years in collaboration with the NSW Department of Education and Albury Community Health Centre. The central NSW program was the first offered outside the Riverina and Border regions. By connecting local and remote schools, CSU students were able to extend the Schools' Projects to other regions of NSW with limited access to speech pathology services.
These projects address needs identified by schools and communities, rather than by speech pathologists, and allow CSU students to explore different ways of providing services outside the clinic setting.
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