A special day with Orange Aboriginal Medical Service (OAMS)

Over the past 3 years, we have been undertaking research with OAMS. Today, Sarah Bartlett and I visited OAMS to finalise four journal manuscripts (submissions and revisions) based on the work we undertook with the OAMS team. We also have presented at a number of conferences as well. We had a rich discussion about the research, representing the people and work of OAMS, the importance of the research internationally, tracking research (ORCiD, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, Web of Science), authorship, and many other topics. What a special bond.

Sharynne  McLeod, Janay Apps, Marie-Christine Sweeney, Sarah Bartlett

It was exciting to see the Little Libraries, map, and posters available from our research project

Sharynne  and Sarah arriving at OAMS

Here are the conference presentations from our research so far:

 CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

1. Bartlett, S; McLeod, S; Gregoric, C; Newman, J; Apps, J. (2026, June). Implications of caregiver-implemented intervention for three underserved communities [Research insights]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Gold Coast, Australia.
2. McLeod, S., Bartlett, S., Woodhead, E-J., & Gregoric, C., Newman, J. & Sweeney, C. (2025, November). Community support for Indigenous children’s speech, language and communication [Oral presentation]. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Conference, Washington DC, USA.
3. McLeod, S., Newman, J. & Sweeney, M-C., Bartlett, S., Woodhead, E-J., & Gregoric, C. (2025, September). Building the present and the future: Indigenous children’s speech, language and literacy [Oral presentation]. Oceania and Indigenous Trans-national Methods and Practices, Charles Sturt University, Orange, Australia.
4. McLeod, S., Woodhead, E-J., Hay, E., Bartlett, S. & Gregoric, C. (2025, June). Rural Australians’ ratings of Indigenous children’s books to support communication and literacy [Oral presentation]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Adelaide, Australia.
5. McLeod, S., Woodhead, E.-J. Bartlett, S., Hay, E., & Gregoric, C. (2024, November). Indigenous children’s speech, language and communication: Identifying and co-creating resources and services [Oral presentation]. Early Childhood Voices Conference, Online, Bathurst, Australia. https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/ecv2024-413/ 

Speech Pathology Australia National Conference submission outcomes for 2026

We have just learned the outcome of our Speech Pathology Australia National Conference submissions for 2026. In the letter they wrote

"This year we received 326 submissions, reflecting a 22% increase on last year. With limited presentation space available, only around one-third could be included in the final program"

While some of our papers were not accepted for presentation - the following papers were accepted:

• Assessing children’s speech in unfamiliar languages: Acceptability of the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Language(s) (SACHL)
• Resources in 131 languages and dialects: Multilingual minds have unlocked global knowledge about children’s speech
•  Implications of caregiver-implemented intervention for three underserved communities
•  School speech pathologists’ navigation of nine tensions regarding evaluation and eligibility in USA

I am glad that two of my PhD students' papers were accepted.  

Discussion of research outcomes with OAMS

Today Sarah Bartlett and I visited the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service (OAMS) to discuss the outcomes of the research we have undertaken with them since March 2023 (officially from 2024-June 2025). We are writing four journal articles with the team. What a warm and encouraging discussion about the findings. Jamie Newman, the CEO said "we will speak for you and you can speak for us". Thank you Jamie and congratulations on the wonderful care you and your team show for the families in our region.

 We were delighted to see that the Little Libraries were messy - and that the reception staff said they were used all the time :)

 

 

Children's Voices Centre newsletter

Our Children's Voices Centre Newsletter - Edition 1 - was released during our launch on 1st October 2025. It contains 28 pages of wonderful work of the whole CVC family.

CEO Jamie Newman, Orange Aboriginal Medical Service reading about our collaborations on pages 4 and 21

 

 

Nation-building in the Global South

This week we have attended and presented at the Oceania and Indigenous Trans-national Methods and Practices Symposium focusing on Nation-building in the Global South. 

Nation-building in the Global South
An initiative of the Oceania and Global Indigenous Research Hub (Charles Sturt University)
 
September 11-12th, 2025
Orange, CSU Campus & Hybrid
 
The symposium brings together expert speakers on First Nations nation-building in the Global South. The program focuses on the important arms of nation-building in the areas of: Language; Inter-cultural and trans-national exchange; Education Governance; Energy and Water sovereignty; Human Rights; and Health and Wellbeing. Each of these arms requires innovative methodologies and data collection to support the diversity of sovereignties in the Global South.
 
The purpose of the symposium is to highlight existing activities of nation-building as well as new approaches with an emphasis on trans-national and inter-cultural methodologies and data collection. 

The 2-day symposium began with a Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony by Uncle Dale Carr. 

Lynn Williams, Camilla Porsanger, Sharynne  McLeod and Uncle Dale Carr

During the first morning of the symposium were invited to present the following paper

Building the present and the future: Indigenous children’s speech, language and literacy
Sharynne McLeod, Jamie Newman, Christine Sweeney, Sarah Bartlett, Emily-Jane Woodhead, Carolyn Gregoric. 

Christine Sweeney from Orange Aboriginal Medical Services, Orange and I presented the paper.

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Camilla Porsanger, who is the Sami PhD student vising the Children's Voices centre.

 

Finalising our project with OAMS

After 18 months our research project with OAMS has ended. This week we said farewell to Emily-Jane Woodhead as our amazing research assistant (0.4FTE) and wrapped up our research.

 Throughout the project we purchased books and toys to use with the children during the research. Now we are able to donate them to OAMS for future children and families to use them. The books were donated to four Little Libraries as well as to some of the elders and families who participated. 

The toys were donated to the Allied Health Assistant (Katrina) and the Early Years Program team. The maps were donated to sit above each of the Little Libraries as well as to one of the elders whose idea it was to add them to the Little Library display.

 

 

RHRI Symposium

The RHRI Symposium was held 17-18  June in Orange to celebrate  the research funded by a grant to the Charles Sturt University Rural Health Research Institute from the Commonwealth of Australia, represented by the Department of Health (Grant Activity 4-DGEJZ1O/4-CW7UT14).

We presented (virtually) two papers based on the successful outcomes of Project 8: – Improving access to speech pathology services for rural children with speech, language and communication needs 

• Improving access to speech pathology services for rural Indigenous children (Sharynne McLeod, Emily-Jane Woodhead, Sarah Bartlett, Christie Cain, Jamie Newman, & Carolyn Gregoric)
• Assessing multilingual children in languages not spoken by the clinician: Using an implementation science approach to enhance rural speech pathology services (Kate Margetson & Sharynne  McLeod)

Our research was so productive - in terms of the impact on our learning, communities' support for children's speech, language and communication, and academic outcomes.

Thanks Emily-Jane

Emily-Jane Woodhead has been a fantastic research assistant on our Rural Health Research Institute project over the past 18 months. Today was my last official day working with her in Bathurst. Although she still has a few weeks' work before the end of the project, I head to Greece tomorrow.

Thank you so much Emily-Jane for your unwavering commitment to the project and your gentle insightful way of working with all of the stakeholders. We have had a lot of fun, worked through a lot of challenges and have made an impact on children's lives. Thank you!

OAMS Little Library at Early Years

This morning Emily-Jane Woodhead and Sarah Bartlett sent me these photos of our OAMS Little Library at in the Early Years building - it's wonderful to see it set up and ready to be enjoyed. They have also added our Treehouse poster about acquisition of speech sounds (based on McLeod & Crowe, 2017)

 

Summing up our 18 months' research learnings and progress

Today it was such an honour to present our research learning and progress with the 100+ staff at the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service (OAMS) Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) day. We were given 45 minutes to discuss our 5-phase project that concludes at the end of June.

It has been such an honour and privilege to work alongside the amazing team to support children's speech, language, communication, and literacy. We hope that the books, resources and learnings we have planted grow roots and blossom in the future. We'd love to continue collaborations if there was a pathway forward.

Sharynne presenting at the OAMS CQI day on 30th May 2025

 

Sharynne and Sarah Bartlett spent the day with the OAMS team

Elders morning tea

This morning I was invited to the OAMS Elders' morning tea. It was organised as part of Australia's Biggest Morning Tea to raise money for the Cancer Council.

While I was there, I was able to share our learning and successes with the CEO Jamie Newman - and to have an update about the new hydrotherapy pool and other new initiatives. Jamie will be co-presenting our research at the upcoming Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in Adelaide next month.

OAMS CEO Jamie Newman and Sharynne  (shared with permission)

I also learned about children's communication and books from the elders.

Learning from the elders (photo shared with permission)

To top off an excellent day - I was delighted to see that the brand new Little Library in the Dental Clinic waiting room had some books upside-down (showing that they had been used) and the administration officer mentioned how much the children enjoyed reading them. 

OAMS Little Libraries launch

On Thursday we launched the OAMS Little Libraries. What a special day of celebrating the launch of four Little Libraries of children's books written by Indigenous authors and selected by the OAMS community:

1. OAMS Medical
2. OAMS Dental
3. OAMS Early Years
4. OAMS Marang Gunya
   

It has been an exciting research collaboration - and we were thrilled to have members of the OAMS community cutting the ribbon - being joined by local speech pathologists and colleagues from the CSU Rural Health Research Institute. Book passports have been designed for the children to record their reading. A special thanks to Christine Sweeney (OAMS) and Emily-Jane Woodhead (CSU) for all of the behind the scenes work.

CSU team: Emily-Jane Woodhead, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Bartlett

 

RHRI team: Sarah Bartlett, Dr Hazel Dalton, Prof Anna Walduck, Dr Liz Pressick, Emily-Jane Woodhead, Prof Sharynne  McLeod

The launch

An OAMS child's first entry in her book passport after reading Kick with My Left Foot with Sharynne 

OAMS team cutting the ribbon: Adam Gollan, Jess Lees (Early Years), Tegan Wood (OAMS Medical), Christine Sweeney, Melinda Paine-Lambden (Close the Gap)

Breakfast Club and books!

We received this email from our research partners

"We posted the following text on our socials with the attached photos."

Breakfast Club and books!  

Our young mob were given the opportunity to read, choose and take books home to read for keeps as a thank you from our CSU Research Project team (who visited Breakfast Club and exchanged opinions on books late last year). Marang Gunya will soon have it's own Little Library for the kids to access every week.

Speech pathology screening clinic at OAMS

Today, as part of our RHRI research, Sarah Bartlett, Emily-Jane Woodhead and I (3 speech pathologists) worked alongside Katrina and Tegan from OAMS to run a speech pathology screening clinic for Indigenous families to drop in and yarn about their children's speech, language and communication. We learned a lot and enjoyed yarning with the families and children.

Planning our speech pathology screening clinic for Indigenous families

This morning our research team met at the Orange Community Health Centre to plan our speech screening days in April that will be part of our research with Indigenous children. What an informative and useful planning session.

Sharynne, Susan Smith, Sarah Bartlett, Katrina, Emily-Jane Woodhead

Indigenous children's books for our little libraries have arrived

It feels like Christmas! Boxes of children's books written by Indigenous authors have arrived. We will cover them, add identification stickers, and prepare them to distribute to the four Little Libraries at the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service. What a wonderful research project.