Meeting speech pathologists and students at the Aphasia Camp

One of the joys of attending the Aphasia Camp was meeting the students and speech pathologists who volunteered their time to support the people with aphasia. At the end of the camp each student was presented with a certificate by one of the participants. One participant's partner was so appreciative that they asked if they could "take the student home with them". 

Here are a few of the great people I met during the camp who have given permission for their photos to be on my blog.

Wanwan and May volunteered at the Aphasia Camp
and also gave me a tour of Griffith University

Naomi is a speech pathologist and also Erin Holliday's sister.
Erin was my honours student at CSU - so I am waving to Erin in this photo!

Viet Nam now officially has the first 14 speech and language therapists with Masters' degrees (MSALTs)

Email received today from Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thủy celebrating a huge milestone in Vietnam

Dear Prof Lindy, Dr. Ben and all the Australian supervisors, 

As you know, the MSALT [Masters in Speech and Language Therapy] thesis defense on the 3rd and 5th Nov was fruitful and finished with good results that all the 14 MSALT students passed and will be awarded with MSALT degrees. On behalf of MCNV and UMP [University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City], I would like to express my sincere thanks to you for your intensive support for the past two years with the students' theses and for your attendance and support for the students in their defense sessions. Your attendance valued a lot to them and was meaningful to MCNV as a partner of TFA [Trinh Foundation Australia] in this ST [speech therapy] education project. VN now officially has the first 14 MSALTs. We hope that this group can contribute to the development of the ST profession in VN [Viet Nam]. 

With best regards, Thanh Thuy from MCNV https://mcnv.org/

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thủy

It has been an honour to play a small part over the past two years in this big milestone:  https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/search/label/MSALTs

The impact of coronavirus around the world

I work with colleagues and have many friends in many different countries. Over the past week I have talked with many of them. It has been interesting to learn from them how their countries are supporting their citizens regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Vietnam: People have been at home since 1st February and say it has been a very long "Lunar new year holiday (Tet)"
• Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Solomon Islands: Cyclone Harold has caused a lot of destruction impacting efforts to control the coronavirus and restrictions.They have a 28 day quarantine because there was evidence of transmission after the 14 days.
• UK: Many SLTs have been redeployed to work in hospitals with people with COVID-19. RCSLT has provided guidance: https://www.rcslt.org/learning/covid-19 (see image below). It seems that many people in the UK in homes and aged care facilities have not been tested for COVID-19 even if they have "viral pneumonia with coronavirus symptoms". Here are some fascinating webinars: https://www.rcslt.org/learning/covid-19/rcslt-guidance#section-3
• Iceland: The population of Iceland has been tested, enabling a nation-wide understanding of the spread of the disease.
• New Zealand: Early application of stage 4 restrictions has meant that few people have the coronavirus and very few have died to date. The NZ government has published some helpful Easy Read guidelines: https://covid19.govt.nz/resources/information-sheets/
• US: Many SLPs have been redeployed to work in hospitals with people with COVID-19 and ASHA has provided a resource page: https://www.asha.org/About/Coronavirus-Updates/. Free resources about telepractice are here: https://pubs.asha.org/special-collections/telepracticeresources
• Australia: Some speech pathologists have been trained and are ready to be redeployed if needed. Speech Pathology Australia has dedicated webpages here: https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/SPAweb/About_us/COVID-19_News_and_Information/SPAweb/About_Us/News/COVID-19.aspx  

https://www.rcslt.org/news/slts-lives-at-risk-from-covid-19-due-to-inadequate-government-guidance-on-ppe