For over two years we have been working towards having a new safe kitchen in The Treehouse for the Children's Voices Centre. We are getting very close to realising our goal. The plans are in - and the builders are ready. Thanks to the philanthropist who donated the funds for this to occur.
It was wonderful to welcome visitors from Sri Lanka to The Treehouse this week: Ms Yasaara Kaluaratchi (Co-founder and Director of Academics of Prospects College of Higher Education), and Mr Somesh Perera (Founder and Chairman of Prospects Education). They were hosted by Trent Pohlmann (Head, International Partnership Development, Charles Sturt University).
Here is information about their relationship with CSU: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/charles-sturts-international-expansion-to-underpin-regional-education-and-research-commitment2
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| Sharynne McLeod, Mr Somesh Perera, Ms Yasaara Kaluaratchi, Trent Pohlmann, Tamara Cumming |
It is autumn (fall) at The Treehouse. This evening a king parrot was looking stunning amongst the autumn leaves.
A few days later outside my window...
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| Sharynne, Tamara, Emma with the CSU elm trees |
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| Poplar trees are gorgeous across the Central West at this time of year |
We are working hard to finalise our CET speech census this week before the children all go on school holidays. We have just over 1000 consent forms returned. I have entered data for 733 assessments - but our team has done more than this (yay team!). I entered the data Ally gave me this afternoon for another 46 assessments. Helen did over 30 today (I haven't entered these yet). What an amazing team - and incredible children and teaching staff.
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| Ally and Sharynne heading to The Nest in The Treehouse for more data collection with the children |
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| Sharynne, Ally Barrett and Emma Scanlon at the end of a big day assessing wonderful children |
Yesterday Holly McAlister (my PhD student) presented an excellent seminar at the Children's Voices Centre Community Research Presentation. Her presentation was titled:
Weaving together culturally responsive and participatory action frameworks
Abstract: Frameworks developed in a Western context have dominated academic research for decades. However, it is vitally important when conducting research with communities from diverse cultural backgrounds that culturally responsive frameworks and methodologies are applied to support culturally safe and appropriate engagement for these communities. Child-focused participatory action research (C-PAR) frameworks, such as the Lundy model (2007), have been developed on the background of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989). Hopf and colleagues developed the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework in 2021, with the aim of supporting culturally responsive practices on intrapersonal, interpersonal, intraprofessional, and interprofessional levels. Research methodologies have been developed by Pasifika scholars to support culturally responsive research engagement for Pacific Islander communities and include but are not limited to the Samoan fa’afaletui (Tamasese et al., 1997) and Tongan kakala (Johansson Fua, 2014; Thaman, 1997) methodologies. This presentation will compare research frameworks and methodologies developed within Western and Pasifika contexts for child-focused participatory action research (C-PAR) and cultural responsiveness. The relationships between Western and non-Western methodologies and the process of decolonisation of academia and scholarship will also be discussed.
Biography: Holly McAlister is a speech-language pathologist living and working on Wiradjuri country in Young, NSW. Holly completed an Honours degree in 2020 which looked at multilingual Fijian children’s speech sound development. Holly’s PhD research project brings together culturally responsive research frameworks and applies these to the question of how we can provide culturally responsive speech-language pathology services to children and families with Pacific Islander heritage, particularly those living in the diaspora in countries such as Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Holly has presented her research at national and international conferences in the Pacific, Asia and North America. Holly is also passionate about supporting children’s voices in research and advocacy for the regional allied health workforce.
It was very lovely to have her working in The Beehive at The Treehouse. She brought a bee to add to our collection of bees from visiting scholars around the world.
Today the Vice Chancellor visited the Children’s Voices Centre for an hour. What an honour to show her The Treehouse and to discuss our CVC successes and plans. We were thrilled to demonstrate our commitment to building the capacity of CSU's researchers and to undertaking research with children to change children's lives in the regions and across the world.
Vice Chancellor Renée Léon, Director Sharynne McLeod, Associate Director Tamara Cumming, Associate Director Kathy Cologon (online), Senior Administration Officer Emma Hayes, Carly Evans from CSU Advancement (online)
Today I was the CVC Community Research presenter at our weekly Thursday lunch session.
Multilingual Minds are Unlocking Global Knowledge, γνώση, 认识, إدراك, דַעַת, ज्ञान …
Distinguished Professor Sharynne McLeod Children’s Voices Centre, Charles Sturt University
There are over 7,000 languages in the world. Literature about children’s communication development focusses on English, northern hemisphere Indo-European languages (Draper et al., 2023; Kidd & Garcia, 2022), and “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies” (Henrich et al., 2010). This presentation will commend the work of multilingual minds (researchers, professionals, and translators) who provide English-language access to global knowledge about speech, language, and communication. It will outline the decade of work of the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech, and knowledge contained within two global initiatives
The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-speech-development-in-languages-of-the-world-9780192868862)
Multilingual Children’s Speech website (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition/speech-acq-studies)
The presentation will conclude by challenging our reliance on English as the medium for knowledge dissemination and acknowledging the future potential of our connected multilingual world for greater understandings of speech, language, and communication.
Sharynne McLeod, PhD is a Distinguished Professor at Charles Sturt University, Australia specialising in multilingual children’s speech and language acquisition. She has a legacy of leading interdisciplinary teams, building world-class research capacity to undertake impactful international research. Her transformative research has reframed the speech-language pathology profession by foregrounding communication rights and social justice. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has awarded her Honors and the Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions in International Achievement. She is a Life Member of Speech Pathology Australia, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and served as editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. The Australian Newspaper describes her as Australia’s Research Field Leader and Best in the World in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology based on the “quality, volume and impact” of her research.
It was an honour to host a visit from the CSU School of Indigenous Australian Studies (SIAS) at The Treehouse yesterday. In 2025 we co-hosted Sami PhD student Camilla Porsanger from Nord University. We look forward to continued collaborations and connections.
It was lovely to welcome my PhD student Holly McAlister and her dog Merlin to The Treehouse (CSU Bathurst) this week. While visiting, she and Wiebke Freese (visiting PhD scholar from University of Lubeck, Germany) spent time together looking through some of the speech tests I have gathered from across the globe).
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| Sharynne McLeod, Holly McAlister, Wiebke Freese, Shukla Sikder |
Welcome to Wiebke Freese who is a PhD student at the University of Lubeck (Universität zu Lübeck), Germany who is visiting the Children's Voices Centre and The Treehouse on the Bathurst campus of Charles Sturt University. It is a joy to host her.
Wiebke's supervisor is Prof Annette Fox-Boyer - a long-term colleague who has taught me a lot about German children's speech. Interestingly, Dr Sarah Masso, my previous PhD student undertook her postdoctoral scholarship with Annette a few years ago. Last time I saw Wiebke and Annette was at the ICPLA conference in Patras Greece.
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| A/Prof Tamara Cumming, Wiebke Freese and Prof Sharynne McLeod at the Children's Voices Centre |
Weibke has been welcomed by CSU kangaroos, beautiful skies, and friendly colleagues.
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| Welcome Wiebke |
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| Kangaroos on CSU's Bathurst campus |
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| Sunset on Wiebke's first night in Bathurst |
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| Bathurst's Machattie Park |
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| Wiebke in The Beehive at The Treehouse |
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| Wiebke's bee-inspired gifts for The Treehouse |
This week the Children's Voices Centre staff came together for a 3-day retreat to celebrate our achievements for 2025 and plan for 2026. We met with DVC-R Neena Mitter and Monique Smith from the DVC-R's office. We also had pesentations from Carly Evans and Aimee Cook from CSU Advancement and Anna Grocholsky from the Research Office.
In 2025 we focused on the establishment of the Centre and The Treehouse. We hosted visiting scholars from USA, Norway and UK and many professionals, children and families who came to visit The Treehouse, We undertook impactful research with children that was presented to the World Health Organization (twice), and at an event with the United Nations Foundation and were one of only a handful of universities to be founding members of the WHO Disability Health Equity Network.
In 2026 we are focusing on our people in order to undertake impactful research. Specifically, children and families; CVC affiliates, adjuncts and HDR students, and professionals, and policy makers. A focus on 2026 will be our Children's Voices Conference (CVC2026) - the fourth time we have run this online interdisciplinary conference. We will also be hosting weekly research seminars and weekly drop-in sessions. We have submitted a number of grants, books, and journal articles - and have more on the way.
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| Carolyn ready to work in The Beehive |
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| Sharynne, Lorraine, Carolyn, Kathy and Tamara at The Treehouse |
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| First morning |
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| Tamara, Kathy, Lorraine, Carolyn and Sharynne |
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| Lunch with Anna |
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| Meeting with Neena and Monique |
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| Poppy popped in to start our morning with happiness |
Today is my first day back at work for 2026. I had a productive and restful holiday spending time with family and friends. It was great to see Lorraine and Tamara - and to plan for our retreat tomorrow.
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| Tamara, Lorraine (and Sharynne in the background on the screen) |
In December 2024, we learned that Charles Sturt University would fund the establishment of the Children's Voices Centre as a CSU research centre for 3 years (2025-2027). During 2025, we have renovated building 1451 to become The Treehouse, recruited 4 staff (2.6 FTE) and had an amazing year with over 60 CVC affiliates, children, families, professionals, colleagues and friends.
Today we held our last CVC staff meeting for the year followed by a 2-hour celebration with CVC affiliates. During the 2-hour celebration 20 CVC staff and affiliates spoke: Prof Sharynne McLeod, A/Prof Tamara Cumming, Dr Carolyn Gregoric, Lorraine Bennett, Dr Shukla Sikder, A/Prof Kathy Cologon, Dr Leanne Gibbs, Dr Lyndsay Smith, A/Prof Suzanne Hopf, Dr Brendon Hyndman, Dr Lysa Dealtry, Dr Jo Grimmond, Dr Sabrina Syed, Sarah Bartlett, Dr Kate Margetson, Camilla Porsanger, Dr Lucia Wuersch, Alam Hossain, Dr Belinda Downey, and Dr Helen Blake. Congratulations to everyone for your accomplishments during 2025 that have impacted the lives of children, families and communities across the world. Have a restful holiday - to get ready for 2026.
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| Celebratory pavlova |
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| Starting at the top: Alam, Tamara, Lucia, Lorraine, Belinda and Sharynne on the stairs in The Treehouse |
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| CVC members online |
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| Jo Grimmond's celebration of 2025 |
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| Kathy Cologon's thank you |
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| Tamara, Belinda, Alam, Lorraine, Leanne and Shukla |
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| Last CVC staff meeting for 2025 |
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| Celebratory pavlova covered in edible flowers |
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| The Treehouse in the sunshine |