Kangaroos at The Treehouse

The kangaroos have come onto campus for spring. We even had two hop by The Treehouse this week!

Welcome to CVC Felicity

It was wonderful to host Felicity Laurence, my PhD student at The Treehouse in Bathurst this week. The kangaroos all came onto campus to meet with her. We were able to meet with Dr Audrey Wang, Dr Nicola Ivory,  Emma Hayes and Emma Scanlon in person and Sarah Verdon online during the very productive week. Felicity also won a CSU cap during the student promotion of RUOK? day!

LAUNCH: Children Draw|Create|Share Belonging

During the Children's Voices Conference (CVC2206) we had the official launch of Children Draw|Create|Share Belonging. Associate Professor Kathy Cologon and Dr Zinnia Mevawalla officially launched this new research project with CVC staff, affiliates, adjuncts and community members (especially children). We had a lot of fun creating artworks by learning about one another and depicting special aspects about that person to engage in an understanding of inclusion and belonging.

CVC2026 affiliates welcome

 CVC2026 starts tomorrow. Many of our CVC affiliates travelled to Bathurst to participate in the conference face-to-face (one travelled over 1200 kms!). 

Today (Monday 31st August) we met for afternoon tea, a celebration of CVC books, a tour of the campus, then dinner together in The Treehouse.

Carolyn, Kate F, and Helen in The Beehive

Dr Carolyn Gregoric at The Treehouse

Afternoon tea at The Treehouse

CVC book celebration

Dinner at The Treehouse

 

A new kitchen for The Treehouse - nearly finished

Our new kitchen is nearly finished. Thank you Emma Hayes for your oversight of this important project in the life of CVC.

A new kitchen for The Treehouse - demolition day

Finally - the day has come for us to get a new child-safe kitchen for The Treehouse. Thank you to the philanthropic donor who funded this through CSU Advancement.

Here are some demolition photos

 

 

Emma day

Two Emmas worked with me at the Children's Voices Centre today :)

Emma Hayes: CVC Senior Adminstration Officer 

Emma Scanlon: CeTasSSD Research Assistant

Sharynne, Emma H and Emma S

Emma S working in The Nest

 

A new kitchen for The Treehouse

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.

Visitors from Sri Lanka

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 

Sharynne  McLeod, Mr Somesh Perera, Ms Yasaara Kaluaratchi, Trent Pohlmann, Tamara Cumming

A colourful time of year

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...

Sharynne, Tamara, Emma with the CSU elm trees

Poplar trees are gorgeous across the Central West at this time of year

CET Speech Census - Last week

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.

Ally and Sharynne heading to The Nest in The Treehouse for more data collection with the children

Sharynne, Ally Barrett and Emma Scanlon 
at the end of a big day assessing wonderful children

Holly's presentation at The Treehouse

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.

Vice Chancellor visits The Treehouse

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)

CVC Community Research - Thursday presentation

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. 

19 people attended online and in person. Thanks for your encouragement and great discussion about the importance of home language maintenance and looking beyond English-language research.