Julie’s Sri Lankan speech support

SPEECH and language therapy expertise is helping to support therapists thousands of miles away in Sri Lanka.

Dr Julie Marshall was part of a small team that travelled to the island shortly before Christmas after Sri Lankan speech and language therapists had called on the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) to help develop Sri Lanka’s professional body, to support the country’s growing SLT community, many of who work in remote areas.

Julie worked with colleagues from RCSLT and around 150, mainly Sri Lankan, speech and language therapists and audiologists, as well as students from at the University of Kelaniya, in the capital Colombo, through a series of workshops and presentations.

The workshops were built around the first Sri Lankan SLT national conference and Dr Marshall also presented a keynote paper and a research workshop.
International

Dr Marshall, Reader in Communication Disability and Development, drew on her experience of similar efforts of boosting professional development in East Africa.

Julie (pictured above at the University of Kelaniya) said: “The RCSLT has established an informal partnership with Sri Lankan colleagues to help them to develop their professional organisation.

“SLT is relatively new in Sri Lanka - the first qualifying course was only set up in the late 1990s. Now they’re looking at how they can join together and provide CPD to support therapists, especially in isolated areas where many people work.

“Our experiences in Sri Lanka will help us to determine the most manageable and appropriate support that we can offer to similar countries in future and will inform work that I will be doing in Rwanda, Uganda and Ghana later this year.”