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Speech and language therapist: Charlie

This Case Study belongs to Speech and language therapist.

Charlie is a speech and language therapist, working for the NHS within the Lothian region of Scotland. She has been a fully qualified, practising speech and language therapist for two years. After completing a BA (Hons) in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, she took a two-year postgraduate diploma in Speech and Language Therapy at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. Throughout her degree, Charlie gained valuable experience of working with children during her summer holidays and through volunteering at a charity for people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. She secured her first speech and language therapy role shortly after graduating by applying for posts advertised on the NHS Scotland Recruitment website.

The main duties and responsibilities of Charlie’s job include independently managing and prioritising a caseload of clients; assessing the speech and language therapy needs of children; devising and implementing appropriate intervention plans; and liaising with parents regarding assessment and intervention. Charlie keeps accurate notes of sessions, assessments and discussions and reports findings to a variety of other professionals and parents. She often refers clients on to other services where appropriate.

Charlie works in Edinburgh as part of a team of 15 speech and language therapists who work in different settings across the city. She currently has two distinct roles with quite different responsibilities. In one role, she works as a community speech and language therapist, seeing children who need support with a wide range of difficulties including speech delay, expressive language delay, problems with comprehension of language, dysfluency (stammering) and early communication (turn-taking, listening). In this role, Charlie works independently and manages her own caseload of clients. She meets with children and parents in different health centres within a defined geographical area and also works with local nurseries and schools - meeting teachers, learning assistants and nursery nurses to develop programmes of support for children. In addition, Charlie regularly works in conjunction with another speech and language therapist conducting group sessions with a small group of children.

In her other role, Charlie is a special school speech and language therapist, working within a team of other professionals including speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and nurses. She also works closely with school teachers, nursery nurses and learning assistants.

Charlie was attracted to a career in speech and language therapy because she wanted to work with children in a caring profession. She enjoys working as part of a team with other professionals and dealing with children, parents and carers on a daily basis. Charlie is enjoying her current role but in future, she hopes to specialise in an area of speech and language therapy such as working with children with additional support needs. As part of her role, she is expected to engage in a programme of continuous professional development. She does this by constantly reflecting on her practice, attending lectures, conducting literature searches and attending training courses. She has also completed the NHS ‘Flying Start’ programme, which is designed to support newly qualified health professionals in their first role.

Charlie feels there isn’t really a part of the job which she dislikes, but does think that it can sometimes be difficult to report findings of assessments to parents who are perhaps not very aware of their child’s difficulties, and at times it can be difficult working with lots of different people. She also says that good time management and organisational skills are essential to prevent the workload getting on top of you.

Case Study sourced by Jill Muirden of University of Stirling, 09 February 2009.