Giving Voice

Saturday 4 February 2012

Bizarre to Brilliant...

Following on from the conversation I had at work a couple of weeks ago (about my ‘bizarre’ choice of career) we have engaged in a number of other conversations relating to my search for work. Today, the same person told me that he told his partner about what I studied at university as he thought it was so interesting. He said she hadn’t heard of it either, but they both agree it sounds like a brilliant career choice! I can’t help but feel a little bit proud of myself for making this man more informed and changing his view point on the profession! J

I also had an interesting conversation with one of my colleagues this afternoon about Speech and Language Therapy. He had not heard of Giving Voice – but he has now! J Spreading the word one person at a time…

This week has been a busy one, exchanging email and telephone calls with a number of people regarding Giving Voice. This has included speaking to people at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle about the possibility of raising awareness of Giving Voice around The King’s Speech. A few details still need to be finalised but so far I’ve had a positive response. I have also been in touch with someone from the British Stammering Association to discuss ways we might be able to able to collaborate in our awareness raising mission. I will update in the not to distant future (I hope!!)

Two final year students (Charis and Jenny) at Newcastle University are going to be completing a 1 week ‘Chewless Challenge’ (eating soft/pureed food) to raise awareness of Dysphagia (difficulties swallowing) and money for SCOPE. Check out their brilliant blog http://chewlesschallenge.wordpress.com/ (and donate if you can). I think this is a brilliant idea, and will hopefully raise lots of awareness of Dysphagia. I think more people are becoming aware of the role of speech and language therapists with communication and speech, but still less so in terms of the role of SLTs with Dysphagia. I wish both girls the best of luck and look forward to keeping up to date on their blog :-)

During the mass tweet on January 17th, my mam tweeted Dan Whiston (professional dancer on Dancing on Ice) and he retweeted to more than 21,000 followers! J (although this would have been visable to his followers, it was not visable when clicking on the #GivingVoiceUK hashtag as when my mam tweets (using any hashtag) they don't appear with the main ones - we do not know why this is, so if anyone has any idea how we can fix this please do get in touch! :-) 


1 comment:

  1. Hi Julie,
    I have seen you have done loads with giving voice. This is all so inspiring. I am trying to get students involved with Giving voice at City University, I am entering 3rd year now.
    Please contact me hannahstacia@hotmail.com
    I have some questions.
    Regards,
    Hannah

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