(Belated) Happy New Year!

Where does the time go? I had every intention of blogging before the New Year yet here we are two weeks into January!

I can hardly believe that its two years ago this month that I first got involved in Giving Voice. I couldn’t have imagined where this journey would take me, but so far I have enjoyed every minute!

This time last year my blog had only just exceeded 2000 page views (in 5 months) and now it has exceeded 15,000 views. Words cannot describe how amazing this is and I am extremely grateful that people are interested in reading more about Speech and Language Therapy – spreading the message one person at a time. I've tweeted lots of people my blog in recent months and have been delighted that a number of celebrities have retweeted it to their followers. (use the #givingvoiceuk hashtag to raise awareness of SLT or get involved in the #bigSLTtalk every Wednesday!)

I am delighted and overwhelmed that I won the Newly Qualified Practitioner Award at the 2012 Giving Voice awards. To have my campaigning recognised is truly wonderful. Last year was brilliant, from handing out leaflets at The Kings Speech, Theatre Royal Newcastle, giving out leaflets and balloons at Saltwell park to cheering on the runners at the GNR with jelly babies, I tried to engage a range of people in the campaign.

The highlight of my campaigning year, though, was meeting Lost Voice Guy and then have him headline a Giving Voice entertainment evening to fundraise for the North East Trust for Aphasia. I was absolutely delighted that my nominations of both led to them winning Giving Voice awards of their own (and am still disappointed we were unable to make it to the ceremony due to weather and trains!) For more information about the extremely talented Lost Voice Guy (Lee Ridley) check out his website. If you’d like to learn more about the amazing work of NETA click here.

I am looking forward to the year ahead and seeing where Giving Voice will go. I am excited to be involved in the Giving Voice working group and looking forward to the residential trip next month. Don’t forget if you are a member of RCSLT and want to get involved contact emma.barnes@rcslt.org. Let’s make this  the year everyone hears that Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives.

The King's Speech

On Monday 12th March, I went to see The King’s Speech at Newcastle Theatre Royal and it didn’t disappoint. All the acting was brilliant and I once again felt proud to be part of the Speech and Language Therapy Profession. The script was superb with some powerful words, particularly the King being “trapped in a body refusing to obey [his] commands.” Something that I am sure many people who stammer (or have other communication/swallowing difficulties) will relate to.  If you get the chance to see the play I would definitely recommend it! :-)

After seeing the success of the publicity around The King’s Speech film last year, I saw the stage show as another opportunity to Give Voice. I decided to email the Theatre Royal and ask if they were able to support the campaign in any way. I initially chose the person that I thought would be most appropriate to email, explaining a little bit about Speech and Language Therapy, Giving Voice and my involvement so far. I then asked if they were able to support us in any way, in terms of giving out leaflets etc. After a week, I hadn’t received a response so I decided to email more of the contacts from the website. I sent the same email again (this time with a little note at the end stating that if I had sent it to the incorrect department would they be able to forward it to the relevant person.) Within 2 days I had heard back from the Chief Executive’s office who asked the Front of House Manager to get in touch with me. (A little perseverance goes a long way!)

The front of house manager was extremely helpful and I explained about the campaign and what we wanted to do. He agreed that they could give leaflets out with the programmes, as well as have 2 volunteers attend at each performance. After speaking to other members of the North of Tyne steering group, we discussed arrangements for the week. We all agreed it would be good to have our ‘pop-up’ banner present, so I discussed this with the theatre and they said that was absolutely fine.





Recruiting volunteers was easy as lots of people were interested in helping out, including students, a service user and a dysfluency specialist. We were able to attend 7 out of 8 performances between us.

The organisation took time but it wasn't difficult and I would encourage others to try and do something similar if the opportunity arises.

I attended on the Monday (opening night) to drop the banner and leaflets off with the volunteers, and I attended to Give Voice at the Saturday matinee. The Giving Voice banner stayed in-situ all week.

The feedback was positive from the volunteers with reports that there was a lot of interest in the campaign. I attended the Saturday matinee performance, we spoke to a few people but the theatre had run out of programmes and so most people were more concerned about that. A few people asked us if we were selling programmes and when we said ‘no, but you can a leaflet about Speech and Language Therapy for free’ we were greeted on several occasions with ‘oh, no thanks, I’m not interested in that’. I was a little disheartened by the comments, but not surprised as I already know that people are often not interested in the profession, unless they have personal experience. It was a shame that the theatre had run out of programmes, as I think the atmosphere was a little flatter than it normally is before a show, so people were harder to engage. That said, we did still give out some leaflets and have a few positive conversations about the campaign – and you can’t win them all!

One man highlighted the importance of speech and language therapy for young children to enhance their educational outcomes.

I estimate that over the week we gave out about 150 leaflets that I designed plus a similar number of pink Giving Voice flyers (that were produced by the North of Tyne team). We also left a further 400-500 leaflets around the bar tables and with the people who were selling programmes, (on all floors, for the whole week) so hopefully some of these were also looked at.

Some of the feedback from the other volunteers included comments from people they spoke to:

“I’m very interested in speech and language therapy. I was a special needs teacher for many years”

“I’m a nurse and we quite often send people to speech and language therapy, so I know it’s very important”

“My son had speech and language therapy when he was young. He is fine now but it was ESSENTIAL”

“I think it’s really interesting. I’ll take some leaflets and pass them onto my access students”

Overall, I think the week was a successful at spreading the word further about Giving Voice. I tweeted the Theatre Royal to thank them for their support of #GivingVoiceUK and @kingsspeechplay  retweeted it!

I read a quote recently ‘Volunteers don't get paid, not because they're worthless, but because they're priceless’ - I think this is so true and would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who volunteered to Give Voice at The King’s Speech. It wouldn’t have been a success without you all.

Keep spreading the word that Speech and Language Therapy Transforms lives! #GivingVoiceUK

Sunshine, Stammering and Giving Voice

What a lovely Sunny Sunday it is today! I feel like Spring is finally on it's way; I love this time of year!

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been liaising with the Front of House Manager at the Theatre Royal Newcastle, about Giving Voice at The King’s Speech (which opens tomorrow).

I’m delighted that they have agreed to hand out Giving Voice flyers with their programmes and are allowing 2 volunteers to be present before the show begins to hand out leaflets/answer questions about Speech and Language Therapy.

I had a large number of volunteers who wanted to help out with this which is fantastic. I’ve managed to include them all in the rota for the performances (Monday-Friday) and I look forward to hearing back how it goes.

Organising this, took a little more planning and preparation than I expected it to, but I am thrilled with the response from the theatre. Hopefully, we will be able to make lots more people aware of Giving Voice, SLT and stammering this week! I believe this is a popular show and most performances are sold out, therefore the audience is potentially quite large! How exciting!!

I’m going to watch The King’s Speech tomorrow evening and I’m really looking forward to it. I look forward to reporting back how it goes!

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 17^th, 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! :-)