The Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) Team are based in the Aranthrue Centre and work in clinics, homes, schools and early child care and learning centres across Renfrewshire.
The Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) Team are based in the Aranthrue Centre and work in clinics, homes, schools and early child care and learning centres across Renfrewshire.
They are a small team of 17 people made up of registered Speech and Language Therapists and Clinical Support Workers.
The team works with children who have speech, language and communication needs which is one of the most common childhood disabilities.
Around 7% of children aged about five years have specific speech and language impairment and a further 1.8% have needs linked to other conditions, such as learning disability, cerebral palsy and autism spectrum disorders.
The team's work is based on building relationships with children and families and other communication partners for example teachers. Communication is central to most human activities and SLT get the best outcomes with a focus on language inclusive environments and not just on the individual child.
When COVID-19 restrictions started, SLT had to rethink how people could access the service and also how they could deliver intervention when face to face options were reduced.
The first challenge was making sure that families and concerned professionals could still reach the service. There was a drop in referrals during the national lockdown with 94% less demand than on the previous months.
The team explored options to offer help to parents at home supporting school work or coping with young children who would normally be at nursery. The Therapy Helpline was set up in May 2020. The Helpline was used to support families who don't need a referral but do need advice and support. Between May 2020 and September 2020 SLT delivered 196 pre-referral consultations by telephone.
Speech and Language Therapist Nicola McNair on the SLT Parent Helpline
SLT have had to very quickly adapt to using digital approaches to support families. Before COVID 19, the team had no previous experience of undertaking video consultation. By the end of September 2020, over 600 video consultations using "Near Me" appointments had been delivered. This hasn't been without its challenges and SLT are grateful to colleagues at the IT helpdesk for their invaluable support. Near Me and telephone consultations have allowed SLT to keep direct support going for families who need it. Whatever happens on the COVID recovery journey, SLT will be keeping digital approaches in their toolkit for the future.
Clinical Support Worker Diane Caldwell delivers a 'Near Me' therapy session
Not every child can be seen digitally and some face to face appointments were offered to children when there was a clinical need. For these appointments we follow PPE guidance to offer protection to the children and the staff member, recognising the face and mouth are really important in speech and language.
Finally, the importance of keeping the team communicating with each other has been invaluable. SLT Manager Kate MacKinnon said 'We have moved away from thinking about individual caseloads to thinking about whole team workload. We have had to learn together. Sharing challenges and successes has stopped anyone feeling isolated- again using digital approaches to stay in touch with each other. It's been a challenging time for us but it's the team's resilience that has helped us to think on our feet and adapt so quickly."
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