Who am I and why am I going? I’m a certified ‘auditory verbal therapist’ – a highly specialised speech and language therapist who works with children with hearing loss to help them learn to listen, talk and go to school alongside their mainstream peers. You can watch me in a video about auditory verbal therapy and the outcomes in the ‘music to our ears’ video here.

Where am I going?

I’m going to visit AV centres and professionals centres in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Auckland and Christchurch. I’m really excited about visiting: Hear and Say, The Shepherd Centre, RIDBC Renwick, Cochlear Worldwide, Matilda Rose, The Hearing House and the Southern Cochlear Implant Centre.

Why so far?

So we can learn from centres that have an evidence base and proven track record at delivering excellent services to families with a hearing loss. In particular, I’m hoping to:

– Explore ways that organisations have broken down barriers for families to access auditory verbal therapy, with a particular focus on tele-practice sessions.

– Enhance the UK training programme for NHS and education professionals who want to qualify as auditory verbal therapists by establishing best practice and exploring innovative techniques and ways of running these programmes over distance.

– Learn how centres with the same aims and initial growth as AV^UK have successfully scaled up and developed robust systems to ensure best clinical practice – including databases, clinical quality assurance and mentoring.

– Develop practice with AV graduates and teens, to support them in becoming successful life-long learners and helping them navigate the teen world of friendships and identity.

Who’s supporting me?

A fabulous organisation called the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, who fund ‘British citizens, resident in the UK, to travel overseas to study areas of topical and personal interest, to gain knowledge and bring back best practice for the benefit of others, their profession and community, in the UK.’ You can find out more about them here.

How can you get involved?

• Follow me on Twitter @RosieQuayle! I’m going to blog, and possibly vlog.
• Ask me to find the answer to your questions
• Support the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and AV^UK
• Introduce me to professionals you think I should meet in Australia and New Zealand.

I’ll be aiming to update this blog regularly with the clever things I see and learn from our colleagues and the families I meet overseas.