WHAt to expect on placement
Placement may seem daunting at first - but it is a great opportunity to put the skills that you've learnt into practice. Placement has been the place I've learnt the most things - and it's so much fun.
Placement is different at every university - we did an observational placement for our first year placement just to see developmental norms. As you move through the course, you will have more responsibility within placements.
Coming soon:
- Travel fund/ how to get to placement
Our TELETHERAPY experience
As a result of Coronavirus, placement was a little different to usual! Caitlin and I took on an opportunity to carry out online therapy in groups, for teenagers with Down Syndrome.! The groups were set up to create an opportunity for young people to practice communication online, to practice socialising with peers and provide an opportunity to carry out intervention tasks.
We run the groups alongside other students on google meets. We have had to adapt our resources so that we can screen share them, for example here is a task which we did aiming to develop visual inferencing skills, with questions influenced by blank levels. We moved up through the blank levels throughout the weeks, moving on to the concepts of justification and prediction. I've attached some photos of the resources we've made below!
When doing online therapy, it is important to take a holistic approach and consider what might influence the client's engagement. For example auditory/visual difficulties which can be common for individual's with Down Syndrome - so resources need to be clear, easy to read and background noise needs to be limited. To keep the participant's engaged, activities need to be upbeat and fun.
Personally, I think a major factor to the effectiveness of online therapy is the energy from the SLT. Being engaging, upbeat and fun through a screen creates such a great atmosphere and encourages everyone to join in.
For first years in 2020, I do think that online placement will be super common. It allows clinical skills to be practiced safely and can provide therapy for those who might not be able to come into clinic/school easily.
Here's what Caitlin has thought about the experience:
When I first volunteered to do a teletherapy placement over summer, I was a little nervous. That being said, I've learnt to truly embrace the art of running a group over Google Meet! Yes, sometimes there may be glitches when your screen won't share or everyone freezes but overall it's been the best experience ☺ I feel privileged to be a part of this new online world of SLT and can't wait to see what comes next 💻
PLACEMENT HOURS
To qualify as an SLT, you need to have completed a certain about of clinical hours - this is mandatory and in place by our governing body (HCPC).
In our experience, you will carry out 2 placements a year, one ongoing and one block placement. Ongoing consists of one day a week for 8 weeks, and block placement differs depending on which stage of the course you are on. First year block lasts a week, whereas second year block was 5 weeks.
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