Practice Education

Introduction

Practice Education is a significant component of the professional training for speech and language therapists (Practice Educator Competencies / Best Practice Guidelines - Therapy Project Office 2008). One of the key aims of the discipline is to provide a comprehensive practice education programme so that speech and language therapists in training achieve a high level of competence to work with a range of clients with communication and swallowing impairments on graduation. The ultimate goal of placements is to facilitate the development of professional knowledge acquired in the classroom and integrate this knowledge into practice in a suitable manner considering the stage of learning of the student (Mc Allister & Lincoln, 2004). 

Practice Education Team 

The Practice Education team consists of the Practice Education Coordinator one full time tutor and three part time tutors. The Practice Education Coordinator is employed in the university with oversight for the Practice Education modules. The post is supported by the tutors who are employees of the HSE. All of these posts are specialized posts with expertise in teaching and learning, whose primary focus is to create high quality, evidence-based learning opportunities for students. The different members of the team support students by assisting with the transfer of theory to practice through traditional clinics but in recent years by using simulation and telehealth. This has been made possible by the use of video conferencing tools. In addition members of the Practice Education team support and mentor Practice Educators who are beginning their journey facilitating placements. A Practice Educator is a therapist who as part of their clinical duties facilitates placement learning for students.

Table 1: Practice Education Team 

Overview of Practice Education modules

Practice education occupies a central place in the undergraduate training programme and provides undergraduates with many different opportunities to integrate theory and practice.

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Speech and language therapists in training are required to obtain experience in assessing, diagnosing and treating children and adults with communication and swallowing disorders with varying disorders. The Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists (IASLT) require that speech and language therapists in training undertake a minimum of 450 hours clinical education.  300 of these hours must take place under the guidance of a speech and language therapist and 150 hours can be clinically related.  Clinically related hours include:

• Focused clinical teaching - e.g. discussion of videos of clients with speech and language therapists in training, simulations and role play, tutorial discussions, guided practice with clinical resources
• Student-directed learning - e.g. video/audio analyses, client/case studies, peer tutoring.

Much of the indirect hours are obtained at the university in the form of tutorials and workshops.

In addition students have an opportunity with the support of a Practice Education team member to analyse and discuss client profiles (written and video) and attend simulated clinics. “Simulation-based learning provides students with a safe learning environment, guaranteed exposure to specific clinical scenarios and patients, time for reflection and repetition of tasks, and an opportunity to receive feedback from multiple sources.” Hewat et al. (2020 p.1). Simulated clinics happen prior to attendance in clinics with particular client groups to ensure students have basic knowledge and skills and most importantly have confidence to engage with their future clients.

In addition to simulated clinics students attend a variety of different placements throughout the four years. Some of these placements occur in the onsite clinic and others throughout the whole island of Ireland. Each placement has a different focus and students build on their clinical skills by seeing different clinical presentations. Since 2021 students engage in a minimum of one placement that provides a clinical service through telehealth. Although a range of terms are in use such as tele-practice, tele-therapy, we use the term telehealth to refer to “the application of telecommunications technology to deliver clinical services at a distance by linking clinician to client, caregiver, or any person(s) responsible for delivering care to the client, for the purposes of assessment, intervention, consultation and/or supervision.” (Speech Pathology Australia, 2014, p. 4).  In the later years of the programme students develop their mentoring skills by facilitating peer assisted learning clinics in collaboration with Practice Educators. This ensures students complete their studies with a wide and varied experiences on graduation and have begun preparation for becoming a future Practice Educator.

The following is an outline of the placement structure over the four years. Please note there are minor changes to this programme annually dependent on availability of Practice Educators.

The Practice Education module has been designed to be developmental, introducing students to caseloads of greater complexity and increased workloads as they progress through their training. Students are supported on all their placements by members of the Practice Education team. Some of the team are based in the university and others in different locations throughout the country. 

On-Site Clinic Teaching and Research Facility

The B.Sc. (Speech and Language Therapy) provides excellent opportunities for practice education in a purpose-built on-site speech and language therapy clinic in Áras Moyola.  The University of Galway and HSE speech and language therapy on-site clinic is a unique collaboration between the health services and the University.  The on-site clinic has the dual function of delivering high quality services to the public while at the same time providing a supportive learning environment for speech and language therapists in training.  

 The mission statement for the on-site clinic is:

“ To provide primarily a centre of excellence in teaching and learning  for  speech and language therapy students  and to support research”.

The aims of the on-site clinic are:

• To provide opportunities for simulated learning to help prepare students for clinical practice
• To provide a range of speech and language therapy services that are high quality, client centred, accessible and evidence based for students to learn the skills, attitudes and knowledge required to become a competent SLT
• To facilitate speech and language therapists in training to develop clinical competencies in a range of specialist areas by providing a supportive learning environment and implementing best practice in education
• To provide opportunities for developing mentoring skills
• To conduct high quality research in speech and language therapy intervention and practice education

The clinic is managed by Margaret Rodden, Practice Tutor for HSE West, with support from our HSE administrator Fionnuala Geogheghan. In addition visiting Practice Educators attend on different days as required to run clinics. The full time staffing for the onsite clinic is as follows

Current staffing in the Speech & Language Therapy Clinic. 

The on-site clinic has 5 treatment rooms with adjoining observation rooms. The observation rooms have one way mirrors and students and parents of children attending therapy can use these rooms to observe peers and qualified clinicians at work.   Each of the clinic rooms is equipped with up to date with high quality sound and video facilities to enable high quality teaching and learning opportunities. There is a teaching room for simulation activities and workshops. 

The following is a sample of work conducted in the on-site clinic:

• Simulated learning
• Tele-health clinics
• Group therapy for children with speech, language and communication needs, who are on HSE caseloads
• Provision of specialist clinics in voice, fluency and adult communication disorders.
• Provision of the Lee Silverman Voice Training Programme for adults with Parkinson’s Disease
• Mentoring opportunities for staff and students
• Parent Training programmes
• Clinical examinations (Objective, Structured Clinical Examinations and Seen Viva Examinations)
• Data collection for final year research projects