As I recently qualified, I accepted my first Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) challenge to volunteer in Cambodia, a country with decades of political unrest and with a health service still in its infancy.

Me and my colleagues will be the 9th team joining this City University London project to train Cambodian professionals in SLT, so that they can then provide more effective care to children with communication difficulties and their families.

I will mainly be working in a hospital paediatric clinic, supporting two local clinicians in expanding their knowledge and skills needed to carry out assessments, to manage the caseload, to facilitate both individual and group therapy and to provide advice to families.

Children attending the clinic mainly present with severe autism, hearing loss or severe speech and language difficulties. They, and their families, often require ongoing SLT support to develop speech, language and communication skills, to reestablish parent-child interaction and to improve their quality of life.

The project is completely self-funded by the volunteer SLTs, including expenses for assessment material, therapy tools, toys and books, for board and lodge, for flights and for daily transport to and from the hospital and to community visits, for interpreters and for translations to Cambodian languages...

Therefore, any contribution, however big or small, will be a great help in continuing to build an effective, sustainable Speech and Language Therapy service in Cambodia!

Thank you!