As a Speech Pathologist working with children and adults with disabilities over the past decade, I’ve always found myself drawn to working as part of allied health and education teams. I love the collaboration, learning from other disciplines and working towards common goals for clients.
This extends to working closely with support teams, which I find so beneficial in learning more about clients and gaining the bigger picture, from family members to carers to support coordinators to support workers. It’s really positive to see how the support worker role has evolved with the expansion of the NDIS and that clients are accessing more support worker services than ever before.
In recent years, I’ve encountered more and more support workers who have accompanied clients to therapy sessions and it’s so encouraging to see their interest and involvement in such a salient part of their clients’ lives.
While it is one thing for clients to achieve therapy goals within the context of therapy sessions, which believe me is always celebrated, it is a completely different thing for them to generalise the skills and learning to their everyday lives and environments. This is one of the areas where I believe support workers are invaluable, because they support clients in day to day life and have so much opportunity to assist in the transfer of skills beyond the therapy context - whether it’s speech, occupational, physio, music or art, the list of therapies goes on.
I’ve had clients tell me time and again that their support worker is one of their closest friends, and I’ve seen first hand the significant impact of support workers to clients and their families. The connection and joy they bring is unmatched for many people living with disability.
Communication is a fundamental foundation for connection with others, independence in life, and participation in social, academic, workplace and community experiences. As Speech Pathologists, particularly those working in the disability sector, we work towards developing functional communication. That is, communication that is meaningful, useful and relevant to someone’s everyday life.
While we may work with a client towards being able to understand others and express their needs and wants through explicit teaching, modelling, role play and other means, the true success is when we learn that the client has carried the skill over to their natural environment and ordered themselves their favourite drink at a café. Or followed their daily visual routine for getting ready independently. Or used a shopping list effectively to buy the things they want. Or spoken clearly and loudly enough to be understood by someone over the phone.
There are so many opportunities like these in everyday life that support workers are involved in and can help their clients put into practice the learning from the therapy setting.
I often ask clients who their key communication partners are. This gives me an idea of who they communicate with on a regular basis and who else may be a valuable participant in the intervention process.
The reason for this is that I believe effective communication development has to be approached holistically, not focused on the client alone but also on the people that surround them. Communication is reciprocal after all and requires both parties to learn and adapt to various communication styles, whether verbal, visual or by other augmentative and alternative means for successful communication outcomes.
Support workers are often identified as their clients’ key communication partners, and beyond that as key people in their lives. Not only can support workers learn and implement communication strategies with clients, they can target daily living skills such as cooking and self-care which might be the focus of OT, or assist with exercises that are the focus of physio or exercise physiology; there is capacity to work therapy goals into everyday routines which support workers can help facilitate more than any therapist.
Whether realised or not, support workers play a crucial role in the generalisation of therapy goals and achievement of functional outcomes for clients. I would encourage support workers and clients to recognise this as a significant aspect of the support worker role, and for therapists to consider how they can collaborate with support workers and involve them in therapy.
Whilst I recognise that it is not a support worker’s job to conduct therapy, it is beneficial for clients, support workers and therapists to view the support worker role as one that can efficiently bridge the gap between the therapy context and daily life, to ultimately assist clients in achieving their goals within their natural environments.
Want to learn more about how you can support your clients in therapy sessions? Head to our therapy support page.
