This collaborative project with the UoR and the RCSLT provides students with an opportunity to explore what is sustainability in speech and language therapy practice, undertake a Sustainability Quality Improvement project and develop and disseminate resources for members of the professional body.
Department: Clinical Language Sciences
Supervised by: Vishnu Nair, Milly Heelan, Emma Pagnamenta
Climate change presents a major threat to our health and our planet. The change on the environment is accelerating with direct and immediate consequences for patients, the public and the National Health Service (NHS) (NHS England 2022). The health of patients is directly impacted by climate change and therefore it will also affect communication and swallowing disorders (Sherratt 2022). The United Nations have seventeen sustainable development goals which prompt an urgent call for action to protect people and the planet now and into the future (United Nations 2022). All health professionals, including speech and language therapists play a key role in reducing the impact of healthcare on the environment. The RCSLT strategic vision contains aspirations that the profession actively engages in supporting environmental sustainability. The UoR's vision is to embed sustainability practices across the University’s operations to become a leader in global environmental sustainability. The role of speech and language therapy and sustainability has not been examined expansively. There is limited knowledge and guidance on sustainability and speech and language therapy practice. This student led project will be the start of future work at the university and will be pivotal in understanding socio-environmental sustainability and speech and language therapy practice. The project will have 2 distinct parts: 1) Review of literature to identify themes and practical suggestions for future research and practice that centres sustainability in SLT. 2) Piloting an audit tool as the first step in a quality improvement project.
Week 1 • Induction with PIs. • Meeting with RCSLT collaborators. • Background reading and preparation for literature review. Week 2 • Literature searching on sustainability in speech and language therapy. • Reviewing the Sustainability Quality Improvement quality improvement tool and defining scope for quality improvement project. Meeting with UoR SLT clinic team. Week 3 • Summarising review of literature on sustainability • Collecting data using the SusQI quality improvement tool. Week 4 • Summarising review of literature on sustainability • Collecting data using the SusQI quality improvement tool. • • Analysing baseline data from SusQI tool and writing up. Week 5 • Production of bulletin article/RCSLT webpage content. • Analysing baseline data from SusQI tool Week 6 • Opportunity to present/disseminate key findings from the literature review and data analysis to the RCSLT team. • Reviewing findings of SusQI data collection with UoR SLT clinic team
• Interest in socio-environmental sustainability • Interest in examining socio-environmental crisis and its impact on speech and language therapy and health care more broadly. • Speech and language therapy student or interest/knowledge of speech and language therapy. • Good communication skills and ability to work flexibly
• Advanced professional communication skills within an educational and professional organisation context. • Written presentation skills in the dissemination of project findings to a professional audience. • Research training in conducting literature searches and reviews, and data audit skills. • Enhanced employability through the completion of an authentic project that prepares the student for the clinical workplace.
University of Reading
Full time or part time
Monday 05 June 2023 - Monday 14 August 2023
The deadline to apply for this opportunity is Monday 3rd April 2023. Students should submit their CV and Cover Letter directly to the Project Supervisor (click on supervisor name at the top of the page for email). Successful candidates will be invited for an interview.