The posting
A Senior Speech and Language Therapist provides care, therapy and education to children, their families, teachers and/or facilitators to facilitate their communication in collaboration with various allied professionals. This involves working in areas like speech, language, communication needs (both receptive and expressive) and feeding.
S/He serves the needs of the children from the different sectors within the Canossian Village and the wider community. S/He works collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary team to provide quality care and contributes to the Village’s efforts in providing an enhanced service delivery through the Canossian Circle of Care. S/He is an expert in her/his area of specialty, providing professional development for others - this includes training, coaching, and consulting the relevant stakeholders. S/He also contributes to the development and review of processes and resources and partakes in research and evaluation as needed. S/He performs clinical supervision of interns and other speech-language therapist as needed. S/He is also involved in managing service quality and performs department administration and operations tasks.
Critical Work Functions and Key Tasks
Casework - Assessment and Intervention Planning
- Conduct assessment to determine child’s level of functioning in their natural environment and identify areas requiring intervention
- Formulate client-centred and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely) goals based on assessment findings and educational goals in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.
- Select appropriate and specific outcome measures to enable evaluation of intervention progress and outcomes
- Provide intervention recommendations based on evaluation of child's needs
- Communicate assessment results (including Functional Age Estimates (FAE) for EIPIC cases), intervention plans, goals and outcome measures to relevant stakeholders at Individual Educational Plan (IEP) or Global Child Outcomes (GCO) meetings
- Provide guidance to supervisees on utilising evidence-based practices for assessment, case formulation and intervention planning
Casework - Delivery of Intervention
- Provide evidence-based intervention through individual and/or group format, pull-out and/or push-in support, depending on child's needs
- Recommend communication options, including the use of Assistive Technology, according to child's needs
- Facilitate/ lead in collaborations (e.g., provide consultations, co-plan activities, review progress, provide coaching) with relevant stakeholders (e.g., teachers, facilitators and parents) to support child in achieving intervention goals and generalising strategies within classroom and home settings
- Improve intervention by adoption of new techniques and technologies
- Evaluate intervention progress and outcomes using selected therapy outcome measures regularly
- Modify intervention plans based on child's performance and motivation as well as intervention outcome measures collected
- Formulate discharge or care plans based on child's performance, in consultation with relevant stakeholders
- Communicate intervention plans, outcome measures, progress and discharge criteria to relevant stakeholders during review meetings
- Provide guidance to supervisees on utilising evidence-based practices for implementation of intervention and progress evaluation
Casework – Performance of Clinical Administration and Operations
- Comply and monitor compliance of supervisees to profession's ethical guidelines and organisation's clinical protocols, and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
- Manage feedback and provide guidance to supervisees on response to feedback from stakeholders
- Complete documentations (e.g., intervention plans, progress reports, case notes, case updates to sectors, recording of contact hours for provision of secondment/ itinerant services) accurately and promptly, and ensure they are well-maintained.
- Review documentations for cases of supervisee(s) and provide supervision where needed
- Coordinate with sectors to manage team's workload and roster to enhance manpower usage, and streamline processes to ensure quality and timely provision of services
- Contribute inputs for funding proposals for the purposes of obtaining grants/ support to achieve department outcomes
- Develop clinical practice guidelines
- Participate in the development of new clinical services
System Work
- Review models of care and service delivery and recommend improvements recommend aligned to evidence-based practice
- Facilitate/ lead in research and evaluation for programme improvement by providing clinical expertise and consultation
- Conduct audits
- Implement and track progress on strategic plans – output and outcomes for the different initiatives across the Child Development Unit
- Monitor teams' clinical and non-clinical key performance indicators and ensure team’s yearly performance targets are aligned with the Canossaville’s strategic focus areas
- Lead in sector or village-wide quality improvement projects/ programmes/ initiatives
- Plan and deliver trainings/ workshops/ activities/ programmes to meet the learning needs for staff and caregivers
- Partner sectors in the village to give presentations to schools, funders, government agencies
Personal / People Development
- Enhances professional growth and development by keeping up to date with current literature and through participating in educational programmes, in-service meetings, and workshops (internal and external)
- Supervise and mentor speech-language therapist and/or interns, ensuring that they are growing professionally and achieving their targets set for the year
Education, Skills, and Competencies
- Undergraduate or Master’s Degree in Speech Pathology from an accredited university recognised by the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC)
- At least 5 years of relevant experience in pediatric / school-based setting
- (Preferred) At least 3 years of experience in supervisory / management role
- Relevant experience working with students with hearing loss will be an added advantage
- Professional license: Fully registered with the Allied Health Professions Council of Singapore
- Capacity to work effectively in response to work demands (responding to client needs in different circumstances including critical incidents)
- Excellent interpersonal and written communication skills
- Ability to collaborate, build and maintain strong relationships with different stakeholders
- Ability to contribute to a positive work and team culture where members strive for the highest standards of service delivery and care
- Ability to adapt to change and a willingness to embrace new strategies and ways of working
- Ability to work independently with minimal supervision
- Ability to work effectively in a team-oriented and multi-disciplinary environment
