90 Years of Improving the Health and Wellbeing of Outback Kids
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the creation of the Royal Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme and as CEO of what is now BUSHkids, I’m proud to lead this outstanding Queensland organisation. Although very different from the organisation established in 1935 by the then Governor, Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, 90 years later BUSHkids remains true to the scheme’s original vision of improving the health and wellbeing of children living in outback Queensland so they can fulfill their potential in life.
Thanks to the support of donors such as yourself, we continue to help Queensland kids by providing free preventative and early intervention allied healthcare to children and families living in regional, rural and remote Queensland communities. Whereas 90 years ago children were taken for treatment and respite at coastal homes, now we provide services through our regional service centres and through our cutting edge teleBUSHkids centre, Babimim Jharr, which enables us to provide health services such as speech pathology, developmental support and psychological support remotely to these communities using the latest technology.
In this letter I would like to highlight the importance of speech pathology and how it can change young lives for the better. Speech pathology involves the evaluation and treatment of a variety of communication disorders and even eating difficulties. In young children it is often associated with helping non-verbal children start to communicate, improving speech clarity, improving social communication skills, and supporting early literacy skills. It is important for their future development that these problems are addressed early in life as speech and language skills are key to helping them communicate, socialise, learn and interact with their family and friends. If not treated early, it can adversely affect a child’s education, relationships and emotional regulation; speech therapy can really be life changing.
BUSHkids has a long history of providing speech and language support. The organisation pioneered helping children with speech difficulties in the 1950s and employed its first full-time speech pathologist as early as 1964. There have been enormous advancements in speech pathology since then and BUSHkids now focuses on early intervention to make speech and communication improvements for children.
An example of this is Ben*, a young boy who lives out west. As a 5-year-old starting school Ben was referred to BUSHkids for occupational therapy support to help develop his motor skills and toileting; however, Ben’s biggest challenge was communication. He had been diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) by a Department of Education Speech Pathologist. CAS is a speech disorder that makes it difficult for a child to sequence the sounds required to speak, which meant Ben’s speech was very difficult to understand, although he could clearly understand what was said to him and would communicate non-verbally through gestures and sounds. CAS can lead to lifelong communication difficulties if not addressed early with a significant amount of therapy.
The Department of Education Speech Pathologist had determined that Ben required intensive long-term speech pathology involving twice weekly therapy sessions to help him speak and be understood. However, CAS is not recognised for funding under the NDIS and the cost of therapy sessions charged by the limited number of private therapy operators in town were far beyond what the family could afford. BUSHkids was able to provide Ben with the twice weekly therapy sessions he desperately needed free of charge, and as Ben’s family had difficulty bringing him to sessions, our speech pathologist, Cath, arranged for one of the sessions to be provided at Ben’s school, reducing the burden on the family. Ben has been receiving two 45-minute speech therapy sessions in 6-week blocks since September last year. By the end of his second block of therapy he already had a growing vocabulary of two and three-syllable words. His mum was excited that every week he was able to say a new word that he hadn’t been able to say before and said how Ben would say new words and phrases at home rather than using gestures. He could even say his brother’s name clearly and his relationship with his brother had improved as a result.
The support we have been able to provide has already significantly changed Ben’s life and BUSHkids has committed to supporting Ben and his family through ongoing speech therapy for as long as is necessary for him to reach his speech goals. The support we provide will help Ben learn, grow and reach his potential in life.
With your ongoing support we will be able to continue helping Ben and other children like him across regional, rural and remote Queensland. We couldn’t continue to provide our services free of charge for kids and families without your generous support. As we approach the end of the financial year any gift of $2 or more is tax deductable and to make donating easier, you can give online through our website; go to bushkids.org.au and click on the ‘Donate’ button.
Thank you again for helping us help disadvantaged kids growing up in the Queensland bush.