News Flash

PSA Industrial Officer, Ted Szarek attended a recent Speech Pathology consultative meeting. The PSA was also represented by two PSA members who work as Speech Pathologists in DECS. The meeting was chaired by the project manager, Meredith Knowler. Executive and HR representatives were also present.

A number of questions and issues were raised at the meeting. Key points of the meeting were:

• The Summary Report and Recommendations released to Speech Pathologists recently was intended as a building block to the process.

• There are currently two working parties involved with the project and the number of working parties is likely to increase in the future.

• The project team is calling for nominations from staff who are interested in participating in the working parties.

• Speech Pathologists in country locations are also invited to nominate for the working parties, video conferencing will be used to facilitate this.

• The project team intend to conduct a roadshow soon, visiting key areas to explain details of the project progress and respond to questions.

• Consultation is planned with other stake holders such as General Practitioners and School Parent Groups.

• The project team invited Speech Pathologist to provide comments and feedback via the email link provided on the DECS and SA Health Websites.

• DECS intend to develop a service level agreement with SA Health. DECS may also be retaining a Speech Pathologist to monitor this service level agreement.

• Human Resource Principles are currently being developed and should be released for consultation soon.

The PSA would like to hear from any Speech Pathology members who are interested in participating in the working parties and/or be part of a pool of members to attend scheduled consultative meetings with the project team. In particular the PSA wishes to hear from any Speech Pathology members in SA Health who are able to attend the consultative meetings as SA Health was not represented at the recent meeting.

8 February 2010