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You can now apply for the 2019-20 SBT Student Grant – plus last year’s winner reveals how it has helped her!

Every year, SBT awards a series of student grants to help speech and language therapy students with their studies. There is one major grant of £1,000 and

As part of our commitment to lifelong learning in the field of speech and language therapy, SBT is pleased to offer a unique award for individuals undertaking training to become a Speech and Language Therapist.

Each year, we offer one major grant of £1,000 and five minor grants of £100 each. Additionally, the successful applicants will have access to various opportunities and support, throughout their time at university.

We are now taking applications for the 2019-20 grants. To receive your application form or for any queries, please contact grants@sarahbuckleytherapies.co.uk.

Megan Pickering
The winner of the 2018 SBT Major Grant Megan Pickering (left) with Sarah Buckley

How the SBT Student Grant helped last year’s winner

Megan Pickering was the winner of 2018-19’s major SBT Student Grant and she says it’s been a big help to her.

Continue reading “You can now apply for the 2019-20 SBT Student Grant – plus last year’s winner reveals how it has helped her!”
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Come and meet us at London’s SLT Graduate Recruitment Fair tomorrow

Sarah at the graduate recruitment fair

Want to know what it’s like to work as new qualified practitioner? Then come and visit us at the SLT Graduate Fair, which is being held tomorrow at University College London. This is an opportunity for graduating students from the two London training establishments, City, University of London, and UCL, to meet with speech and language therapy services, to discuss working as a newly qualified practitioner, as well as find out what we’re like and what we have to offer.

If you are attending the event, be sure to come over to our stall where we’ll have lots of exciting giveaways and we can tell you all about this year’s SBT Student Grants.

Says SBT SLT Michelle Quaye, “I began working at Sarah Buckley Therapies in September 2018. Since then I’ve worked with children in early years as well as school-aged children in mainstream primary and secondary schools. I’ve also had many training opportunities to develop and enhance my skills in practicing as a Speech Language Therapist.

“I feel that Sarah Buckley Therapies is an amazing company to start your career; I have developed here in so many ways. The team are very friendly and Sarah Buckley is a very knowledgeable and supportive Practice Manager. I would definitely recommend this company to new NQPs!”

The fair will be held in the South Cloisters on the main UCL campus between 2pm and 4pm. You can book a free ticket at Eventbrite.

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The SBT Summer Term newsletter is now available

In the sixth edition of our newsletter we have all of this in store for you:

  • The launch of the 2019-2020 SBT Student Grants scheme
  • Canadian student Alison writes about her placement with us
  • Upcoming training
  • What we did for the RCSLT and ICAN #PhotoChallenge

You can read all of that in the newsletter above or download it as a PDF.

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SBT’s clinic service suspended, due to high demand

SBT's clinic
SBT’s clinic

Since its establishment in 2010, Sarah Buckley Therapies has had the sole aim of providing as much targeted, high-quality, speech and language therapy to as many children and young people as possible. This has mainly been by providing our services to schools, but in 2017, SBT was proud to achieve its long-held ambition of opening an on-site clinic in Bromley. 

Since then, our therapists have seen dozens of children in our clinic, providing them with focused one-to-one therapy that they have been unable to obtain through other means. We’ve also expanded the clinic to provide a popular monthly out-of-hours service on Saturdays for those who can’t attend during the week. The feedback has been superb, with surveys telling us that all our clients would be likely or highly likely to recommend the clinic to others.

However, SBT has continued to grow and expand. It now has the most number of therapists it has ever had, providing services to more schools than ever before. We’ve therefore had a difficult choice to make. With even more schools approaching us for services in the 2019-2020 academic year, even once we recruit more therapists, we still won’t be able to meet those schools’ needs, as well as provide a clinic service.

Unfortunately, that means we’ve had to temporarily suspend our clinic service until further notice. This is obviously disappointing to us, but at the moment, in order to provide the most effective service to the most number of children with speech and communication difficulties, we need to focus all our resources on schools.

It remains our ambition to offer a clinic service again, as soon as possible, and we will provide updates through our web site, newsletter, social media and other means, as soon as that becomes an option for us. We’ve loved working with all our clients and we hope to work with them and many others in the near future.

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Good luck to Alison!

Alison Yildirok
Alison Yildirok

SBT has been delighted to have Alison Yildirok with us for the past month. Alison is a first-year master’s student in speech-language pathology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She wrote to us in September last year, asking if we would be willing to host her ‘practicum’ placement in the UK.

Alison wanted to get a sense of what it would be like to work and live in London and to immerse herself in its culture and lifestyle. She also wanted to see what if she would like to work as an SLT in the UK when she qualified.

We were delighted to accept her on our student placement programme and our student coordinator, Sophie Hay, was able to organise the necessary permissions for her to work with our therapists in some of our schools.

Alison says: “It has been such a privilege to work at Sarah Buckley Therapies for the past four weeks. I learned so much working alongside this amazing team of clinicians, who have supported and challenged me throughout my placement. I am coming away from this experience with an expanded skillset and stronger clinical instincts that I will carry through to my future practice.”

Sadly (for us!), Alison now to return to Canada to continue her course. Good luck with the rest of your studies, Alison – it’s been a pleasure and an honour to have you here!

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SBT at the London SLT Student Placements Partnership annual workshop

Making student placements work

Last week, SBT practice manager Sarah Buckley represented the independent speech and language therapy sector at the annual practice educators’ workshop ‘Collaboration and Innovation in Practice Education’, hosted at UCL’s Chandler House.

The only independent speech and language therapist speaking at the event, Sarah gave one of the afternoon presentations: ‘Making student placements work in the private sector.’

During her talk, Sarah explained why independent practices should offer students placements, the differences between NHS and independent placements, and best practice in managing placement schemes. She also highlighted SBT’s student placement offer, which includes:

  • Ad hoc observation days for work experience
  • Overseas placements
  • Research projects
  • Screening initiatives

Other speakers included Jodie Davies from Whittington Health on sharing experiences and professional skills, Nina Bury from Homerton Hospital NHS Trust on providing positive placements, and UCL’s Sarah Nash on multidisciplinary placements in special schools.

Student placement offers

SBT student placements

SBT has its own student coordinator, Sophie Hay, and this academic year, Sophie has already organised two student placements:

  • Gemma, who is on the second year of an MSc at City University, and was with us from September through to April.
  • Alison, from McGill University in Canada, is currently on a 20-day placement with us until June.

However, they won’t be the last this year, we’re sure!

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Disability Confident Committed

Disability Confident Committed

Sarah Buckley Therapies has today been certified a Disability Confident Committed employer.

There are nearly six million people of working age in the UK who are disabled or have a health condition. Overall, the estimated percentage of the population who are disabled is around 19%.

Historically there has been a large gap between the numbers of disabled people employed compared with non-disabled people. In September 2015 the employment rate for non-disabled people was 81% whilst that for disabled people was 46% – giving an ‘employment gap’ of around 35%.

The Disability Confident scheme is designed to encourage employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with health conditions and replaces the previous Two Ticks Positive About Disabled People scheme.

The government’s Disability Confident scheme explained

As Disability Confident Committed employers, we:

  • Ensure our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible
  • Communicate and promote vacancies
  • Offer interviews to disabled people
  • Anticipate and provide reasonable adjustments as required
  • Support any existing employees who acquire a disability or long-term health condition, enabling them to stay in work
  • Provide at least one activity that will make a difference for disabled people.

SBT has already achieved all these aims, but ‘committed’ is just the first level of the scheme and we intend to progress to further levels in due course.

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The SBT Spring 2 2019 newsletter is now available

In the fifth edition of our newsletter we have all of this in store for you:

  • SBT team updates
  • Gemma writes about her Speech and Language Therapy student placement
  • Upcoming training
  • Feedback from our Work Experience workshop

You can read all of that in the newsletter above or download it as a PDF.

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