In 2020 I was walking down the hallway at a school in between therapy sessions and noticed a child sitting in the classroom looking lost and worried, struggling to understand the classroom instructions and the schoolwork. I decided at that moment that I didn’t want any child to feel that way just because they couldn’t access the services they needed when they were younger. I concluded that the best way I could help those children was to equip the adults around them with skills and knowledge to support and advocate for them.

When I finished university in Melbourne and moved to Coonabarabran NSW in 2000 as a new grad speech pathologist, I was only intending to stay for a year. I certainly didn’t imagine that 22 years later, I would still be here, married with three daughters, on a cattle farm at the locality of Rocky Glen, 50 km out of Coonabarabran. I worked in the disability and public health sectors.and then moved into private practice, which I have been running since 2011. I have been published in a speech pathology text, presented at national conferences, completed a Masters degree and received the 2021 NBN Innovation Award -Health.