Are you currently studying to become a Speech pathologist and are looking to get hands on experience working with clients?
Consider joining our team as a Therapy Assistant.
What is a Therapy Assistant?
Therapy assistants (or Allied Health Assistants) are not qualified therapists, but they are able to practice a client’s goals that are set by a therapist. This repetitive practice of the goals is vital to the client’s progression and allows the therapist to step up the goals more quickly.
At Speak, Learn & Grow we always employ speech pathology students as therapy assistants, as this provides you with invaluable experience, it allows us the opportunity to build into you and your clinical development and we can feel confident in the practice that you will be completing with our clients.
How does it work?
Usually, we alternate sessions between a therapist and a therapy assistant, i.e., a client will see a therapist one week and then the therapy assistant the other week. However, there may be other situations where a therapy assistant only completes a session with a particular client once a month or so.
The therapist is responsible for setting the goals for the client and the therapy assistant simply practices what the therapist is already doing. You look at the therapist’s previous session notes and target the same goals.
The sessions are 45 minutes in length, and you get paid for 10 minutes of note writing/prep. You may be asked to provide sessions at schools, preschools, and homes. You are paid for the time taken to travel to these visits. The pay rate is $29 per hour.
You will receive an hour of one-on-one supervision with a qualified therapist every month as well as a meeting/PD session with a senior therapist once a term.
Benefits of being a therapy assistant:
Hands on practical experience of the skills you are learning about in your studies.
- Opportunities to learn skills that you are not taught at university, e.g., how to
manage difficult behaviour, how to keep a child motivated, what to do if the child
doesn’t co-operate. - Individualised supervision and mentoring to help you with your caseload and to
develop your clinical skills. - Opportunity to work in a team and get exposed to a variety of therapists and how
they approach therapy. - Being part of a fun work culture, which includes social events and valuing you as an individual.
- Supervisors on clinical placements always comment on the strengths they see in students who are working as therapy assistants and tend to mark them higher than other students.
The essential criteria include:
Currently studying an undergrad degree or master’s degree in Speech Pathology
- Quiet confidence and strong written and verbal communication skills
- The ability to work independently, ask questions and manage time effectively.
- Current drivers’ licence and the ability to use your own car to do preschool / school /home visits as required (if you don’t have this, let us know and we can look at the possibility of just doing in clinic sessions)
- Current Working with Children Check
- NDIS Worker Screening Check (we can provide information about how to obtain
this).
If you are interested in joining our team as a Therapy Assistant:
