My support worker journey

For AHP Support Worker Week, Laura Hayden shares her experience of becoming a speech and language therapy support worker, the rewarding aspects of her role and her future plans in the profession.  

Since graduating from university, I have always had a passion for working with young people and started my career as a teaching assistant (TA) in a mainstream secondary school. During my time there, I was given the responsibility of delivering speech and language interventions to young people. I really enjoyed being able to make a difference to the students and watching the progress they made with their communication. It was from this point that I decided I wanted to pursue a career as a speech and language therapy support worker.

I really enjoyed being able to make a difference to the students and watching the progress they made with their communication.

While working as a TA, I began the Post Graduate Diploma in Language and Communication Impairment in Children at the University of Sheffield. This sparked my interest in children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) and led me to apply for a TA position at a local SLCN school. There, I assisted in therapist-led groups and supported their individual aims within the classroom setting. I then asked the head of speech therapy if there was any opportunity to create a speech and language therapy assistant (SLTA) role, and the rest is history.

There are many aspects to being a support worker that I enjoy, but one of the things I love is that in my current role I get to deliver bespoke therapy to the young people and adults in our provision. One of my favourite pieces of therapy involved working with a young man who had a stammer. Together, we spent therapy sessions discussing strategies that could help him feel empowered when talking. This therapy ended with the young man delivering an assembly to the students at the school and college about stammering, which was timed to coincide with International Stammering Awareness Day.  

It is very rewarding to see the students develop new skills and grow in confidence throughout our therapy sessions.

Another part of my role is delivering group therapy sessions focusing on various topics. These group sessions are designed to link in with the current needs of the students and involve areas such functional communication, relationships and self-advocacy. It is very rewarding to see the students develop new skills and grow in confidence throughout our therapy sessions.

To support my professional development, I have been using the support worker hub and framework available on the RCSLT website. 

These have allowed me to identify any gaps in my knowledge and have supported me to ask for further learning opportunities. I also share these resources with other SLTAs in our team to help with their own professional development.

I think one of the main ways that speech and language therapists (SLTs) can help support workers is to provide opportunities for them to learn. This can be done through ongoing CPD opportunities, attending professional meetings, allowing them to carry out therapy with individuals and being there when clinical supervision is needed. In the provision I work in, the SLTs are very supportive to the support workers in the team.  

Next year, I have a place at the University of Sheffield to train as an SLT through the apprenticeship scheme which I am really looking forward to. But I also love my current support worker job; no two days are the same, and it’s incredibly fulfilling to see the difference that young people make in therapy.