Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Students win national award for commitment to speech therapy
Our university's Speech and Language Therapy Student Group won the Newly Qualified Practitioner Team award at the Royal College of Speech and Language's annual Giving Voice awards ceremony in London.
Giving Voice launched in 2010 to demonstrate the value of speech and language therapy for service users and their families, the wider society and economy.
Since the launch, the Leeds Met Group has campaigned to raise awareness of the vital work speech and language therapists do. Earlier this year, the group launched 100 balloons, with each one containing a message on why communication is important.
The group meets each month to organise regular Giving Voice activities and also plan to work with other universities to develop a national student Giving Voice campaign.
Third year student Charlotte Cane says: "As a student group, we are very proud to have won this award. The group has been working very hard over the last six years to become even more successful. We thought it was very important to link together Speech and Language Therapy students in order to promote the idea of sharing resources and joint working to provide the best care possible for clients."
Tracey Marsh, senior lecturer and specialist speech & language therapist at our University set the group up in 2006. She says: "This award is thoroughly deserved by the group and is a credit to their efforts over recent years. The successful nomination is a culmination of their tireless work and it is important to extend the congratulations to the group's previous members too.
"The group are a tremendous asset to speech and language therapy provision at Leeds Met and to the profession as a whole."
Kamini Gadhok, chief executive of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, says: "We've been delighted by the ongoing level of commitment to Giving Voice the students at Leeds Met have shown. They have continuously worked to raise awareness that speech and language therapy transforms lives in addition to the demands of their coursework. This really shows fantastic commitment and we are excited to see what the students achieve next."