European Day of Speech and Language Therapists

Today marks the annual European Day of Speech and Language Therapists. As members of RCSLT we join 80,000 professionals whose organisations are represented by CPLOL (Comite Permanent de Liaison des Orthophonistes) in 30 countries in Europe.

In 2004, CPLOL created European Day (EU Day) in order to increase awareness of the SLT profession throughout Europe. It was considered essential to develop public awareness about communication disorders, their effect on human health, the rights of patients with communication disorders and ways to help them. The message of EU day is that the prevention of communication disorders may gain by sharing knowledge and experience throughout Europe. With that in mind, one theme is proposed each year, and where possible, a common slogan and shared materials are used.

This year’s theme is Specific Language Impairment (SLI), Language Development, Reading-Writing.

The CPLOL website draws visitors attention to the UK’s RALLI campaign which promotes awareness of SLI. If you haven’t checked out the videos, today is a good day to do so: http://www.youtube.com/rallicampaign

So, how can we (easily) celebrate the European Day of Speech and Language Therapists? Here is a list of ideas:

• Follow CPLOL on Twitter: @CPLOL_EU

• Include a link to the RALLI campaign in emails to other professionals today

• Tweet about the role of SLTs (remember to include @ASLTIP_UK in tweets so we can re-tweet them)

• Post on facebook about SLI and the role of SLTs to raise awareness about what we do

• Write a blog talking about the role of SLTs in different sectors