March 2022
What is your current role, and more specifically what is your role in the neonatal unit?
I am a speech and language therapist, and my current role is in the area of infant feeding and swallowing, as well as early communication and development.
On the neonatal unit, I work with infants and their families to help provide positive early feeding experiences, develop feeding skills and minimise risks to the respiratory tract and chest health. I also help to enhance infants’ neurodevelopment, including their communication and language skills.
What is your passion?
My passion is making sure every baby is given the opportunity to reach their maximum potential in developing their feeding and communication skills, regardless of the circumstances they were born in. Early identification and intervention to prevent difficulties, rather than react to them, is essential. Early experiences can have a huge impact on their development and lives as a whole.
I’m also very passionate about equality and inclusion in healthcare and the workplace.
What is your favourite part of your job?
My favourite part of my job is when I’m teaming up with families, learning about their priorities and goals, then coming up with strategies to achieve these goals together. Seeing families feel empowered to provide the best care for their babies is priceless.
What is your proudest moment?
My proudest moments are usually when a parent says that the strategies we’ve implemented for their baby have worked, and that their baby is now starting to show new skills like latching onto the breast or sucking on a dummy, or that they are feeding with more ease. It is always a special moment when, as therapists, we are able to say that a baby is showing developmental progress and a positive response to therapy. This can allow other important decisions to be made, like proceeding with medical treatment.
Being part of Evelina London means?
It’s like finding a home – a home with passionate, kind, open-minded, humble, and magnificently talented people all working tirelessly and going above and beyond as the default. Everyone is trying to achieve a common goal: doing what is best for our patients. It is incredible and inspiring – a community I’m very proud to be part of. I don’t believe anywhere else can be quite like Evelina London.
Thank you to the children and young people who have so brilliantly illustrated our blog pages.