When you help a child, you help their entire family. This has been my mantra throughout my entire career. There are so many ways to help children (and as a result, families) but I have always been drawn to helping children in what I feel are the two most notable ‘pillars’ of their growth – their development and their learning. My journey into making this a reality commenced by becoming a special education teacher. From the get-go it was evident that children requiring additional supports in the classroom were not the exception – they were the norm. When I landed a specialist position as a support language teacher, my class consisted of seven children, all with speech and language delays. Working with a speech pathologist in my classroom, I observed the same repeat barriers to effective intervention – busy families struggling to fit speech therapy home practice activities with school homework and overstretched teachers juggling several modified programs and Individual Education Plans. My passion grew for helping these core people in a child’s life – parents and teachers – to work smarter for the children, not harder. Once I retrained as a speech pathologist, my interest in supporting teachers to create inclusive, language enriched classrooms became my special area of interest. As a former teacher I have a working knowledge of the school curriculum and as a result, can provide tried and tested, relevant strategies to benefit all children within the classroom. I am passionate about presenting workshops to upskill, troubleshoot and inspire educational professionals.My other primary interest lies at the opposite end of the spectrum - helping young children to develop their emerging speech and language skills. I am trained in the Hanen Programs ‘It Takes Two To Talk' and ‘More Than Words’ and am passionate about working with families and daycare/preschool teachers to work on functional communication skills for their children.