Sally-Ann Garrett

As a Highly Specialist SLT, my clinical work over the past 40 years has focused on supporting adults and children with learning disabilities and complex needs. I started my career in the NHS in 1972 as a clinician in general practice, working with people of all ages, from babies to the elderly. I took some time out when my children were born, and returned to work part time. In 1981, I emigrated to Canada with my family, where I rapidly took on managerial responsibilities in a large residential institution for people with learning disabilities; I was for the most part, a single handed clinician, working closely with special assistants. Because of the size of the institution, and the large number of people who needed help, I developed training programmes for the care staff. I became a lecturer at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario, and from the university base, I supported the resettlement of many people in Ontario, as well as working with Colleagues in the Developmental Disabilities Programme in Kingston, where I undertook an epidemiological survey of Rett Syndrome in Eastern Ontario. While in Canada, I published several articles in the Ontario Journal on Developmental Disabilities. My growing interest in Rett syndrome lead me to support the new Ontario Rett Syndrome Association, where I took on the task of being Treasurer for the Association. My developing knowledge lead to requests to provide information about Rett syndrome to conferences in Canada and USA.

I returned to England in the summer of 1996, and worked as the Manager of SLT services in a Trust for Learning Disabilities and Mental Health in Kent for 18 months, where I developed additional clinical skills and knowledge in mental health issues, and continued to provide training to care staff and families.

Moving back home to the Isle of Wight in January 1998 gave me the opportunity to develop the Total Communication Project for the Isle of Wight over a three year period, where I won two awards for my work: The Medina Award for Innovation in Practice, and the silver award at the annual Chief Executive's awards.

I became the Head of Service for the NHS Speech and Language Therapy on the Island first in an acting capacity in October 2002, and permanently from 2004, developing and supporting three teams: Adult, Learning Disability and Paediatric teams, providing on-going supervision for all levels of therapists and delivering specialist therapy input to a complex paediatric caseload. I remained in this role until the end of January 2012, when I was made redundant following alignment with the Local Authority Children's Services SLT team.

In addition to clinical and managerial work, I act as a referee for the British Institute for Learning Disabilities (BILD) Journal, reviewing articles for publication and making recommendations to the Editor and authors of articles about SLT and Learning Disability issues. I am also a medical adviser to RettUK for Speech and Language Therapy, and regularly provide workshops or updates about Speech and Language Therapy at the Annual Family Weekend for RettUK, or at Regional Meetings organised by RettUK. In 2011, I was requested to give a presentation about Rett Syndrome at the Primary Care Conference at the NEC, organised by Stirling Events, and I will be presenting at the Irish Rett Syndrome Association in October 2012.