CleftPALS Crusades: Give Our Kids A Voice

CleftPALS Australia is campaigning to convince the government their children should be able to access and afford speech therapy. All active state members as well as Speech Pathology Australia support the campaign, named “Give Our Kids A Voice”.

The Give Our Kids a Voice campaign is steaming ahead with the development of a draft submission to Government. Contributors to this document are the GOKAV working party: Dr Tony Holmes, well-respected cleft and maxillofacial surgeon at RCH; Dr Julie Reid, private speech and feeding consultant; Janella Christie, speech pathologist from Monash Medical Centre and RCH; Chris Lyons from Speech Pathology Australia; and CleftPALS committee members, Evelyn Culnane, Dean Rizzetti and Nic Culnane.

The main aim of this campaign is to have speech therapy added to the Medicare Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate Scheme, which currently subsidises some of the additional dental and orthodontic treatments that children with a cleft palate are likely to endure. This scheme has been in place from many years and has been very successful in supporting the financial needs of these children and their families

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