Standards of Practice for Speech Pathologists in Community Health: Towards a Formal Program of Continuing Professional Development

Abstract

The current accreditation system existing in community health ¾ CHASP ¾ is concerned with finding ways of ensuring quality of service within community health centres, but falls short of assessing the quality of specific professional areas. A group of speech pathologists accepted an offer to prepare a demonstration document of Speech Pathology standards that could be incorporated into a Professional Accreditation Module. The standards document was presented to the Victorian Department of Health and Community Services with the aim of securing further funding for the completion of the project. Although, verbal feedback indicated in principle support for the development of Professional Accreditation Modules for all community health disciplines, no provision of resources was made to fully develop the project during the 1995-1996 budget. A description of the process of arriving at the draft set of 26 standards is presented and the outcomes and future directions are discussed.