Audiologists Needed for Mission in Vietnam

Today’s blog is written by Paige Stringer and myself. Paige is the Executive Director of the Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss and she is the person who developed the program in Vietnam and is continuing to build the program.

The Global Foundation For Children With Hearing Loss is seeking pediatric and educational audiologists to join our 2014 Summer Training Program in Vietnam from July 14 to August 8.

Mission

The mission of the Global Foundation For Children With Hearing Loss is to make a direct and lasting impact on children who are deaf and hard of hearing around the world by providing them with access to hearing technology, professional support, and the educational resources they need to achieve their potential in hearing society and to be educated in mainstream settings.

The Global Foundation’s Vietnam Deaf Education Program, which is a partnership with Thuan An Center for Disabled Children just outside Ho Chi Minh city, involves a training curriculum for audiology technicians, teachers, therapists, doctors, and families. The goal of the multi-year program is to build expertise in the network of support across audiology and auditory-verbal practice to support listening and spoken language development in young children with hearing loss.

Program description

The program involves 38 schools and 2 hospitals across 20 provinces.  It consists of annual Summer Training Programs  and winter Mobile Missions. The summer program is based at the Thuan An Center. There, teachers, therapists, medical professionals, and audiology technicians engage in curricula specific to their areas of expertise with hands-on instruction and lectures led by the Global Foundation volunteer team.  The Vietnamese trainees return each summer to build on their expertise.

During the year, Global Foundation professionals return to Vietnam to conduct Mobile Missions at some of the participating schools and clinics to further the Vietnamese learning experience. During the Summer Training Program and Mobile Missions, the Global Foundation provides hearing aids that are fitted on children as part of the Audiology training track.  We also provide training to families and caregivers to support the auditory and language development of the children at home.

Teachers and therapists also engage in our Video Analysis Program during the year. They submit videos of themselves working with children and families in therapy and classroom sessions for review and feedback by Global Foundation volunteers to support their ongoing professional development when we are not in the country.

Vietnamese participants will graduate from the Vietnam Deaf Education Program prepared to support listening and spoken language development in children with hearing loss and be able to train other professionals and families, making the Global Foundation’s efforts exponential and sustainable.

Developing regional centers

The Global Foundation is collaborating with its Vietnamese partners to establish regional audiology centers in rural areas to complement existing audiology services in the cities.  Currently, many families travel as much as 10 hours to get to an audiology center in a city. As a result, many children do not get the services they need. The regional audiology centers under development will be housed in the schools and early-intervention clinics that currently have audiology technicians and teachers enrolled in our Deaf Education Program. The centers will provide families and teachers with more accessible educational audiology support than currently exists.

2014 Summer Program goal

One of the goals for the 2014 Summer Training Program is to continue the professional development of audiology technicians who work at the targeted educational sites of the regional audiology centers.  We need pediatric and educational audiologists who have at least 8-10 years of experience working in the educational or pediatric clinical settings with pre-school and young school aged children.

The program is an exciting one to work in. The scope and scale of the Global Foundation’s program is touching over 1,000 children with hearing loss in Vietnam.  Global Foundation volunteers have the opportunity to make significant changes in many many lives. Our Vietnamese partners value our work and are wonderful hosts. If you choose to participate, you will work hard but find it an uplifting experience.

For more information, review the post by the Global Foundation’s Executive Director Paige Stringer describing the work of the Global Foundation, the one written by Lillian Henderson, MSP, CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT,  and one I wrote discussing my experiences participating in the mobile missions.

More information about the Global Foundation and its work can be found on its web site.

Interested candidates are asked to commit to at least two weeks to our program between July 14 and August 8, 2014. To apply, submit a cover letter and resume to Paige Stringer, Founder and Executive Director, by January 31, 2014 at [email protected] .