The speaker had difficulties with sound quality today. A live captions transcript is available below the handout if you are finding it hard to hear - although as with all live transcripts, the script is sometimes hilariously inaccurate. We're so grateful to Ann for making the webinar work despite the technical difficulties.
WORKING AS A REGISTERED INTERMEDIARY
Ann Birch describes her work as a Registered Intermediary working alongside the police and courts to support vulnerable witnesses to achieve the best evidence.
Charity donations
It is our pleasure to offer you access to this great CPD free of charge - but we are also taking the opportunity to raise money for a charity close to the speaker's heart, and we invite you to make a small donation in recognition of Ann's time and generosity. The Group B Strep Support charity raises awareness of the impact of Group B Strep infections on babies in utero. They are a small charity, working hard to secure wider testing and speedy treatment of these infections when they occur in pregnancy to reduce the long term impact on children and families. Your donation, no matter how small, is valuable. You can find out more about the charity here.
The link to make a donation is: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/magpies-annbirch
“When I was a little girl, a language unit provision was added to our primary school. I secured the role of plant monitor and got to wander about ‘spying’ on classes and teachers. I watered the spider plants in the language unit every week and listened to what the speech and language therapist was doing. I was fascinated and would linger longer than necessary. That is what I want to do when I grow up, I thought. So, I did.”
Ann has been a Speech and Language Therapist working with children for 27 years. Originally working in community clinics, language units and hearing resource bases in the South Wales Valleys she specialised in hearing loss/Deafness combining managerial posts and clinical work for Cardiff and Vale Health Board.
To maintain clinical variety Ann has combined NHS work with an independent caseload since 2002. She has a Masters in Language, Literacies and Dyslexia, ‘guest’ lectures speech and language therapy students at Cardiff Metropolitan University and works as a Registered Intermediary within South and West Wales.
She loves the flexibility and variety of our profession and remains passionate about helping children and young people to communicate to the best of their ability.