LAUSR

The theme Local Contexts, Global Practice was selected for the 2020 Speech Pathology Australia (SPA) national conference in Darwin, and no one anticipated just how relevant the relationships between local and global were to become. The emergence of COVID-19 meant global events shaped our local contexts and local decision making directly influenced how individuals were able to engage in national and international spaces. Subsequently, the 2020 SPA national conference was cancelled, and in 2021 a virtual conference with the same theme was held in its place. In this editorial, we reflect on how the papers within this edition connect with the 2021 conference theme and prompt us to consider the links between global and local. Keynote speaker Yvette Hyter explicates some of the critical issues in the profession, calling on us to understand the global context and the impacts of history (e.g. colonialism) on our contemporary communities. Hyter (2022) provides a powerful narrative describing the importance of critical reflection for examining inequities in the ways speech language pathologists (SLPs) practice and offer services. Such reflections can be a tool for reframing and adjusting our perspectives as we work towards improving our own (and the profession’s) cultural responsivity. This is in line with our professional standards which require us to “reflect on and integrate insights into our practice” to improve the ways in which we deliver services to people who experience communication and swallowing difficulties (Speech Pathology Australia, 2020, p. 13). We note here that each time we reflect, we make choices about how deeply we reflect, what we reflect on, and who we are prioritising in our reflections. Critical reflection can be deeply uncomfortable, particularly when challenging any positions of privilege that we hold. Moving away from more superficial observations to the critical spaces, including interrogating our perceptions of truth, may lead us to a place of ethical unease or uncertainty about our actions. For example, reflecting on the epistemologies and ontologies that we value, challenging the power imbalances between ourselves and the clients we aim to support, or thinking about whether our services are truly accessible to all. Sally Hewat, in her Elizabeth Usher Memorial address reminds us that disruption can result in transformation (Hewat, 2022). Uncomfortable experiences can act as a catalyst for change. We challenge you to feel discomfort and uncertainty on your own journeys, to re-imagine and reconceptualise practices that combat the institutionalised and systemic racism and inequity that remains unexamined (Hyter, 2022). Use the questions posed by Hewat to reflect on how we, as a profession, may transform our practices and our profession to meet both global and local needs. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, the world is an interconnected global society. We are an increasingly globalised profession, made up of individuals who have lived, worked and/or are connected to global practice. Even for those clinicians who never intend to leave Australia’s shores, the clients that come to you with their communication and swallowing needs often come from, or have, loved ones overseas. Whether we live and work in the same community all our lives or work in other countries, at the heart of the theme Local Contexts, Global Practice, is a call for clinicians and researchers to think carefully about the nature of our knowledge base and the contextual application of our practices. Diversity, representation, equity, and responsivity are some of the critical issues we have been reflecting on as we collated this special issue and, opportunely, several papers in this conference edition address these issues directly. In Australia, Catherine Easton and colleagues’ paper queries the reproduction of homogeneity found in the composition of the profession. The authors propose that online education may be an opportunity to diversify the profession, providing accessibility to people who may not otherwise be able to attend a more traditional, campus-based approach to speech-language pathology education (Easton et al., 2022). Dimitra Ohtaras and colleagues explore issues in equity and access by analysing and discussing data from the 2013 Australian government senate inquiry (Parliament of Australia, 2014) which elucidates the shortcomings of SLP service delivery in the education sector. Critical reflection on this issue should drive systemic advocacy efforts to pursue models of service funding and delivery that are more equitable and are not dependent on ‘luck’ (Ohtaras et al., 2022).