Dominique works for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), the professional body for speech and language therapists and support workers. It is a not-for-profit organisation that promotes excellence in practice and influences health, education and social care policies.

The College currently has 13,000 members working to improve language difficulties in a variety of health-related areas such as stroke, brain injury, head & neck cancer, neurological disorders, specific speech impairment, palliative care and mental health. The head office is based at London Bridge with other offices in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

All UK speech and language therapists are required by the regulatory body, the Health Professions Council, to undertake regular and relevant learning to enhance their practice for the benefit of service users. Dominique joined the RCSLT from Epic 18 months ago to design and implement an elearning strategy for the organisation that would help members to meet this requirement in a flexible way.

She said: “Many speech & language therapists work part-time, are spread-out across the UK and have difficulty accessing funds for training and travel, making traditional learning methods often impractical.”

Dominique’s vision for professional development for speech and language therapists is to strengthen and develop the informal networks of communication that are already in place using online technology, create a suite of elearning programmes relevant to different sections of the membership, support existing face-to-face short courses with blended learning, encourage work-based learning activities and finally underpin this learning using robust reflective practice to embed learning. The College has an online CPD diary journal that was launched in 2006 and now has 95 per cent registered users.

Currently writing a book about why successful elearning needs to be theoretically underpinned, challenging and fun, with a working title ‘Your users are not monkeys, morons or machines’, Dominique is also responsible for developing a range of activities other than elearning for the College.  She continued:
“I run face-to-face national study days, am in the process of supporting specialist interest groups to go online, as well as strengthening communication networks that put speech and language therapists directly in touch with experts in their field.”

In addition to all that, Dominique has also recently joined the eLN.  She says: “When searching online I found that the eLearning Network kept coming up again and again in relation to different elearning blogs, events and well-known elearning personalities. I was curious and signed-up to attend one of their events.”

She added that she has been hooked ever since. “I joined a few months ago in November 2007 because I wanted to be part of a network that was not focused on selling to me as a potential customer but was really committed to working together to share ideas for the benefit of the elearning industry. I was also impressed by how freely high quality resources such as handouts, templates and presentations are shared on the website and through their events.

“Ultimately, now that I am working on the client-side of the fence in an organisation where I am the only elearning ‘expert’ it is great to know that I can still access relevant elearning debates with my peers.”

Dominique is keen to become an active collaborative member of the eLearning Network and has a number of strong viewpoints on current issues: “I often wonder how many training departments create elearning that they would never want to do themselves? All too often the reality is that poor quality elearning is diluting the definition of what it really means to develop an online learning experience that users find both relevant and engaging. The focus is on the ‘bottom line’, ‘the quick buck’, the fastest solution, and we forget that it’s all for nothing if we don’t inspire our learners on the way.”

Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists: http://www.rcslt.org/

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