Sometimes there are defining moments in our life; something we see, someone we meet or an event that happens that makes an impression on us. It determines the direction we want to take in life.
It happened to Grace Butcher and led her to become a speech pathologist. However, even though she is now changing young people’s lives by making the world an easier place to face, it may not have been an entirely altruistic decision.
“My little sister had a speech difficulty and I watched her go to a speechie for a couple of years and it just really looked like fun, it looked like all they did was play games.”
While the idea of spending the day playing games appealed there was obviously a method to the madness.
“Now I obviously understand there’s a lot more to it.” Grace admitted.
Her path shows the importance of young people having a go and experiencing different jobs so they make an informed choice rather than one from an outside impression.
“At the time I was like ‘wow this looks like a really good career’ and then in grade 10 I got the chance to do some work experience and it was like ‘yep. This is the job for me.”
When you see Grace in action it is obvious she is a hands-on person who thrives with patient interaction. Some people thrive in theory and have no idea how to implement what they have learned in a practical application.
Like so many people Grace has used the practical to strengthen her theoretical knowledge.
“I failed a couple of things at uni but that’s alright we made it through, got there in the end. P’s get degrees was always my motto.”
“I was obviously really good clinically but I wouldn’t say theoretically. I found uni wasn’t my favourite thing. Once I got out into the job I was like ‘oh this theory is really important.”
When I first met Grace I had to ask what a speech pathologist does, and it turned out my preconceived idea was quite common.
“Yeah, people just think ‘oh, you must work with and help kids with lisps and stuttering.”
I now know there is much more to it and was blown away. I found it fascinating listening to what she is trying to accomplish and the areas she covers in attempting to do so.
“For children to be able to communicate effectively and confidently, for them to participate in schooling and be able to gain employment one day. That’s my main goal” Grace explained.
The different areas a speech pathologists works in include; speech sounds, language so children are able to understand and ask questions or follow directions or be able to express themselves using grammatical sentences.
Literacy (reading and spelling), multimodal communication using devices, keyword signs, gestures and of course fluency, which is the stuttering and then swallowing.
In total they work across 6 main areas.
Though Grace concentrates on the 0-12 age group speech pathologists [PR1] work with all ages.
“We can obviously work across the lifespan from 0 years all the way up to geriatrics. So with adults you might be working with an older gentleman who’s lost his swallowing function, someone who potentially has a diagnosis like Parkinson’s disease.”
“You can also work with people who have difficulty understanding language, they’ve potentially had a stroke and it’s affected the language area of their brain so they need to be taught how to talk again.”
Many of us can recall times when we have wanted to communicate and not been able to because of shyness, fear, lack of knowledge, etc but these are all things we can work on. It is the same with the children who walk through Grace’s door.
“Every child that comes [PR1] in might come in for a different reason. The child and parent come in and tells us their story and concerns and from there we are able to assess the child and decide on an intervention plan, depending on their needs.”
“So what comes through the door does really vary from day to day as does how long they need to be seen, so it’s a very, very interesting job.”
fellow speechie Georgia Garvie and Grace
As in any medical profession the bond between the “treater and treatee” can make or break the success of the treatment. When we gel with someone in any area of life it creates trust that leads to a willingness to do what is asked of us.
“It’s really important making sure you’ve got a good connection, that the families trust you and the therapy approaches you’re doing with their children and that the children trust you so that they actually want to come to sessions and participate.”
“Everyone I meet I try and make them connections; they’re definitely more than just a number.”
Grace’s empathy shines through and she puts it down to her upbringing and the location it occurred in.
“I found it easy coming from a small town, just knowing how to talk to people and being able to connect with them.”
“Coming from somewhere rural and remote and knowing how hard it is to get good quality services and have someone who actually really cares about the person and child versus someone who is just coming in and sees it as a job.
That rural and remote place was the wettest place in Australia.
“From Tully originally.”
When Grace arrived there was a small invasion of Tully girls with around five or six taking up positions as teachers and nurses.
“We seem to like to go from the green to the brown, sick of the Tully rain.”
Grace moved to Townsville for university and straight to Mount Isa when she finished studying; and she wasn’t alone.
“He (husband Tom) is a Tully boy. So we met there and obviously with him at work and me at uni we were kind of separated for a bit and we’d catch up whenever we could. And then, yeah, made the decision to move out to Isa.”
Most times it is the male trying to convince their partner to move to Mount Isa but in this case the roles were reversed.
“It was hard to drag, convince Tom a little bit. He was working in Cloncurry and he’s like ‘oh I don’t know. I said ‘Well bad luck I’m getting a job in Mount Isa.”
When it came time to nominate where you wanted to go upon finishing university Grace’s first choice was Mount Isa. She knew what she was in for and that she would enjoy it because she had been here on a six-week placement for university.
“I found it a really easy transition to be honest and I think coming from a smaller town made it a lot easier too. I was like ‘wow, Mount Isa is the big smoke, you know we’ve got Maccas and KFC, I was like this is great.”
At university they promote how great Mount Isa is in regard to the experiences, the caseload, the people. Grace said they really pushed rural and remote and she had firsthand knowledge from her placement, during which she did a two-day observation with North West Remote Health.
“I fell in love with being able to travel to do outreach and they work across the lifespan which is really great experience as a new grad speech pathologist.”
Having always wanted to work in the education system after a year Grace moved into Catholic education. Here she worked with teachers and educated staff on how to remove language barriers.
In the school system speechies are only able to work at a whole school level or whole classroom level and Grace identified there was a really big gap in private therapy.
“So many parents were coming in asking if I could see their child one on one. I did two- and a-bit years in Cath ed and then I made the move to work privately doing one on one and still being able to go into schools to see children, either in a clinical environment or community environment or school. “
“So you get the kind of best of all worlds, but it is a lot more tailored specifically to the needs of the child.”
In most professions Mount Isa provides opportunities you would not get on the coast with workers having to work in a wider range of areas and outside their area of expertise.
“The nice thing about being in Mount Isa is that it gives you the opportunity. You can really build on your skills and try different career paths and continue to progress compared to back on the coast where it is a bit harder to do that.”
Opening your own business can be a daunting prospect and the pitfalls many and varied. It always helps to have mentors and for Grace they were close at hand.
Tom is a diesel fitter and runs his own business, Butcher Diesel Services, that he started before he moved out here. Grace’s parents hailed from Taree area in New South Wales and were tomato pickers in Bowen until she was nine.
That is when they started a paw paw farm in Tully which Grace grew up on.
“Yeah, I was lucky I guess because my parents ran their own farm and own business so for me it always kind of came natural. I feel like I’ve always had that kind of entrepreneurial mindset which helped but it still doesn’t mean it’s been easy.”
“There’s a lot more to it than just being a clinician on the ground, you know you’ve got all your bookwork, you’ve got admin, your making sure you’re paying suppliers on time so yeah it’s been hard.”
She also has Tom to lean on but if she had taken her mother’s advice it would not have been so.
“I was always told growing up ‘don’t marry a Butcher.”
While it sounds as if there was animosity behind the statement it is in fact the complete opposite. Grace’s parents farm was in Murray Upper which is in the rainforest, about half an hour outside of Tully and the Butchers were neighbours and good friends.
“My parents were like, yep we got you girls out of here, you’re going to go to uni and get good jobs. Then I met Tom at the Tully Top pub. Even at our wedding mum said in her speech, ‘never thought she’d get with a Butcher but here we go.”
Tom and Grace will be married three years in September, three years from when their sporting careers started and ended. Tom played AFL for Buffs in an effort to try and shred for the wedding and Grace played Netball socially.
She did not last long because she broke her foot and was in a moonboot for eight weeks but is there a comeback on the way?
“No, I’m too uncoordinated. It was nice while it lasted but I’m never playing Netball ever again.”
However, the couple both give back to the community that gives them so much.
“We sponsor the Buffs, sponsored them for the past three years and I’m doing the Netball this year.”
They are both a great advertisement to what can be achieved out in the bush and Grace is an advocate for the lifestyle.
“Yeah, I absolutely love it. I think the opportunities, the social life. Just there’s always something to do and I think the fact that everyone’s just so kind and I think a lot of people have the same mindset. They come out here and they just want to have a good time, make some money, and embrace the outback.”
Her time at Northwest Health and the Allied Health team helped kickstart her social life because it is multidisciplinary. She was not just with speechies but also dieticians, physios, exercise physiologist and occupational therapist.
That made it easy to make friends even though when she arrived it was a difficult time to get together.
“The first year we moved here it was through Covid. So, even though we were isolated, Northwest was really big on trying to do things via Zoom or where we could do something when we weren’t social distancing to catch up.”
“So, I met a lot of people through work and then again everyone’s just so welcoming and it’s so easy to meet people that think the same and enjoy the same hobbies and enjoy doing adventuring and things.”
Grace and Tom love the outdoors and getting away from it all but it becomes difficult with your own business.
“We haven’t got around to doing as much as we’d like to this year. We love going to the rodeos, out to the Gregory, just even to the lake, the granites, going out for dinner together, going for a walk or just catching up there’s just so many different things to do.”
“The friends that you meet they become family, so I feel like the friends you make in Mount Isa are long-lasting friendships because you’ve got that common experience.”
With everything five minutes away it is easy to organise a quick catch up for a walk or coffee because you are not wasting so much time commuting to and from work like the city.
It is also easier to make friends because of the city’s size.
“Again, smaller, everyone seems to know everyone and you meet people and go ‘oh we’ve got a mutual connection through this person.”
Those in the city who never experience life in the country don’t understand what it provides and will never experience feeling part of a community. For many their time in Mount Isa leaves an indelible impression of lifelong memories and friendships.
“Even now people say to me ‘oh what are you still doing out there.’ At the beginning I used to feel like I had to stand up for Mount Isa and give it a big spiel but now I’m just like, yeah, some people just don’t understand it. “
“But I think when they see the social life that you have outside of work they go ‘okay that makes sense.”
Like any business in a rural area you can promote the hell out of it but it will never work as well as word of mouth, something Grace understands.
“I think it is more about making those connections and gaining trust from people in the community by putting in the hard yards to support their children.”
“If you do a good job and do the right thing by people word of mouth spreads quite quickly, and it also helps that there is obviously not many of us.”
There may not be many speechies but parents still have to part with hard earned money to have their children treated. Those that do are as rewarded as Grace over time.
“They come in as these children who aren’t able to communicate. They’ve become frustrated, their having meltdowns and outburst because no one understands what they’re trying to say.”
“A lot of times they become very behavioural and are seen as the naughty kid. Once you give them a way to communicate you can see it in their faces, like wow someone understands me.”
“They walk out more confident, parents feel more confident that their children are going to be able to participate in all those extracurricular activities so yeah they’re just happier overall.”
“It’s really beautiful to see. I think that is the best part of my job and even if its small steps it adds up to the big picture like pieces to the puzzle.”
Grace’s sister is now an occupational therapist in Townsville and proof that just because you have speech or language literacy difficulties it doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of learning.
Some people think some children are just ‘dumb’ but when they are given the tools, they go on to achieve great employment opportunities, go to university or TAFE, do an apprenticeship, do anything they want.
Coming from a small-town Grace knows how hard it is to get good service and help which is why she is so passionate about improving the accessibility of Speech Pathology services in rural and remote areas.
While she is the expert though it is a team effort.
“I might only see a child once for 45 minutes every fortnight so its really on those parents to make sure they’re putting in the strategies. They’re doing the homework, so it’s a kind of teamwork.”
Many parents don’t realise the impact even when they reflect in sessions after three to six months and Grace asks them to remember when they were at this point at the beginning of the journey and to look where they are now.
The importance of videos comes into play because even if you think you have come a long way it is not until you look back at a video you go ‘wow, they’ve come so far.’
“Yeah, I often have those moments with families which is really nice because you can reflect on the hard work that not only the child’s put in but the family have also.”
