The signing ceremony for the Cooperation Agreement between the Community Health Centre of the Primorje-Gorski kotar County and the University of Rijeka, namely the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology, was held on Monday, March 3 at the UNIRI Rectorate. These two organisations will work together on implementing the “UNILOG u Domu zdravlja” programme (UNILOG at the Community Health Centre) that focuses on making speech therapy more accessible to Rijeka’s citizens.
The agreement was signed by: the Director of the Community Health Centre of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Emina Grgurević Dujmić, MD, specialist in radiology, Rector of the University of Rijeka, Prof. Snježana Prijić-Samaržija, Ph.D., Acting Dean of the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology, Prof. Zdravko Kolundžić, Ph.D., and Director of the UNILOG programme Assoc. Prof. Maja Kelić, Ph.D. Along with the signatories, the following were present at the signing ceremony: Vice-Rector for Studies, Students, and Quality Assurance, Prof. Marta Žuvić, Ph.D., and the Deputy Director of the Community Health Centre of Primorje-Gorski kotar County, Goran Trbojević, LL.M.
This year’s motto of our university is ‘healthy community’, and this programme supports that agenda. The presence of the UNIRI Speech Therapy Centre at the Community Health Centre of The Primorje-Gorski kotar County will greatly benefit the citizens of Rijeka and make speech therapy more accessible to the county’s residents, Madam Rector Prijić Samaržija said in the introduction.
We are proud to be part of a team building this new, innovative practice, one that is unique in Croatia and that benefits both citizens and students who are gaining real-life experience while working with the patients. We hope to finally shift our focus to prevention after the first generation of previously scarce therapists in Rijeka graduate and after we solve the problem with diagnostic and therapeutic speech therapy services, Director Grgurević Dujmić highlighted.
In Primorje-Gorski kotar County, a very small number of speech therapists are active and in Rijeka, most of them are employed by the Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka or by two schools run by the City of Rijeka. The speech therapist to population ratio is significantly smaller than the European and Croatian average (in comparison with the other three big cities in the county that gravitate towards these standards). Speech therapists who are currently employed in the county offer a small number of services for a very limited number and type of patients. That leaves a large number of patients without access to therapy. In the last two decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of children who require early intervention, whether it is children with autism spectrum disorders or children with developmental language disorders. Early intervention and ensuring that children are provided with therapy at the right time can result in fewer children with developmental language disorders, and prevent later difficulties that can impact one’s academic achievements, social activities, and ability to achieve life goals.
By establishing the Study of Speech Therapy at the University of Rijeka in 2020, and the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology later on, the University of Rijeka directly responds to the needs for such experts in Rijeka and the Primorje-Gorski kotar County. The first generation of speech therapists graduating from the University of Rijeka will be joining the labour market in 2025.
In March this year, the County’s Community Health Centre and the University of Rijeka started to implement the UNILOG programme to establish an innovative model of internship for graduate students of the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology, and provide speech therapy for the public.
This project has multiple objectives: to make sure that speech therapy is available to the citizens of the Primorje-Gorski kotar County and Rijeka, and to provide the graduate students, i.e. Bachelors of Speech and Language Pathology, an opportunity to refine their practical skills and adapt to the work environment.
Starting from March 2025, graduate students competent to work under supervision will offer speech therapy to preschool and school-age children two days a week in the newly renovated space at the Community Health Centre located in Cambierieva Street, adapted specially for therapy sessions. The students will be directly supervised by two teaching assistants from the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology, namely Lea Dobrec, MA, and Marina Borčić, MA. Both of the teaching assistants have experience working with children with developmental language disorders and communication disorders. The students have a second-level supervisor who helps them plan therapy procedures properly and a third-level supervisor, the project leader, Assoc. Prof. Maja Kelić, Ph.D., helps them track how effective the therapy procedures are and make decisions on what the patients will need further. To participate, the parents will apply via email which will soon be published on the official site of the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology along with other important information. The therapy sessions will be held two days a week in two separate rooms at the same time at the Community Health Centre. There are 8 BA students involved in the project. Every student will work with five patients. Therapy sessions are planned as treatment cycles consisting of 8 to 10 therapy sessions for each patient to ensure the circulation of the patients and to include as many children in need of therapy as possible.
This project aims to make speech therapy more accessible to the citizens of the Primorje-Gorski kotar County. By including the University Speech Therapy Centre through supervised student work, the number of speech therapy services available to the citizens will increase. Likewise, the three-level supervision will ensure high-quality therapeutic procedures. Including speech and language pathology students in this programme will allow them to enter the labour market while studying, potentially contributing to the agenda of keeping young professionals from leaving the country. The long-term goal is to hire the top-performing students at the Community Health Centres in the county, making the former students the first-level supervisors of the programme.
The benefits of such a model are twofold. On one hand, it provides services to the local community, and on the other hand, it entails the development of the experts, and future collaborators of the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Rijeka. As a young faculty currently facing many issues trying to provide their students with internship opportunities, the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology aims to build a network of alumni experts that will support the faculty with their work and ensure practical experience for future generations of students. The Community Health Centre, as a unique concept of healthcare institution that provides healthcare to the population of a specific area as a part of their primary level healthcare activities, is undoubtedly the proper place for speech therapy That way, such services are available to all citizens, regardless of their age and diagnosis, outside of the Clinical Hospital Centre, schools or kindergartens, focusing on prevention and not only the diagnosis and therapy.
The five-year education at the pre-graduate and graduate study programmes of Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Rijeka is clinically oriented and tries to provide the students with many hours of practice, lectures, and clinical practice. This project is the last step in the process of developing practical competencies for Rijeka’s speech and language pathology students, aiming to give them a chance to work on their own under supervision as the last step of mastering practical skills. The Faculty’s mission is to educate the experts who practice evidence-based methods, who successfully incorporate new scientific knowledge into practical clinical procedures, and choose clinical approaches taking into account the results of effectiveness studies and the perspectives of those involved in the therapy process – the patient, their families and caretakers, and the broader community. Such an innovative model of internship for graduate students of speech and language pathology is a completely new concept in the Republic of Croatia. This model will ensure that the students of the final year of the Faculty of Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Rijeka reach a remarkable level of expertise and at the same time contribute greatly to the availability and the quality of speech therapy in Primorje-Gorski kotar County.
