![\"Champions](\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2024\/09\/EXT_9394-SC-full-1-400x267.jpg\")
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Sarah Connolly is currently the Director of Allied Health at the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital. We caught up to find out a bit more about what led to Sarah\u2019s career in health, the importance of protecting children and what inspires her to keep doing what she does.<\/p>\n
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You\u2019re currently the Director of Allied Health, but you\u2019ve previously been the manager of Social Work at the RCH, could you tell us a bit about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n I joined the Social Work team in 2007 and had the privilege of leading the team as manager for about 9 years.\u00a0 Social workers at the RCH provide services to children and families across all areas of the hospital and have specialist knowledge in a range of areas such as chronic illness, trauma, grief and loss, family violence and child protection. \u00a0Social workers are skilled in counselling, addressing and resolving conflict, working to address barriers to receiving healthcare, advocating on behalf of children and families and acting as a communication link for families with the hospital system and other support services.\u00a0 One of the things the Social Work department is most proud of is helping to strengthen the RCH\u2019s response to family violence.\u00a0 The RCH recognises that addressing family violence is everyone\u2019s responsibility and requires a whole of hospital response.\u00a0 We are committed to supporting our patients, their families and any staff impacted by family violence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What does an average day look like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n My current role is Director of Allied Health \u2013 a really varied and interesting role supporting our Allied Health teams to deliver care right across the hospital as part of multidisciplinary teams. Together with doctors and nurses, allied health practitioners are regarded as the third pillar of health care providers in Australia. A typical day for me could involve meeting with Allied Health managers and staff on topics related to workforce needs, improving clinical services, advocating for children with additional needs through our Disability Liaison Officer team or making sure our Allied Health clinical areas are working well and that our staff have the tools they need to do their work.\u00a0 Allied Health at the RCH makes a significant contribution to the RCH vision \u2013 I see examples every day of working towards a world where all kids thrive. Sometimes when I need a break from my desk, I walk through our Allied Health clinic space and observe our clinicians supporting children to live their very best lives \u2013 whether that\u2019s through physical movement, support with activities of daily living, communication or coping with medical procedures.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>When did you first know you wanted to work in health?<\/strong><\/p>\n I always knew I wanted a career working with children, having grown up in a large extended family there were always lots of children.\u00a0 I originally wanted to be a teacher but decided on a career in social work because of the many varied career paths it offered. I trained in social work in Ireland and worked in a variety of child and family settings including child protection services as well as hospital roles\u2013 so I bring my knowledge of children and families, child health and a strong focus on child safety to my role at the RCH\u00a0 Working at the RCH is really inspirational \u2013 being surrounded by experts in children\u2019s health and bearing witness to the resilience of children in the face of serious illness and injury.\u00a0 It\u2019s definitely a special place to work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the RCH, we put children at the heart of our care \u2013 how do you see this manifest in your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n I see this manifest several times every day \u2013 at daily team huddles, patient safety discussions, in conversations with colleagues across the hospital.\u00a0 Strong teamwork and effective communication mean that children remain at the centre, particularly in the busy hospital environment.\u00a0 The RCH values- curious, courageous, inclusive, and kind \u2013 enable us to focus on the voices of children and their families.\u00a0 For example, our Child Safety and Family Violence Committee meetings open with a patient story to keep us grounded in our work. \u00a0The theme of this year\u2019s Child Protection week is \u2018every child in every community needs a fair go\u2019 and remembering that \u2018every conversation matters\u2019.\u00a0 These are essential reminders about the importance of keeping children and young people safe and well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What keeps you going each day?<\/strong><\/p>\n Being part of a kind and high achieving team is very rewarding.\u00a0 I enjoy supporting staff, troubleshooting issues, and making sure we all stay focussed on what matters \u2013 delivering high quality care to children and their families. \u00a0Each day brings new challenges, the opportunity to learn and reflect on what we can do better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sarah Connolly is currently the Director of Allied Health at the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital. We caught up to find out a bit more about what led to Sarah\u2019s career in health, the importance of protecting children and what inspires her to keep doing what she does. You\u2019re currently the Director of Allied Health, but … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10419"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10434,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10419\/revisions\/10434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}