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Barwon Health is once again honoured to award the Renée Sheedy Scholarship to allied health professionals in memory of Dr Renée Sheedy.

The scholarship fund was established in 2017 to honour the contribution Renée made to Barwon Health as a clinician-researcher and to encourage allied health staff to undertake research-relevant professional development activities.

The Renée Sheedy Scholarship is an award of up to $1,500 to assist staff with the costs associated with eligible research-relevant activity.

This year we were able to welcome Renee’s family, her husband Dan, son Harry, Renee’s parents Jim and Sandra Trigg at the John Lindell lecture theatre on Wednesday 23 March, 2022, to take part in the presentations, with Harry personally awarding the scholarships to this year’s two worthy recipients, Natasha Curham (Speech Pathology), and Erin Parker (Social Work).

2022 Recipients

Natasha Curham

As the Speech Pathology at Barwon Health continues to develop their model of care in collaboration with our Ear, Nose and Throat colleagues to increase accessibility to specialist appointments across the region, Natasha has had her paper accepted to present at the Voice Foundation conference in Philadelphia in June, 2022.  The Renée Sheedy Scholarship will be used to pay for the conference registration for Natasha to attend as a presenter.  The conference is a terrific opportunity for Natasha to receive learning, skills and resources that will be directly translatable for the Speech Pathology and ENT context at Barwon Health.

Pictured: Harry Sheedy, Dan Sheedy, Natasha Curham, Jim Trigg, Sandra Trigg

Erin Parker

In the Community Health setting, the role of Social Work can at times be misunderstood or poorly articulated, with direct impact open the successful functioning of the multidisciplinary teams.  Erin and her community social work colleagues are embarking on research to better understand the perceived versus actual scope of SW practice in community health context. The Renée Sheedy Scholarship will be used to support the qualitative data analysis that will be undertaken as a part of this clinician-led research.  The outcomes of this work will help to ensure adherence to the National Safety and Quality Health Standard Action 5.05 “Collaboration and teamwork”.

Pictured: Harry Sheedy, Dan Sheedy, Elise Wilkinson (on behalf of recipient Erin Parker), Jim Trigg, Sandra Trigg

Congratulations to both Natasha and Erin, keep in touch about your practice-based research!