In summer 2005 BSA Trustees and staff identified what they thought were the most important issues of concern, both for the Association and for people who stammer, and asked for members' views. We had nearly 100 responses. What did you think matters most?

This was seen as the most important theme for the BSA's energies. Supporting views included the sentiment that these children cannot help themselves but may be affected for the rest of their lives, and that a huge potential exists to reduce the need for further therapy. Also the opinion was expressed that early intervention should be available on the NHS to all who need it.

Ratings: very important 58%; more than moderately important 81%.

2nd. Campaigning for Better Speech and Language Therapy

This was the second most important theme according to the consultation exercise. However the underlying comments did reveal mixed views. Some members felt that the therapists' professional body should address these issues. An interesting idea was that there should be formal certification of specialist training in working with people who stammer. A further view was that supporting research and providing evidence for the effectiveness of particular approaches was the best way to help therapists.

Ratings: very important 48%; more than moderately important 74%.

3rd. Supporting School-Age Children

An interesting idea was the view that, by secondary school, this issue would be best handled within social skills training. There was also a suggestion that we need to review the effectiveness of the resources already provided to teachers by the BSA. Another idea was that there was scope for collaborative working and joint projects with other charities. However some members felt that much BSA resource had gone into this age group already and that it was now time to concentrate on adults.

Rating: more than moderately important 72%.

4th. Stammering in the Workplace

There were mixed views as to whether more should be done to get stammering recognised as a disability (which signals a need for the BSA to do more to educate members about the functioning of the Disability Discrimination Act). Positive views were that enabling skills for coping in the workplace should be a BSA priority, along with targeting employers and careers advisers with information.

Rating: more than moderately important 67%.

5th. Supporting Research into Therapies

In particular it was thought that the BSA could act as a bridge to generate ideas for research projects, publish and interpret research findings to the membership and facilitate networking between researchers.

Rating: more than moderately important 51%.

6th. Review of BSA Services and Relationship with Members

A high percentage of 'don't knows' may be partially explained by comments to the effect that these issues are not strategic but should be continually addressed.

Ratings: substantially more respondents rated this on the positive side of 'moderately important' than on the negative side: 37% as opposed to 24%. However 14% were unable to give a rating, the highest 'don't know' category for any of the themes.

Joint 7th.
Campaigning on Cost of Stammering to Society, and
Adapting to New Technologies

These two themes were jointly rated as being the least important issues for the BSA to tackle. There was a general feeling that Campaigning on Cost of Stammering to Society was too wide ranging and theoretical an issue to merit BSA's attention. Some positive views regarding Adapting to New Technologies were that initial contact by email can prepare the listener and that the BSA could work with companies who develop voice-activated systems.

Ratings: Over 60% of respondents gave both themes a rating of 1 - 3 (ie unimportant to moderately important) on the 5-point scale. One in ten respondents felt unable to give a rating to the importance of Adapting to New Technologies, which maybe signals a need for more awareness raising on the part of the BSA.

Identities of the respondents

77% of the respondents were people who stammer. Amongst these were a number of more mature members who said that stammering was no longer of great significance in their own lives but they were still interested in the work of the BSA. A further 6% were the parents of a stammering child, 13% were speech and language therapists and 4% were categorised as 'other'.

Velda Osborne, October 2007

More on the consultation and results...