IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS FACT SHEET Disability Workstream

Project Brief

Project title: “Integrating speech therapy knowledge and practice into Cambodia’s services and workforce to support people with communication and swallowing difficulties in provincial areas”

This project uses speech therapy training and service provision to develop resources, referral pathways, and data that can guide the development of the future speech therapy profession and services.

Speech therapy involves the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and inclusion support for people with communication or swallowing difficulties. Speech therapists are university-qualified rehabilitation professionals who are able to provide assessment, intervention, and inclusion support for children and adults with communication or swallowing difficulties.

An estimated 600,000 Cambodians have communication or swallowing difficulties, implying that at least 1 in 25 Cambodians would benefit from speech therapy, 4% of the population (OIC Cambodia, 2013). Cambodia does not yet have a university training program for speech therapy, and there is a profound shortage of speech therapy services. Likewise, there is low understanding and skills from educators, disability and health workforce to support and include people with communication and swallowing difficulties, resulting in exclusion from education, workforce, and social opportunities, and lower health and wellbeing outcomes than people without these difficulties.

Currently, Cambodia’s limited speech therapy services are located primarily in Phnom Penh and are mainly run by the private sector. There are no speech therapy services or recognized workforce within government health hospitals or rehabilitation centres outside of Phnom Penh, leaving the majority of Cambodians with communication or swallowing difficulties unable to access speech therapy support. The vast majority of Cambodians who live with communication difficulties are solely reliant on informal community and family support, with public services rarely considering inclusive practices (Net et al 2023). This mismatch of need and availability requires a significant investment to build a speech therapy service and workforce able to respond to the community context.

The provincial health and rehabilitation workforce from target provinces will be trained over 12 months in aspects of speech therapy to enable them to support people with specific communication or swallowing difficulties. This training will be supported by the provision of speech therapy services within the target provincial hospitals, prioritizing provinces with existing joint PRC locations. 

A second 12-month training for health centres will provide community health and social service stakeholders to identify, refer, and provide basic support to people with communication difficulties.

These activities will be implemented using a system-strengthening approach, including participation in broader policy and framework initiatives to enhance the integration of speech therapy within Cambodia’s public systems and support disability inclusion within wider Cambodian society.