Salary: £35,116.00 - £45,413.00  per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 04 August 2025

The Role

As part of our commitment to career development for research colleagues, the University has developed 3 levels of research role profiles.  These profiles set out firstly the generic competences and responsibilities expected of role holders at each level and secondly the general qualifications and experiences needed for entry at a particular level.

You will work on the NIHR Health Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme funded project “PLACES: Promoting Local Access to Children’s Early language and communication Support” which is led by Professors Lindsay Pennington and Cristina McKean.

The project is looking at how we can tailor evidence-based early language interventions to fit local needs and strengths to widen access to services and reduce inequalities in children’s language development. We will work with NHS, local authority and third sector services in three areas: North Tyneside / Redcar and Cleveland / Wolverhampton.  In each area service leads, practitioners and parent representatives will come together to identify which children are most at risk of speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), select an evidence-based intervention and adapt it for local delivery with the target group of children. You will be based in one of the three areas and work as part of the local team as a research practitioner. You will be supported by the research team and the local service leads.

For further information please contact Linday Pennington ([email protected])

Key Accountabilites

You will be supported by the project leads, local team and the project manager. Your responsibilities will be to:

• Lead organisation of data collection in individual schools and nurseries
• Develop and maintain supportive working relationships with early years staff who are delivering a new language interventions to children
• Ensure that early year’s staff communicate with parents about the study and distribute and collect information from families in a timely manner
• Organise and conduct assessments of the language development of very young children growing up in disadvantage in busy early years settings
• Organise and conduct meetings with parents of young children to collect survey data on children’s development and families’ use of services
• Keep accurate records of children’s performance during assessment sessions.
• Enter data onto data management systems
• Disseminate information to schools and families through a variety of media.
• Contribute to the preparation of reports and papers for presentation at national and international conferences and meetings
• Attend meetings and other events appropriate to the project and give progress reports as required
• Undertake other tasks related to the projects as required by the project leads, commensurate with the grade of this post
• Identify and undertake a programme of professional development, including further training in research methods and other transferable skills

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Experience of managing a paediatric speech and language therapy caseload of preschool children from disadvantaged backgrounds
• Experience of working as a speech and language therapist in early years settings, including nurseries and pre-schools
• Ability to conduct accurate and efficient assessments of the language development of very young children in early years settings
• Experience of working with interpreters to assess children’s language development
• Ability to develop and maintain relationships with diverse groups of staff and families
• Ability to work flexibly to manage to multiple deadlines
• Understanding of Health and Educational contexts in England
• Knowledge and experience of a range of intervention approaches relevant to preschool children with speech language and communication needs (SLCN)
• Knowledge and experience of a range of assessment approaches relevant to preschool children with (SLCN)
• Knowledge of professional standards
• Awareness of and sensitivity to needs of research participants from diverse cultural backgrounds
• Experience of working with bilingual families
• Driver’s license and access to own car 

Attributes and Behaviour

• Ability to collaborate in teams
• Ablity to negotiate and influence others
• Attention to detail and careful record keeping
• Ability to analyse and reflect on own performance
• Abiltiy to seek advice as appoprpraite
• Excellent time management
• Willingness to travel to research sites
• Understanding of relevant Health and Safety and ethical issues
• Commitment to Equality and Diversity
• Flexibility

Qualifications

• An appropriate qualification to practice as a speech and language therapist (2:1 or higher)  
• Current registration with Health and Care Professions Council as a speech and language therapist
• Registered member of RCSLT 

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 28351