Speech Pathology Week (August 25 - 31) intends to promote the speech pathology profession and the work done by speech pathologists with more than 1.2 million Australians who have communication difficulties that impacts on their daily life. Communication is a basic human right and so important to people in their everyday lives.

Most of us have been there either with our own child, a niece or nephew, little cousin or sibling, or a child your’e babysitting - temper tantrums! They can be distressful, embarrassing when in public, and at times hard to control.

Our director Dr Celin Gelgec went to hear Dr Brene Brown speak on her recent tour of Australia on the power of courage and empathy in dealing with shame and vulnerability.

Whether a child or an adult, most of us can relate to a time that we felt anxiety in getting something ‘right’, or even more so, ‘perfect’ - it could have been a sand castle that, as a child, we wanted to show off to our parents, or an art masterpiece in primary school, or an assignment or letter that just didn’t read as well as it should. Either way, most of us can relate to something just not working out to plan. Would this make us a perfectionist? Well, it would probably depend on how frequent this happens and the intensity of it. As human beings, it’s normal to want to succeed and do our best. So, is there a bad side to perfectionism?

August is Tradies National Health Month where Australians are raising awareness of the risks posed to those who work in trade occupations. Australia’s trade industry have among the highest health and safety issues of any sector, this also includes mental health.

Although we can all feel sad, down, or be in a bad mood from time to time, whether things don’t go as expected or someone hurts us, or we lose a loved one - depression is not just that. People who experience depression may experience these feelings intensely, for long periods of time, and at times for no apparent reason. It affects a person’s physical and mental health. It impacts on how a person thinks about the world and themselves. Similarly, children can experience depression.