There have been a few moments lately when we’ve had good reason to stop, take a photo (or two) and celebrate.
At the Lake Macquarie Business Excellence Awards, A Growing Understanding was named Excellence in Medium Business, while our Founder and Practice Director, Lauren Haskins, received the Outstanding Business Leader award. More recently, at the Business Hunter Awards, A Growing Understanding was recognised as Highly Commended in the Medium-Sized Business category, with Lauren also receiving a Highly Commended recognition for Business Leader of the Year.
They are achievements we are proud of, particularly in the year A Growing Understanding celebrates its tenth birthday. Ten years ago, AGU began with one speech pathologist and a room inside a friend’s practice. Today, we have a much bigger team, two Centres and a community of children and families who have shaped who we are.
But while receiving an award is lovely, the trophy itself isn’t really the important part.
For us, recognition for business excellence is valuable because of what sits behind it. It gives us an opportunity to look at the strength of the service we have built around our clinicians, and what that means for the children and families who trust us with their care.
When You Choose a Speech Pathologist, You’re Choosing More Than One Clinician
When a parent starts looking for speech pathology support, there is usually something happening in everyday family life that has prompted the search.
Perhaps your child isn’t using as many words as you expected. Maybe other people are finding their speech difficult to understand. School is becoming harder, mealtimes have become stressful, or your child is frustrated because they know what they want to communicate but can’t always get the message across.
Sometimes the concern is very clear. Other times, it is simply that parental instinct telling you something might need a closer look. These are some of the many different starting points families bring to speech pathology.
In those moments, it makes sense that your first thought is about finding a good Speech Pathologist. And that relationship is incredibly important. But there is also a whole service sitting behind that clinician.
There are people answering questions when you first reach out. Systems that protect your child’s information and keep their care organised. Clinical leaders supporting decision-making. Professional development that keeps clinicians learning. Processes for reviewing progress, responding when needs change and collaborating with other people in your child’s world.
That wider foundation matters because speech pathology is often a journey rather than a single appointment. A strong service gives both your clinician and your family the support to travel that journey well. Behind each appointment at A Growing Understanding is a team that plans, reviews, learns and works alongside families to support progress in everyday life.
So, Why Do Business Awards Matter?
This is where business awards perhaps mean something a little different to us.
Of course, they provide an opportunity to celebrate growth and recognise the enormous contribution of our team. But they also invite an independent lens over aspects of the organisation we have spent years building.
For a paediatric allied health service, good business practice and good clinical care shouldn’t sit in separate boxes. Strong leadership helps us invest in our people. Good systems help create consistency for families. A healthy and supported team has greater capacity to focus on the children in front of them. Sustainable growth allows us to keep developing services that respond to what our community actually needs.
And importantly, a strong organisation is better positioned to be there for families not just at the first appointment, but throughout the different stages of their child’s communication journey.
That is the kind of business growth we want to celebrate.
Ten Years of Growing with Our Community
Our recent awards also feel particularly meaningful because they have arrived during our tenth year.
Our awards journey tells part of that story. A Growing Understanding was recognised as a Start-Up Superstar in 2018, before going on to receive Business of the Year, Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion and Outstanding Business Leader in 2023. This year’s Lake Macquarie and Business Hunter recognition marks another stage in that growth.
But the bigger story isn’t really contained in an awards cabinet. It’s in the thousands of ordinary moments that have happened along the way.
A child using a new word. A family understanding their child’s communication a little better. A clearer speech sound. Joining a conversation at school. Communicating a need independently. Trying a new food. A parent walking away from an appointment feeling more confident about what to do next.
Those wins might look small from the outside, but for the child and family experiencing them, they can be enormous.
And none of them happen because we won an award.
They happen because of the clinicians who care deeply about their work, the team around them, the families who put their trust in us and the children and young people who keep teaching us what good support needs to look like.
Taking a Moment to Celebrate (and Then Continuing to Grow)
So yes, we are taking a moment to celebrate these awards.
We are proud of Lauren’s leadership. We are proud of the team that has grown around an idea that began ten years ago. And we are grateful to the Lake Macquarie and wider Hunter business community for recognising the work happening within A Growing Understanding.
But perhaps what these awards mean most to us is reassurance that the foundations we have worked hard to build are being recognised too.
Because ten years isn’t a finish line. It is another point along the way.
Our focus remains where it has always been: continuing to grow carefully, supporting our team well, listening to our families and creating speech pathology services that children and families can rely on.
And if an award gives us an excuse to stop for just a moment, look back at where we started and celebrate everyone who helped us get here, we think that’s worth doing too.
