Local speech pathologist, business owner, and mum-to-be Teneille Webster-O’Callaghan has been living out her life passion and providing healthcare to Beenleigh residents for over six years now, but said it was the COVID-19 pandemic that has her seeing more local clients than ever before.
Mrs Webster-O’Callaghan is a born and bred Logan City local, having grown up in Bahrs Scrub, gone to school in the region, is now living at Daisy Hill, and running her business at Beenleigh.
She saw a gap in the market and opened up her business Fun with Words Speech Pathology in Beenleigh over six years ago.
“My younger sister went through speech pathology when we were really young and seeing how that helped her really inspired me to pursue it,” Mrs Webster-O’Callaghan said.
“I knew that I wanted to be a speech pathologist since I was in year 7.
“I went out regional first and then decided I wanted to return to Logan, specifically Beenleigh.
“There were no speech pathology clinics in this area at all.”
After working in the industry and running her own business, Mrs Webster-O’Callaghan said she has learnt so much and finds it to be very rewarding.
“It’s basically working on communication skills. We mostly work with children but really it’s across the entire life span,” she said.
“I’m still seeing clients that I’ve been seeing since I first opened my business over six years ago…and to see how far they’ve come with their communication is just amazing.
“I’m only doing this because I love it so much. When I started my business it was a huge leap of faith, I started with no clients…but luckily being a local I knew the area and had connections.”
After six years, and three office upgrades as the business grows, Mrs Webster-O’Callaghan said she now sees over 80 clients a week.
“Including myself we will have five staff as of early next year,” she said.
“Which is incredible to me and not something I saw happening when I started out.
“I love doing what I do and I love doing it in Beenleigh…Logan is just such a great place to live and work.
“And this is where I wanted to start my family.”
Mrs Webster-O’Callaghan and her husband are expecting their first child in February and said they were thankful to have made the move to the bigger office in time.
“Despite how tragic the COVID-19 pandemic has been for a lot of people it’s really been great for our business,” she said.
“We had more and more people with referrals.
“I think maybe because Logan families had to stay home for a bit and were spending more time together and some even taking on more of an active role in their children’s schooling, they noticed they needed a bit more help with communication.
“We even had to switch to online telehealth services for a bit but it was a good learning experience.
“We’re looking forward to seeing how next year goes and how the business grows.”
