Meet Richard Stephens. 

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bio

Rich Stephens is a person who stutters and is the President of SAY: Australia, the first international arm of SAY: The Stuttering Association For The Young founded in 2001 in NYC by Taro Alexander.

Rich graduated from Salford University/UK as a Psychiatric Nurse and spent 6 years supporting people of all ages with mental health difficulties in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand. During his time in New Zealand, Rich worked as a Maori Child Specialist Community Psychiatric Nurse, a role which started his journey to bring him closer and more at peace with his stutter.

Rich returned to the UK to pursue a career in Speech Pathology, graduating from the University of Manchester in 2017 with a BSc in Speech and Language Therapy. During this period, Rich first volunteered as a bunk counselor at Camp SAY and has been involved ever since.

Rich continued his studies at the University of Manchester and graduated with an MSC in Neuroimaging for Clinical & Cognitive Neuroscience. He was pursuing Ph.D. studies at Vanderbilt and MSU when an opportunity presented itself to launch SAY: Australia and bring a new approach to supporting young people who stutter to Australia. Rich is passionate about providing options for young people who stutter and their families, especially those he never had when he was a child.

Rich is a father to his 16-month-old son, passionately follows his boyhood team Manchester United Football Club, is an avid fan of the NFL (Seahawks) and MLB (Bluejays), and has the ULTIMATE Star Wars Film watching-sequence guide for any newcomers to the franchise!