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Trudi Szallasi Memorial Scholarship
Our friend and colleague, Trudi Szallasi, was an online tutor with Health e-Learning from August 2005 until her untimely death from breast cancer in June 2008. Trudi was totally committed to helping mothers and babies have a successful and happy breastfeeding relationship. She was a volunteer breastfeeding counselor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, served as a Director on the National Board, and held the role of State president for 2 years. After qualifying as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) Trudi began a private practice, and ultimately became the President of the local branch of the Australian Lactation Consultant’s Association. In the year Trudi qualified as an IBCLC she gained the highest grade in the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners exam and was subsequently invited onto the IBLCE examination committee for the review of the following year’s exam.
She left behind three beautiful young children, a devoted husband and loving parents, brothers and their families, and countless friends.
Health e-Learning is seeking to honour the memory of a truly remarkable and wonderful woman who made a great contribution to the mothers and babies in her care, the lactation students she taught, and the lactation world by awarding this scholarship.
What the scholarship covers
Full fees for:
- IH05: Medical Terminology
- AP03: Critical Appraisal of Research
- BE01 - BE10: BreastEd Program (120 hr program)
- ET01: Ethics for Lactation Consultants
- Lactation Exam Practice (LPEX, LPPLUS, LPMOCK) in the session before sitting the IBLCE examination
- Access to online mentoring with our experienced Lactation Consultant course facilitators
Selection Criteria
The applicant:
- must have an intention to sit the IBLCE examination within the two years following the year the scholarship is awarded.
- must meet all IBLCE stated prerequisites to sit the IBLCE examination within the two years following the year the scholarship was awarded. (Important: Please refer to the IBLCE website to view the exam prerequisites. The scholarship does NOT cover the college-level courses that must be completed.)
- must be prepared to pay the IBLCE examination fee when it becomes due.
- will provide your examination results to Health e-Learning.
- must have a computer that is connected to the internet and you have sufficient computer skills to participate in online learning.
- must be sufficiently fluent in the English language to study these programs, and read research papers and textbooks.
The scholarship is open internationally. The scholarship will be awarded to the best-qualified applicant, with preference given to one who has or has had mother-to-mother/peer-to-peer breastfeeding counseling experience with a recognized volunteer peer counseling service (for example La Leche League, Australian Breastfeeding Association, National Childbirth Trust, etc)
Application
Applications are now closed but will open again the first week of March every year.
The application form will become available between March 1st and May 31st each year.
Agreement
It is expected that the successful applicant will agree to:
- Purchase, or have access to, one or more of the latest editions of the major comprehensive lactation texts.
- Pay the IBLCE examination fee when it becomes due.
- Make a firm commitment to spend at least 15 hours per BreastEd course and at least 5 hours for the Ethics course to study the course content and complete the activities and other courses before the Deadline for Exam Application in the year you sit.
- Complete the practice exams in Lactation Exam Practice.
- Participate in the online discussion forums that accompany each of the online courses and the Lactation Exam Practice.
- Establish and maintain regular contact by email with your course facilitators.
- Apply the knowledge learned as you work with mothers/parents and babies, discussing your clinical experiences with your clinical mentor and your course facilitators.
Aster Tang 
Nguyen Nhat Vu Dao Nguyen is a qualified Breastfeeding Counsellor of The Australian Breastfeeding Association. She received her Cert IV in Nursing from the Australian Catholic University in 2012. However, her passion is not only about nursing, but also helping other members in her Vietnamese community, especially those who find English a language barrier.
Having a linguistics background, she decided to study Master of Translation and Interpreting and got her degree in 2015. The lack of breastfeeding and parenting information support in the Vietnamese community has urged her to research, translate and write related articles into Vietnamese. She has been counselling and helping thousands of Vietnamese mothers and families with breastfeeding issues, as well as weaning and parenting issues.
Nguyen is now working as an Interpreter and Translator while teaching Interpreting at Diploma level.
Health e-Learning is proud to have supported Nguyen to reach her goal and she has now successfully achieved certification as an IBCLC in 2021. Congratulations Nguyen!
Dr. Faten M Tamim (Amman, Jordan)
Faten M Tamim is a consultant in Maternal and Child Nutrition, got her PhD in 2017. She is a specialist in Maternal and Child Health and got her MSc in 2008. She has 20 years experience at Ministry of Health as midwife, supervisor, mentor, educator and breastfeeding trainer. She founded the first private breastfeeding clinic in Jordan in 2014, as she realized the huge gap in exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months after birth.
In 2016, she founded The Breastfeeding Support Association to raise awareness among the whole community among the Jordanian society and to be the first formal umbrella that deal with the private health care system as Ministry of Health is dealing with the governmental health care system. With the other members of the association, she works on providing breastfeeding training among the health professionals to help in supporting mothers who give birth in private hospitals.
Health e-Learning proudly supported Faten's goal by helping her study during 2017/18 and she successfully achieve certification as an IBCLC in 2018. Congratulations Faten!
Fionnuala Cooney (Dublin, Ireland)
Fionnuala is married with two teenage sons. She is a medical doctor and currently works as a consultant in Public Health Medicine within the Health Service Executive in Dublin, Ireland.
Ireland has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world and Fionnuala regards this as a serious public health problem. Fionnuala has been involved in breastfeeding-related research and has been contributing to both policy and clinical support for breastfeeding in Ireland. She is an active member of the BFHI National Breastfeeding Committee and she has also been participating at the local level with both Cuidiú and La Leche League, the two main NGOs involved in volunteer peer breastfeeding counselling services in Ireland.
Fionnuala believes that qualifying as an IBCLC will increase her sphere of influence at the national level in the areas of policy and clinical practice. Her aim is to work with the breastfeeding community to re-establish breastfeeding as the societal norm in Ireland.
Health e-Learning is proud to have supported Fionnuala to reach her goal and she has now successfully achieved certification as an IBCLC in 2019. Congratulations Fionnuala!
Chelsie Robertson (South Auckland, New Zealand)
Chelsie lives in South Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband and 3 young sons’ ages 5, 3 and 1. She has previously been involved with Breastfeeding New Zealand and LLL in a peer counsellor capacity as a mother to mother support person. This sparked Chelsie’s passion for growing her lactation community in New Zealand. Currently she works as a self-employed primary care midwife, in partnership with women and families, facilitating normal birthing and postnatal care.
Upon successful completion of the IBCLC exam, Chelsie hopes to explore the possibilities of milk banking and milk sharing in New Zealand, focus on being a voice, and advocate for the breastfeeding women around New Zealand.
Health e-Learning proudly supported Chelsie's goal by helping her study during 2014/15 and she successfully achieve certification as an IBCLC in 2015. Congratulations Chelsie!