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Talking Mats is delighted to welcome a new Training Associate, Jess Lane. Jess has written this blog to introduce herself to the Talking Mats community. Welcome, Jess, we’re thrilled to have you as part of team TM!

Hello! My name is Jess and I am thrilled to be introducing myself as a newly appointed Training Associate for Talking Mats.   

About Me

I am a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist with a clinical background in Learning Disabilities and Paediatric Mental Health. I also work for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) as a Research and Outcomes Officer, where I help to build research capacity, capability and culture within the profession. I am currently studying towards a Clinical Doctorate in Professional Health Studies, looking at the use of Talking Mats for facilitating the direct and meaningful involvement of children in care planning.    

Talking Mats has been a huge part of my career to date. This began in my hometown of Gloucester, where I worked as an SLT in an Intensive Support Service for children and adults with learning disabilities. Changes in my personal circumstances saw me relocate to Scotland in 2022, where I worked across Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) Services in and around Glasgow. Most recently, I worked at a National Child Inpatient Psychiatric Unit (CIPU), supporting children with severe and enduring mental illnesses.

Talking Mats in CAMHS  

Since completing my Licenced Training last year, I have been working with Talking Mats to deliver Foundation Training for CAMHS teams across the UK, as well as driving an upskilling initiative for Specialist Children’s Services locally in Glasgow. I have found that Talking Mats provides children with a safe space to explore topics that they might otherwise feel unable to communicate about, in a way that is highly supportive, sensitive and impactful. This is encompassed by feedback from a recent patient, who wanted to share that “using a Talking Mat is easier than talking because talking about how you feel can be difficult”.

Many of the children admitted to CIPU present with transient communication difficulties that can exacerbate the impact of mental ill health. Some children present with underlying communication difficulties that were not apparent in the community setting. Other children do not present with communication difficulties, but find it extremely difficult to think about, or share their views on, sensitive topics. Because of this, Talking Mats have been used extensively by the multidisciplinary team on CIPU to:

  • Facilitate the direct involvement of patients in goal setting and care planning
  • Adapt and extend traditional mental health inventions, including talking therapies
  • Support capacity assessments, assessments of mental state and medication reviews
  • Improve engagement with local advocacy services as part of the CTO process
  • Adapt and extend assessments such as the Child Occupational Self-Assessment Tool
  • Improve access to psychoeducation for patients with anxiety and/or depression 
  • Improve engagement with meal planning for patients with an eating disorder
  • Support the differential diagnosis process for mental illnesses such as catatonia
Bad memories

Using Talking Mats in an acute mental health setting has transformed the way clinicians from across Nursing, Psychiatry, Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Psychology engage with the children about their care and treatment. Feedback from the clinical team, children and their parents/carers has been overwhelmingly positive. Talking Mats are now used routinely on the unit to support children’s access to (and engagement with) therapeutic intervention as part of their wider recovery, as well as ahead of all multidisciplinary team meetings and case conferences to ensure each child’s voice is heard and acted upon.

I am so pleased to have joined the Talking Mats team and am very much looking forward to supporting other people to use Talking Mats in a range of settings. Stay tuned for a follow up blog on how I have used Talking Mats as part of a post-diagnostic package of support for autistic children and young people, designed to support more focussed, strengths-based conversations around what it means to be autistic, in line with the core principles of neurodiversity affirming practice.

Last week, Laura Holmes, our NW England Associate, had the pleasure of interviewing our inspirational Founder, Joan Murphy. Joan will be retiring after our Talking Mats 21 event on 15th August 2019 and so this was a great opportunity to find out more about her Talking Mats experiences:

Are there any stand-out moments for you, from your Talking Mats time?

Talking Mats are now used in many countries across the world and it has been great to have the chance to travel widely. One particular moment which stands out for me was during one of two trips I made to China with Sally Boa. I was asked to demonstrate Talking Mats with a man who was in hospital having had a stroke. He had no speech and was using a wheelchair. I used Talking Mats to find out what the man felt he could/ couldn’t do. The man shared that he felt he could walk. I had to present the symbol three times as the family members and medical staff watching were adamant that the man could not walk. On the third time, the man pushed the table, moved his wheelchair back then stood up and walked around the room. His family and medical team were completely shocked and realised that no-one had actually thought to ask him if he could walk. This was a massive turning point both for the man – and also for his family and medical team, who could now see the power of using a Talking Mat.

Have you done any Talking Mats yourself that helped you to make an important decision for you or your family?

Absolutely – quite a few! My husband and I both used Talking Mats for our Power of Attorneys and shared them with our lawyer and grown-up children. My husband and I also used Talking Mats to talk about the Scottish Referendum as we had opposing views – it really helped as it made us listen to each other without interrupting. We then went on to use the mats as part of a presentation. Various members of my family have used mats to explore personal issues and decisions 

What are the top tips you have gained from your Talking Mats journey – from working in the NHS and then more recently as a social enterprise?

You have to have humour. And be able to listen. It has been essential to be able to work in partnership with Lois and the other Talking Mats team members. The team are such nice people to work with and we have lots of laughs. Setting up as social enterprise was vital for Talking Mats – in terms of having the freedom to be creative. It felt as though someone had a big rubber band which was able to be released. It was a huge risk and there have been lots of leaps of faith along the way.

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Do you have any top tips for people using Talking Mats in the Listener role?

Be quiet – and Listen! It’s also important to feel relaxed and to have a sense of humour whilst using it. A Talking Mat is not a test – it is serious, and can be used to explore difficult issues, but it should be fun.

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Talking Mats is a low-tech AAC system – do you think it has a place in the modern world?

It is absolutely crucial! Low-tech resources are fundamental in terms of being able to have and develop conversation skills and social closeness.

What do you want for Talking Mats in the next 10 years?

World Domination! Talking Mats has the potential to be used everywhere in the world, by everyone. However I would like to see Talking Mats continue to have a small core team, but increasing Licensed Trainers across both the UK and the rest of the world.

 

Our Talking Mats is 21 Event is in Stirling on Thursday 15th August 2019.  Thanks to funding from NHS Forth Valley endowment committee the event is free but you do need to book your space https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talking-mats-is-21-tickets-62362171935

21st save the date

You can come to the morning only, afternoon only or come for the whole day.

If you can’t come to our event watch out for out blogs and social media celebrating the reach of Talking Mats for 21 days before the 15th of August.  Please join in with your contributions using the hashtag #TMis21. For 21 days after our event we will be having a special Birthday offer! Watch this space, more to follow …….

 

Many thanks to Jenny Trott for our new guest blog about her interview with Talking Mats Director, Lois Cameron – Jenny’s video provides some great information about the Talking Mats approach and our original and digital resources:

A year ago I started my YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/jennytrott) as a way of supporting parents and carers with information and inspiration. As a parent of a disabled child myself I knew that one of the best ways to find out things is from other parents, and YouTube was just a different and new way to do that. To date I have published nearly 50 films about subjects ranging from Self Directed Support to Rebound therapy, and including interviews with parents, professionals and disabled people.

Quite early on I knew that I wanted to make a film about Talking Mats. I had used Talking Mats when I worked with people living with dementia, and I knew that my son’s school were using them too. I had seen the benefits of this innovative communication tool but I also knew that many parents and carers didn’t really understand it because they hadn’t been given the right information.

Lois was kind enough to agree to join me in front of the camera, so in April I visited Talking Mats in Stirling with my tripods, microphones and cameras. It can be a bit daunting interviewing someone I’ve not met before but Lois instantly put me at ease and had the great idea of demonstrating a Mat rather than just talking about it. It was so interesting, experiencing using a Mat first hand and it helped to show the viewers what Talking Mats is really about.

You can view the video here: https://youtu.be/Fmyt1fE-_U8

The feedback from the film has been great, both from professionals, parent carers and SLT students; lots of lightbulb moments; “ah, now I get it”!

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I am still making films but less frequently as I am now also setting up a social enterprise, Mecoco (www.mecoco.org) here in North Ayrshire.  We’ll be offering work experience and volunteering opportunities to disabled people to work alongside us making candles and melts. I am sure Talking Mats will be invaluable in our workshop!

If you’d like to find out more about accessing Talking Mats training take a look here- https://www.talkingmats.com/training/  – we offer a range of options including online, and bespoke training for organisations, as well as advanced courses and specialist seminars for those who have already accessed Talking Mats Foundation Training.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are all looking forward to celebrating Talking Mats is 21 on the 15th August

The morning is aimed at people who are experienced Talking Mats practitioners and will extend thinking and Talking Mats practice. There are an interesting range of parallel sessions to choose from. Each participant will get to choose three topics to attend.

  • Talking Mats as a Thinking Tool
  • Embedding Talking Mats in Schools
  • Talking Mats in Forensic Settings
  • Talking Mats in End of Life Care
  • My experience of using Talking Mats as a parent
  • Talking Mats and Positive behaviour Support
  • Talking Mats and Supported Decision- Making
  • Empowering people with Learning Disabilities to be Talking Mats Listeners and Trainers
  • Talking Mats and Children’s Mental Health

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The afternoon is more informal and there will be an opportunity to engage with some of our partners – see how they use Talking Mats and try things out . There will be posters on the use of Talking Mats in lots of different places and for a wide range of applications.

Plus there will be lunch, cake and a few bubbles !

cake and bubbles

Thanks to funding from NHS Forth Valley endowment committee the event is free but you do need to book your space https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talking-mats-is-21-tickets-62362171935

You can come to the morning only, afternoon only or come for the whole day.

If you can’t come to our event watch out for out blogs and social media celebrating the reach of Talking Mats for 21 days before the 15th of August .Please join in with your contributions using the hashtag #TMis21. For 21 days after our event we will be having a special Birthday offer! Watch this space, more to follow …….

 

We have been exploring how Talking Mats can be used as a tool to support business – both a framework for interviews and appraisals.  Because it supports reflection, it is an ideal framework for employers to use with job candidates.

The recruitment process is time consuming for organisations, and any errors at this stage can be costly for teams.  When I applied for the post of associate with Talking Mats I wasn’t surprised that the actual interview was engaging and different from any other interview experience.

The first part was for the candidates to teach the interview panel a skill, in 5 minutes.  As a speech and language therapist this made a lot of sense to me, as teaching people a skill is more empowering than merely sharing your knowledge.

The second stage of the interview was using a Talking Mat to consider my levels of confidence in relation to aspects of the post.

Having used Talking Mats with children and parents in my clinical work,  I wasn’t used to being  ‘on the other side of the mat’,  and experienced  first-hand the positive aspects.

Firstly, it gives the interviewee permission to break eye contact.  This immediately takes away the pressure of  non-verbal feedback from the panel e.g. if one of the panel is smiling encouragingly, it is tempting to focus on that one person and possibly say too much.   The focus being on the cards and the actual mat can reduce anxiety, supporting people to clearly express their views.

Another aspect of Talking Mats is that the person interviewing, hands to the candidate a picture card on one aspect of the topic e.g. knowledge and skills.

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The multi sensory  aspect i.e. auditory , tactile and visual, supports the candidate to focus on this one concept and share his or her reflection.

The conversation is then built up and captured on an actual mat and the candidate has the opportunity to move the options on the scale as the conversation progresses.

Talking Mats as a communication tool maximises the capacity of individuals to say what matters to them.  How many people leave an interview feeling they didn’t say what they wanted to?

 

P.S.  I got the job!

We are delighted that we have been able to support Kirsty Hamiliton to become our paid Talking Mats office junior. As Kirsty was leaving school she wanted to get some experience doing real work but this is a challenge for her as she has severe autism. The social interaction and pace of change involved in a busy office is not easy for her, but she likes sorting and organising things, so we decided to give it a go.  We have to confess that Joan and I needed some persuasion. At  that time we were busy setting up Talking Mats as a start-up social enterprise and taking on an additional commitment added further complexity to our initial phase of getting started .However, Margo who was one of our associates and also worked with Kirsty in her NHS job is persuasive and we gave it a go!

It has not always been plain sailing. There were challenges; initially, Kirsty only managed to volunteer for an hour at a time and needed significant support to help her manage that. Through having a structured environment, Kirsty moved to volunteering for two hours a week and lots of progress made both in the tasks performed but also level of supervision required. Her support worker no longer stays with her in the office. Karen our Talking Mats Training Administrator is responsible for her work and once a task is set up Kirsty works on them independently.

There have been huge benefits to Talking Mats and they have outweighed the difficulties. We have someone who

  • has an eye for detail
  • who likes putting things into sets; a huge advantage if you are working with symbols
  • who can work at  speed and with great focus  on visual tasks that the rest of us find hard,
  • who is reliable and comes  to her work every week
  • who keeps us grounded by reminding us of our core business i.e. to improve the lives of people with communication difficulties

We have also learnt a lot about supporting someone with severe autism in to work and we would like to ask other organisations and companies to think about whether they have opportunities that people with communication disability can take advantage of. It has really made me reflect on my time in the NHS as a Speech and language therapy manager. Despite the investment that the NHS makes to people with learning disability, there are limited opportunities for employment for people with autism and learning disability in statutory services, yet we are sure staff have the skills to support this. We have no doubt that Kirsty’s social and communication skills have grown hugely in her time with us. We think statutory services are missing a huge opportunity to make a real difference to an individual’s health and well-being that will begin to challenge the continued current health inequalities that exist.

We are proud that Kirsty has moved from volunteer to paid status and proud of all the team at Talking Mats that has enabled this to happen. She’s a great colleague to have in our social enterprise .

Stirling Council hosted a meeting this morning (2nd October) to discuss Stirling’s response to the Syrian refugees crisis. It was a great meeting with good speakers outlining the Scottish response and also the Stirling response to welcoming families from the refugee camps. There were about 150 people in the hall buzzing with ideas and we were given plenty of time to discuss in groups our thoughts and ideas.

One of the key issues overlying those such as housing, education, health, faith and community support was communication. How we can help people whose first language is not English and who may also have difficulty expressing themselves because of trauma?

Already there have been responses from translation services, the local Islamic Centre and the University. Another possibility is the use of Talking Mats to help people consider their options and express their views. We have used Talking Mats in other situations where English was not a first language, for example in clinical situations with Polish patients and also in our work in China a few years ago. We found that once the person understood the basic structure of Talking Mats we were able to communicate amazingly well. We have a number of symbol resources that might be helpful and, as a social enterprise, are keen to offer our services.

Like everyone in this morning’s meeting, we look forward to welcoming and supporting the Syrian families who are coming to Stirling.

Talking Mats is delighted to support Fair Trade through the purchase of new style bags which has come about through the initiative of one of our team, Margo Mackay. She has written the following blog:

The arrival of seven large boxes shipped from Kolkata caused great excitement in the Talking Mats office last week. For me personally opening up the boxes from the Freeset factory immediately brought a series of images to mind. Just over one year ago, at the start of 2014, I was part of a delegation of Scottish women who visited India to see businesses set up to help women who had been trafficked.

A tour around the factory revealed well organised systems with women busy working in production; cutting, sewing and printing bags ordered from all over the world. A factory like any other but with a significant difference. Most of the employees had previously been trapped in India’s sex trade which had robbed them of dignity. For them, getting a job in the Freeset factory gives the women a chance to regain control of their lives in a caring community.

They are given fair pay and conditions, offered education and health care. They are supported to make their journey out of prostitution and into a new way of living, restoring hope. Although a business, Freeset is also a community. The women are often dealing with health problems (including HIV/AIDS), and psychological effects from abuse and exclusion from society. This makes for a challenging workplace and much effort is put into creating a compassionate environment where the women are supported and their needs met.

As a Social Enterprise business, through selling our Talking Mats products, we are now participating in a woman’s journey to freedom. The transformation in women’s lives is clearly apparent, simply because they’ve been given a chance. We are proud to be supporting this enterprise.
Why don’t you have a look for yourself on their website?  http://freesetglobal.com/

And why don’t you treat yourself to one of these attractive bags by buying one of our products

It’s that time again when we have to write our Annual Report. This year we decided to make it (hopefully) more interesting and informative to read and (definitely) more enjoyable to write.  So we have done it in the form of mind maps.
The first is a summary of all that we have achieved in the past year. We have broken it down into the various strands of our Social Enterprise business. Click on the mind map to be able to read it!

Talking Mats year in Numbers 2013 - 2014

The second is an attempt to measure the social impact that Talking Mats has – never an easy thing to quantify.We have based it on Health and Social Care Outcomes used by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland 2013. Click on mind map.

Health and Social Care Outcomes
We were delighted to receive this comment – “You can tell they are communication professionals. No waffle – really clear and just what you want to know. The best example of an annual report I have ever seen!”

Please let us know if you have any innovative ways of presenting reports

On Thursday 12th September Talking Mats we had a great evening as we launched:

  • First version of Digital Talking Mats
  • New Children and Young People’s resource
  • New Health and Well-being resource
  • New symbols
  • New website

Over 80 people attended the event which took place at the beautiful Stirling College Campus. The speakers gave funny and heart warming short talks about their involvement with Talking Mats.

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We were honoured to have Greig McMurchie and Anne McGuire MP to do the official ribbon pulling launch.

 

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Kirsty and Joan demonstrated how to use the app and after this guests mingled and explored the app and the new website.

Awards
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