Joan spent an interesting 2 days in Paris last week running a follow–up day for participants who had been trained in Talking Mats in November 2011.

• Finding out what a young man with cerebral palsy feels about his social networks (this led to an improvement of his understanding of the purpose of his communication with different people).
• Exploring why a young woman with complex needs objects to going to hospital appointments (the mats and subsequent submats helped her to understand why she needs these appointments).
• Using Talking Mats to help 2 young women who get upset with each other in a day centre (the conclusion was to use a group mat with several young people to help them see each other’s point of view about communication).

Jane Macer joined Joan for the second day when they ran a full Talking Mats training course. One of the most challenging aspects of the day was to find the correct wording in French to allow participants to use open questions. We are very grateful to Marielle, who is following this up with the participants.

What an exciting week!

On Tuesday Sally Boa joined the Team in a more permanent role as our Senior Associate. She will be working with us for 2 days a week and will allow us to develop some of the new ideas we are planning including new resources, new consultancy and new research. She has already brought fresh insights and excitement to the office.

On Wednesday we interviewed for the companies to develop new symbols for us and also the digital version of Talking Mats for tablet devices. We are honoured to have such high quality applicants.

On Thursday Lois and I were training staff from Aberdeenshire Council Social Services. We had a great day with a very positive and enthusiastic group of participants – loads of new ideas.

Also on Thursday we were thrilled to hear that Talking Mats has won the Award for the Best Start-up Social Enterprise in Scotland! This means lots of new support and connections and also puts us through to the UK finals in London on 12th November. Our whole team plan to attend the official ceremony at the Scottish Parliament on 13th November to celebrate.

NHS Education Scotland Allied Health Profession (AHP) education strategy 2011-14 recognised that there needs to be a real and sustained emphasis on making communication skills even better. As part of that they were keen to support staff to reflect and improve their skills. Working through Communication Forum Scotland, Capability Scotland and Talking Mats were tasked with working with people who had communication difficulties to develop a resource that would impact on staff, allow for reflection, personal  and clinical development . So on a wet and wild January day in 2012 the group was formed and over the next 2 months, through 3 workshops this diverse group of 20 people shared their ideas for how they want to be treated by health staff . These ideas were turned into 10 visions and then they told stories of the experiences in health settings some good, some not so good and some dreadful. We employed a film maker to capture these stories, developed some questions and collected some useful web resources to signpost people to. The web resource is a powerful tool for anyone wanting to think about the impact of communication in health interactions.  As one recent user of the resource said   ‘I applaud all the individuals who have so kindly taken the time to share their experiences of how communication difficulties impact on everyday life.   The extent of isolation,  lack of respect and sheer frustration is palpable from their reflection of their experiences, as is their determination to positively use these experiences to educate other people in the practicalities of good communication to prevent any other individuals with communication difficulties from suffering.’ So please use the resource to support your work  http://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/education-and-training/by-discipline/allied-health-professions/about-nes-ahp/resources-and-publications/making-communication-even-better.aspx  . The only thing we would ask is that you give us feedback by filling in the evaluation form

Yesterday Lois attended a ‘Long Term Conditions Alliance’ event in Glasgow where she highlighted the fact that many people with a range of long term conditions need communication support to self manage their conditions. She pointed people to the excellent NES funded resource Making Communication Even Better.

Yesterday morning Joan attended a 3 hour Twitter course so we are getting geared up to embrace it!!

This morning we were notified that we are through to the final of the Scottish Enterprise awards for the best start-up Social Enterprise.

This afternoon we met with the Public Health Minister, Michael Matheson, at the Scottish Parliament.  We had a very useful meeting where we explained and discussed our work. The Minister was particularly interested in the way Talking Mats could be used in early intervention across a range of conditions.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring??….

Well … the next day brought news that we have been voted as finalists in the UK Social Enterprise Awards 2012.  We must be doing something right

Talking Mats wishes to develop its training , products and consultancy in the education market and is seeking a further Talking Mats associate based in their office in Stirling . It is a 2 day a week post funded for a year. If you are interested  and think you have the relevant skills and experience then please email info@talkingmats.com This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  requesting the job spec. Once you have received the job spec and you feel that you are interested then please send a CV and a covering letter outlining how you meet the job specification by 9a.m on Wednesday 3rd of October . The interviews will be held on Wednesday the 10th October in the afternoon.

Involving young people in making decisions that affect their education can be both challenging and time consuming. Margo Mackay has just completed a research project, funded by NHS Forth Valley, which examined whether using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) can be usefully combined with Talking Mats to provide a practical framework for decision making and target setting. It tested whether:

1. combining Talking Mats and the ICF-CY framework was acceptable to secondary pupils with complex needs, and
2. using the information obtained from them is helpful in setting targets for their Individual Education Plans

The project found that Talking Mats, when combined with ICF-CY, is a powerful tool with the potential to greatly enhance the nature of partnerships between pupils, parents and professionals.

Thanks to everyone who came to my presentation at the 2012 RCSLT conference ‘Driving Transformation’ I was fortunate to have the new chair of RCSLT Bryony Simpson chairing my workshop and the room was full with over 50 delegates attending.  I told the story of our spin out from the university using a Talking Mat reflecting on the skills we had developed in various  areas e.g. financial planning, intellectual property, marketing , leadership – using the Talking Mat worked well and was a visual and interesting way to discuss business planning! The participants reflected on their own business skills in groups using Talking Mats and this generated discussion about e.g. the value of the mats as a thinking and planning  tool, the challenges of intellectual property, how much risk you take in planning a new venture and what are the most helpful stepping stones – great buzz all around the room and lots of lovely comments

Getting it right for every child is a national programme to improve outcomes for all children and young people in Scotland. It threads through all existing policy, practice, strategy and legislation. New Scottish Government legislation will be introduced to parliament in 2013 which will embrace the key principles of the GIRFEC approach to all of children’s services.

Yesterday (3rd September 2012) Leanne Turner and I attended an excellent conference at Stirling University where a wide range of people explored key aspects of implementing the GIRFEC approach. (Leeanne is Employee Development Officer: Child Protection with Edinburgh Council and one of our accredited trainers)

Talking Mats and GIRFEC: Leeanne and I ran 2 seminars which described how we have worked together to develop symbol sets based on the GIRFEC model to be used with the Talking Mats Framework. We illustrated the seminar with some moving case examples of how Talking Mats has been used to get the views of children at risk. We also discussed plans for future Talking Mats developments and training.

To read one of Leeanne’s case studies click here

We have also had an article published in the Times Educational Supplement (Scotland) about talking Mats being used to help young people set their own targets – click here to download it

The final report for the project funded by the Scottish Government has been approved. This project increased the reach of the accessible communication workshop designed in 2011. The workshop aimed to raise awareness amongst people with Communication Support Needs (CSN) of their rights under the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 and to support them to understand and use the Act.  The project started in January 2012 and 51 people were trained as workshop leaders and by the end of July 20 workshops were run for people with communication support needs. The workshops proved valuable in terms of raising awareness of and understanding of issues of support and protection. Comments from participants attending included

‘Many things were covered which I did not know. I feel much more comfortable with dealing with any problems if they arise.’

‘My neighbour makes me feel unsafe and I know something can be done about it now’

‘finding out that there is no dead end that you can be helped’

A workshop leader commented

‘The sense of well-being and self-worth that most participants have described once they have understood the information about ASP is invaluable’

The incidence of disclosure was high in 8 of the 20 groups run an issue was raised which caused concern and required further investigation. Given that it is recognized that people with CSN have an increased risk of vulnerability then maybe these figures are not surprising. It emphasises the importance of the workshop to give an opportunity for people to reflect on their lives and have the confidence to report any issues of concern or potential harm.

If you want to read the full report click here 

Several groups discussed ideas of extending the reach of Talking Mats at our seminar day in June. Here are the main themes which emerged from the group thinking about non-traditional settings:

Using Talking Mats with people with mental health issues

• To build trust and relationships as Talking Mats has been proven to improve engagement
• Helps clients to ‘open up’ as it avoids direct confrontation but is also person centred
• The interviewer could do a mat on themselves to illustrate how to use it

Using Talking Mats with people with no obvious communication or cognitive difficulties

• An interview and appraisal tool with staff
• University students use it to see and reflect on their own issues and then create an action plan
• It’s being used with expectant couples to use pre-birth to discuss expectations and post-birth to help them come to terms with any issues
• Using Talking Mats with groups
• 1 large mat using sets of large symbols – the group comes to an agreementabout where each symbol should go
• Each member of a group has their own mat and their own set of symbols.Symbols can be displayed 1 at a time using Powerpoint to explain to group and participants can build up their own mat and discuss. This is helpful if time is limited
• Very useful for focus groups where people can see others’ points of view

Using Talking Mats with people with visual impairment

• Symbols van be enlarged and printed on yellow background (avoid green)
• Arial 16 point font for text
• Braille version
• Different Textured mats or boxes for ‘top scale’
• Verbal prompts