A theme from our Seminar: Using Talking Mats in research and evaluation

The 4 main discussions which emerged from this theme were:

1.How to evaluate the effectiveness of Talking Mats – this has been done in several projects which are listed on the Talking Mats website as well as by other researchers
2.Using Talking Mats to evaluate the progress of individuals by using Talking Mats to measure their goals before and after intervention
3.Using Talking Mats to evaluate whole services by adapting questionnaires to be used in the Talking Mats format of main topics and options – e.g. making Care Inspectorate questionnaires accessible
4.Getting group feedback to evaluate an event such as the benefit of a training course or seminar

We had a very enjoyable and stimulating day yesterday at our Talking Mats seminar whose theme was ‘Extending the Reach and Use of Talking Mats’. We had 40 participants from throughout the UK and beyond who are all trained in the use of Talking Mats and were delighted that 5 colleagues from Sweden joined us.

The Open Space format of the day allowed plenty of time for connections, discussion, exchange of ideas, learning and laughter.

The participants came up with 8 main themes – four discussed in the morning:
•How do we extend the reach of Talking Mats in the assessment process?
•How do we extend the reach of Talking Mats with families and other key players?
•How do we vary the top scale?
•How do we extend the reach of Talking Mats in non-traditional settings

– and in the afternoon:
•Using Talking Mats in research and evaluation
•How can Talking Mats be used in child and adult protection?
•What would family Talking Mats training look like?
•Accredited trainers sharing time

We promise to put the summary from each theme on the blog over the next few weeks!

We finished the day with a lovely meal and more chat…

On 12th June The Scottish Government published:

A Right to Speak: Supporting Individuals who use Alternative and Augmentative Communication

The report provides guidance to be used by people who use Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC), their families, strategic and operational heads within health boards, local authority social work and education departments and the voluntary sector.

At its launch Kim Hartley,the Scotland Officer for the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists welcomed the report and the £4million pounds which Michael Mathieson, the Minister for Public Health, announced would be available to support the recommendations in the document.

We were also pleased to see that Talking Mats was referenced several times in the report as an example of good practice.

The report can be found at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/06/8416

We are delighted to have won the Regional Student Employer of the Year award (SEOTY) for Scotland and Northern Ireland. We will now go foward to the National Awards and will hear the results of this on 18th June.

Many thanks to Anne Marie, our intern, for her nomination – its been great working with her.

7th June: Jane is presenting at the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care Conference in Glasgow
13, 14,15th June: We have a stand at the National OT Conference at the SECC in Glasgow
14th June: Joan is training in Dublin
15th June: Jane and Margo are running 2nd part of rolling training in Stirling
15th June:  Advisory Group
18th June: TALKING MATS SEMINAR
21st June: Lois is training staff at South Lanarkshire College
25th June: Lois and Sally are running the 2nd part of training in Falkirk
26th June: Lois is training in Birmingham
28th June: Joan is training in London

At our recent accredited training Anne Lafferty form the Advocacy Project Glasgow described how she used Talking Mats in a group setting. She had been asked to work with a group of adults with mental health difficulties who lived together in a house but found it a challenge to relate to each other. She decided to use Talking Mats with a data projector plus lots of paper and glue . The topic was what activities they were interested in participating in and what Anne did was project each symbol one at a time onto the screen and then everyone placed their own  symbol onto their own paper Mat. She said this worked really well, the image of the symbol projected onto the wall held the groups attention but everyone had their chance to express and then share their views. Apparently the staff were amazed and really pleased about how well the tenants participated, stayed and listened to each other. Thought it worth sharing this easy and creative way to use Talking Mats in a group setting – thanks for the idea Anne

Morag and Joan have just completed phase 1 of the Paediatric CARE measure project.  The CARE measure (Mercer, 2004) is a tool for health professionals to ask for feedback on their ‘relational empathy’.  For this project it has been adapted for use by children, young people and parents.  We have made several modifications to the measure and procedures following Phase 1 and are now starting phase 2 which will run until December across Lothian, Forth Valley and Tayside Health boards. All AHP professions will be invited to be involved. We hope it will be used nationally by AHPs following this project. If you would like a copy of the full Phase 1 Report please click here.
If you would like the Condensed Version please click here.