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We are delighted to be attending the Looked After Children Conference in Manchester on the 8th of December 2022. Many Looked After Children and Young People have communication needs, which can make it difficult for them to have a voice and express their views and feelings.
This flyer shows how Talking Mats can help Children and Young People with communication needs to share their views and feelings, in line with the Lundy Model of Participation and UNCRC Article 12, which underpins our training and approach:
If you are attending this conference, come and visit Laura at our Talking Mats stand to find out more. Laura is our Lead Associate for Children and Young People, and also works as a Speech and Language Therapist with Cared-For children and young people, using Talking Mats as an integral part of her assessment and intervention process.
To find out more about the range and impact of communication needs of Looked After Children, check out this information from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
It’s that time of year when fancy clothes are aired, proud parents clutch tissues and little funny black hats are thrown sky high! Congratulations to all students graduating this year, and to students moving successfully into your next year of learning.
A recent Twitter conversation asked what therapy tools / approaches practitioners thought should be included in Speech and Language Therapy courses. Talking Mats popped up frequently and whilst we are keen to have as many practitioners as possible, across all professions trained in and using Talking Mats we understand the RCLST’s point that it is difficult for courses to cover every approach to therapy.
However, as a student (and new graduate) on any course – Social Work, Occupational Therapy, Educational Psychology to name a few, you can still add Talking Mats to your toolkit as you progress through your training and enter the workplace by taking advantage of our Summer Sale for Online Foundation Training on our July and August course:
Students and New Graduates
50% discount
Follow this link: https://www.talkingmats.com/shop/
And use the codes: 26th July code: studentjul50
23rd August code: studentaug50
Spaces are limited to 10 places per course so spread the word and sign up quickly!
Rosie Murray trained in Talking Mats as a student and is now using it in her role as a Speech and Language Therapist in a college for young adults with autism, learning disabilities and SEBD. She has also gone on to become a Talking Mats Licenced Trainer. Read her blog here: https://www.talkingmats.com/talking-mats-collaborative-wall/
Download and print top scales.
For users of Talking Mats getting your top scales right is a key part of the process. The sight of Matty with thumbs up / thumbs down / shrugging is a familiar one. It is our ‘go to’ top scale image, attached to our symbols in every resource you order. However, since the launch of our new digital resource where there is a choice of 16 top scales our TM community has been asking for the equivalent in card format.
So here it is:
If you are trained and have an account on the website you can download and print 16 different top scales to suit the conversations you are having and the thinkers you are having them with.
Before you all rush off to print, laminate and chop it is probably worth pausing to think about the top scale and how important it is in the Talking Mats framework. Making sure the top scale matches the question is vital to the conversation; for example if your topic is Self Care and the purpose is to find out if anything is causing a problem it is more appropriate to ask if someone is ‘managing / not managing’ rather than whether the task is ‘very important / not important’. The focus of the conversation becomes whether or not the Thinker can carry out the activity allowing for practical steps to be put in place to support them.
The midpoint of all top scales is included as we find it allows for indecision, an everyday part of the process of making decisions and forming opinions. Some people do struggle with too much choice however, and the top scale can be presented with just the 2 opposing points on the scale.
The printout includes top scales for our Advanced sets; ‘This is Me / This is not Me’, (Keeping Safe), ‘Sorted / Not Sorted’ (Thinking Ahead), and ‘Safe / Not Safe’ for our new Youth Justice resource, as well as options without thumbs and one that uses stars instead of Matty.
We know this new print out will be very useful to many of you when you plan your Talking Mats sessions and if you have any other top scales that you think could be added please let us know!
The printable top scales document can be found in the Shop if you are Talking Mats trained and you log into your account on the website
Read more about Top Scales https://www.talkingmats.com/when-is-a-talking-mat-not-a-talking-mat/
We are delighted to speak at the 7th World Capacity Congress on Adult Capacity on the 7th of June 2022 about Talking Mats and Capacity. Talking Mats facilitates a balanced conversation that can help redress the power imbalance within capacity conversations. This is particularly key where people have communication and or cognitive difficulties, too often poor communication skills are conflated with lack of capacity.
Self – determination is enshrined in law. The fundamental principle we need to remember is that a person is deemed to have capacity to make decisions about their own lives unless assessed otherwise.
This photo shows how Talking Mats helps with determines capacity by supporting people to:
- Understand relevant information
- Retain information
- Weigh up information
- Communicate views and wishes
On the 8th of June, Lois’ speaks about Talking Mats specifically supported health decisions in podiatry using a specifically designed podiatry Talking Mats developed jointly with NHS Fife .
In the 2nd blog about our new resource, Licenced Trainer Fiona Taylor tells us about its development.
I am Fiona Taylor, Speech and Language Therapy Service Lead in Salford and also the Greater Manchester SLT Youth Justice Lead. I have been part of a group of Youth Justice practitioners who have worked with Talking Mats to develop a Youth Justice resource and below is the story of our journey.
Within Greater Manchester we have Speech and Language Therapists working within seven of the nine Youth Justice Services (YJS). Since April 2019, we have received funding from NHS England to support and enhance the Speech and Language Therapy service in this area. We wanted to explore training packages and materials which would support YJS staff to have conversations about a wide variety of topics related to the young person’s offending. An approach was needed that the young people would not find confronting and that would take into account the language and learning needs of many the young people (RCSLT Justice Evidence Base, 2017). We felt that Talking Mats would allow this approach as it could be incorporated into every day practice. Discussions with Talking Mats developed into collaborating on a specific set of Youth Justice cards to support this population.
In February 2020, 23 staff from the nine Greater Manchester Youth Justice Services attended a one day Talking Mats training course with Margo and Laura. Then in March 2020, a focus group met again with Margo and Laura to develop a set of bespoke Talking Mat cards for use within Youth Justice. We spent time as a whole group discussing areas we felt were key for YJS practitioners and then split into three groups to further develop these ideas.
From this, three sets of cards were developed focusing on the young person’s:
- Safety (Places and Spaces), to open discussions around areas where the young person felt safe/unsafe which could also support an understanding of wider antisocial behaviour.
- Relationships, with the aim that this would support assessments around sexually harmful behaviour.
- Youth Justice Experience, to ensure user voice was captured and to support service improvement.
The COVID pandemic has meant that the pilot phase for the resource set has taken longer than originally planned. Throughout the planning phase we have met regularly with Talking Mats to provide feedback on how we as practitioners have found the sets and how the young people have responded. YJS staff have reported that the packs have helped open up conversations about difficult topics, including those related to Covid. Staff have also been able to provide case studies to show how the information shared from the mat has supported the young person during their time working with the youth justice services.
Working with Talking Mats has allowed us to develop a resource set for use within a previously unmet area for Youth Justice practitioners, including SLTs. The cards provide an evidence based, structured approach to support the young people we work with and enable them to express their views and feelings and to have their voices heard and responded to. This has supported us as practitioners to develop relationships and to better tailor support and interventions to that young person. We hope that you enjoy using the cards and we look forward to hearing how they have been used.
In the first of a 2 part blog Larissa, our new Intern, introduces herself and our new Youth Justice Resource and gives information on a Talking Mats seminar at the end of April to mark the launch.
Hello!
My name is Larissa, I am a fourth year Psychology bachelors’ student at the university of Stirling and currently working on the launch of the Youth Justice Resource with Talking Mats as part of my work placement this year. Having enjoyed studying modules such as Language and the Brain and Developmental Psychology at university, I find the products Talking Mats have developed fascinating and love reading about in which ways the mats have helped people communicate in different situations.
I believe by adding the mats into any conversation -and especially around difficult or abstract topics- it can really open a two-way street of conversation. Instead of a person feeling they are being talked to, they are being asked to join the conversation, interact and show using the mats what they think. This can be beneficial for users who experience difficulty around communicating but also offer structure to any kind of conversation.
Especially in the context of Youth Justice I think this will be useful as having conversations about topics linked to a young person’s behaviour is fundamental to delivering appropriate and effective care. Conversations about difficulty in one’s personal life can be quite challenging. There are often delicate topics, the person might feel ashamed or find it hard to put into words what they have experienced or what they are feeling. This is where the use of Talking Mats can offer a less threatening way to broach a variety of topics and provide a structure to support conversation
The symbols in this set will help users communicate their experiences and how they feel about relationships, places and spaces and their experience with Youth Justice and was developed with a Youth Justice setting in mind. However, there is clearly a much wider use for this resource in any setting where understanding a person’s behaviour based on their experience and feelings is vital to determining the best form of support.
So, save the date! To celebrate the launch of this new set Talking Mats is having a web-seminar on the 28th of April 2022 at 9:30am after which the resource launches on the website. Come along to find out all about this new set, its uses and how it has helped Justice Practitioners so far. We would like to invite everyone who is interested to sign up on Eventbrite following this link:
Furthermore, please feel free to get in contact with us should you have any questions.
Manchester 30th June 2022.
It has been a long time since our Associates have been able to deliver training in a venue that is not virtual (to be accurate usually their kitchen / bedroom / garden shed). We are really pleased, therefore, to be able to let you all know that face to face training has returned! We know the convenience of online suits some people but many of you have been really missing the interaction, the energy and the discussion that occurs in a face to face training and we are looking forward to getting back to working with you in the same room.
It will be held in the St. Thomas Centre, Manchester on the 30th of June from 9.30am until 4.30pm. Find out more about what to expect on this course by following this link Manchester June 2022.
Talking Mats will take every step required to keep all participants and staff safe in this situation. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to support you to attend this course.
This course will be run by Laura Holmes, Lead Associate with responsibility for Foundation Training. She has been training with us since 2016. Here are her thoughts on resuming face to face training;‘I get so much out of face to face training; particpants form relationships quickly and really respond to each other and it creates a special learning environment.’
There are only 12 places on this course and we expect them to be taken up quickly.
To book please follow this link BOOK HERE.
Many thanks to Karen Mellon, NHS Fife Lead Podiatrist for Learning Disabilities and Care Homes, for this guest blog describing our exciting Fife Health Charity funded project, aimed at supporting patients with a learning disability (LD), or dementia, to be more involved in decisions around their care.
I was initially introduced to Talking Mats by my Learning Disability SLT colleagues who were using the resource to support patient engagement. I could see the real benefits of how it could support our interactions with patients with a LD or dementia and empower people to be more involved with decisions around their care. Our SLT colleagues had undertaken the Talking Mats Train the Trainer program and were then able to train our podiatrists in using the resource. Having used the existing resources we found that we weren’t able to discuss/explore people’s views deeply enough, for example, when they developed a foot ulceration, or were at risk of ulceration. This was the spark that ignited the idea to look at developing a specific foot care resource to enable these conversations.
The aim was to promote patient engagement in their care – both in preventative care and when specialised input is required. By creating the resource we aimed to explore what really mattered to the person and what for them were acceptable goals and outcomes. By developing a specific Talking Mats resource we were able to explore treatments options and impact of conditions and actively engage the person in expressing their views thus creating a person centred care plan. Evidence shows us when people are involved in decision making they are more satisfied with their care, which in turns improves their quality of life.
Having consulted with Talking Mats we jointly created an initial resource which we piloted within NHS Fife over a 6 week period. People living within care homes and people with a learning disability were the target audience for the pilot. Using the resource, we were able to understand more about the impact that foot ulceration was having on patients, and patient’s views on treatment options.
One example of this positive impact involves a 60 year old patient with learning disabilities and dementia. She lives independently with one hour support each day to assist with personal care. She has been known to podiatry for some time due to repeated ulceration. Specialist footwear has been supplied and regular input is in place to reduce the risk of re-occurrence, however at times the foot does break down.
In May the patient experienced a break down on her foot. She is a very pleasant lady who always comes across as if nothing bothers her and everything is fine; she doesn’t like to “cause a fuss”. It was felt the use of a Talking Mat might give us greater insight into the impact the wound was having.
As a result of completing the Talking Mat we were able to discover the patient was in fact experiencing difficulties with the type of dressing and was experiencing pain. We were able to address this and change the dressing type to an adhesive dressing, which took up less room in her shoe, and started her on Paracetamol 4 times a day to address her pain. Follow up discussions reveal the patient was much more satisfied with the dressing, it was more comfortable and easier to keep dry when showering. She also reported to be experiencing much less pain.
As a result of the mat, we were able to identify concerns she had, but didn’t want to share as she didn’t want to be a burden. We were able to address this and create a plan which was acceptable to the patient and improved her wellbeing.
I hope this resource will go on to benefit other professionals and carers working with people who may be impacted by their foot health. By using this resource, we can help our patients explore their views and wishes, therefore enabling co-production in care. The resource promotes preventative care as well as specialist intervention. Going forward there are many other areas of foot health that could potentially be explored in developing further resources – such as paediatrics, nail surgery, musculoskeletal.
Book your place on the Talking Mats and foot care training course on 24th January 2024 / 21st February 2024 being run jointly between ourselves and Karen Mellon . The price includes the resource .
To find out more about the work and projects supported by the Fife Health Charity follow their Social Media accounts at:
Facebook – @fifehealthcharity
Twitter – @FifeHealth
