Cognus Therapies had the pleasure of delivering a half day training to Sutton Social Care at the Civic Centre on the 29th June 2022 from two specialist therapists, working with alternative augmentative communication (AAC) at Sherwood Park School (Sherwood Hill Campus), Tessa O’Brien (Speech and Language Therapist) and Olivia Thompson (Occupational Therapist). The aim of this training was to provide universal input about working with learners who have regulation, communication and play needs. The training received some fantastic feedback which is shown below:
“I felt the training was amazing and much needed. I was able to experience, see a part of children’s world that wouldn’t have gotten the chance to. I wish parents received this type of training as well as professionals. The training is the best I have gotten since starting the job over a year ago. Understanding these communications and regulations sets precedence for good quality support for children. It is difficult in one hour to help parents understand this. I am grateful for the opportunity to be trained in this. It was great to be able to make sense of things I already knew and be demonstrated to things I was also doing right.”
“I can confidently offer to communicate with children using the above board/apps.”
“One thing that I took from the training is that we as professionals should learn to join into the child’s play instead of initiating our own and this will benefit both us and the children. The trainers had lots of things/gadgets to help us learn about individual communication, but I feel that I might benefit from another training so that I am confident when dealing with individual children as they are all different and their parents/carers.”
“I thought the training was exceptional! The trainers were clearly very knowledgeable but pitched the training well based on our level of understanding. It was really helpful to have the communication tools to hand to consolidate what we were learning”
“Overall I found the training to be amazing, it was a very interesting topic and Tessa and Olivia delivered it so spectacularly. One thing I have taken away from this immediately is how I word things when interacting with my children. As an example, instead of saying “Do you like that” I would now say “I can see you like that” I actually had an opportunity to use this very effectively on Monday during a visit, the child I went to see was not too keen to interact with me to begin with and I could see that he was visibly uncomfortable due to the heat so instead of asking if he was hot I made a comment about he looks quite hot and bothered, obviously this wasn’t the key to building a lasting relationship but it was clear from his body language and eye contact that he felt understood in that moment in time which blew my mind a little. “
“I thought the training was brilliant. I have learned how to use the core board properly and can see how it will work with my CIN cases more.”
“The training was excellent, full of very interesting content. It has widened my knowledge in terms of communication and the different methods used. We often talk about core boards and other systems of communication, and I feel I can discuss them with the families I work with a lot more confidence. Social Workers often go to home visits to see a child and already have an agenda in mind, and I’ve taken from this training the bear in mind joining in with the child in their play. I also have a better understanding of how to use a core board.”
It is clear to see the impact this training had on the Social Care Services participants and how our specialist work in communication can be shared widely and across our Local Authority. Cognus Therapies will continue to share their knowledge with the wider teams within Sutton, stay tuned.