Speech and Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists working for Cognus Therapies were recently offered valuable in-service training from Cognus’ Educational Psychology Team on ‘Managing Difficult Conversations’. Principal Educational Psychologist, Nicholas (Nick) English delivered this training at Cognus’ offices, Cantium House in May 2024 to a large group of interested therapists.
As part of the training, Nick introduced the ‘Social GGRRAAACCEEESSS Model’ coined by Burnham, 2012. The term ‘Social GGRRAAACCEEESSS’ is an acronym that describes aspects of personal and social identity which afford people different levels of power and privilege:
Educational Psychologists at Cognus have explored this learning tool in teamwork and supervision with much success. It has supported them to learn about their fellow team members as well as understand more about themselves.
One group of Speech and Language Therapy professionals decided to give it a go and in July 2024, six staff met together share information about their cultures, listening carefully for differences alongside finding similarities.
They decided to focus on the Social GGRRAAACCEEESSS that mean the most. After splitting into pairs, person A was invited to explain to person B about their culture, highlighting the areas of the model that most immediately come to them. Person B listened carefully to person A and then recounted what they heard. Person A listened to person B and corrected any misunderstandings. The roles were then reversed, and person B had a chance to share about their culture using Social GGRRAAACCEEESSS.
Staff found this is a useful exercise to get to know their colleagues on a deeper level; knowledge that will be vital in their working relationships together moving forward. It has enabled staff members to be more aware of each other’s backgrounds to enable us to improve supervision within the service and extend this wider to working with our settings, children and young people.
Following the activity, one therapist reflected:
“It was so interesting to hear about my colleagues’ backgrounds and stories. It has definitely helped me understand them better. It was an important reminder that there is more going on for everyone than meets the eye”.
Thank you to the Cognus Educational Psychology Team for sharing such good practice.
Burnham, J. (2012). ‘Developments in the Social GGRRAAACCEEESSS: Visibleinvisible and voiced-unvoiced’ in Krause I (ed) Culture and Reflexivity in Systemic Psychotherapy: Mutual Perspectives. London: Karnac.