We are very grateful to Rhona Matthews for sending us this moving blog.

‘‘I met with Katie, the worker at Perth Young Carers who did the Talking Mats training and she told me this story:

It is recognised that there are many positive outcomes from being a carer.
For some young people helping care for a sibling can bring confidence, develop feelings of closeness to family and increase self esteem. However it can also add stresses and strains. Expressing frustrations or anger can be difficult and feel like a betrayal.
Using Talking Mats can make it easier to say the things that might cause upset. Using the Children and Young Person’s resource, a young person disclosed to a worker that the one aspect she was not happy about when helping look after her brother, was administering medication. She had seen this being done in hospital by injection and did not like the thought of having to do it. She was happy with all other aspects of helping with his care. The worker fed this back to her parents and they all agreed not to expect her to do this.
The worker felt that this issue would not have been highlighted without the Talking Mats.”

Many thanks to Lynne Baxter who has answered the question: Is Talking Mats suitable for parents to use?

I have been asked to write an account of my experience, as a parent, of completing the on-line course available for Taking Mats. I completed this course in April this year 2014 and I am very proud of my achievement. First some background information. I am nobody special just a parent of a child who has a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder/Condition. My son is in a mainstream setting and has limited access to support and resources due to financial restrictions. Through time I realised that I was his main resource for support and really needed to improve my knowledge and understanding of this “hidden disability”. I had already heard about the wonderful resource that is Talking Mats, the tool that help makes communication easier for many. I started to do my research and find out more about it. I am not a professional who has been trained on the Autism Spectrum, my knowledge is only from my experience of having a child on the spectrum. I was unsure if I would be able to do this. After much consideration I took the decision to give it a try! I am so glad I did. While insuring that the product would be of benefit to my family, I nervously contacted the wonderful supportive team at Talking Mats and asked them what they thought. They were very encouraging and I felt empowered to try the training course! They assured me that they would help me as much as they could. This was very reassuring to know and gave me the reinforcement I was looking for.

Every week I was given access to each module which I completed to the best of my ability. Anxiously waiting for the result and the feedback from the team to see if I was able to attempt the next module was normal for a Wednesday while doing this course. To my great relief the feedback was positive and before I knew it I was nearing the last assessment and the completion of the course. The last assessment involved me and my son using the resource Talking Mats, this had to be filmed and sent for grading! Once again I had to push myself out of my comfort zone! It will be worth it for the benefit the training would give to my family. A friend came and videoed the situation and it was sent off for feedback and grading.

I passed! The feedback was amazing and now I can use the resource that will help my son explain his thoughts and feelings in a concrete way. The hardest thing for me was not to influence the results, I had to make sure it was his views and not mine! I have now registered to use the app and I am continually surprised by the evidence. I am delighted with the continued support from the team and I am very grateful to them for the resource. My son finds it hard to express his emotions, thoughts and feelings. This gives me hard evidence of his opinions and is great to have to reference too throughout the years!

Having to use open questions has helped my son communicate more than he knows! A very good result!

For information about the online training click here 

I am a parent of a child in Primary one. We are expected to take our child along to the parent / teacher consultation meetings. After our first meeting I felt dissatisfied and no more informed. As a shy primary one, Eilidh gave no verbal feedback in the meeting, I felt I couldn’t voice any real concerns I had in case I knocked Eilidh’s confidence and the teacher was probably in a similar situation. Instead everyone was very nice but I left without any plan of action and no feeling that Eilidh’s teacher knew how she was feeling about her progress at school.

This time, I plan to be more prepared and to make sure Eilidh is properly at the heart of the consultation. I decided this time to use the new ‘Consulting Children and Young People’ pack, and felt the ‘my body and skills’ section was ideal for thinking about the key aspects of school life.

Eilidh engaged immediately with the mat and seemed confident with what the symbols represented. By the end of the mat and after going over it with her and checking if there was anything we had missed, I feel we have a really good starting point for discussion when we attend the meeting on Thursday.

The key points were:
Eilidh is most concerned about her drawing skills. Her face dropped when she saw the card. She perked up a little when she looked at the symbol as she decided she was good at drawing sunshine but not people. On discussion it turned out she really wants to be able to draw clothes on people. We talked about what we could do and decided she could do drawing practice with her dad (who is much better than me!). She was happy with this and has since already drawn a fully clothed person!

She is a bit unsure about numbers, writing and trying new things. These are things to discuss with the teacher but it shows her awareness of where she needs more support. Going to the toilet and drinking water both require her to ask the teacher for permission and she put those in the middle as she doesn’t always like to ask and often comes home with a full water bottle. This is something we can bring up and hopefully the teacher can reassure Eilidh it is fine to ask.

Finally, we were able to finish on a high as we acknowledged that she has really increased her confidence in talking (at school), reading and getting dressed independently. Again it really shows how aware she is of her own abilities and what she has struggled with in the past.

I would really recommend using the pack for this purpose. If I have time before the meeting I plan to use the other symbol sets to explore how she is feeling about the people at school (friends / teachers / support staff). By Morag Place

Eilidh’s Mat

Teens are comfortable using communication tools in the form of social media. They can feel less comfortable with direct communication and often find it hard to put their feelings into words. Using a Talking Mat when talking to teenagers provides a communication tool which takes the focus off face to face interaction. It gives a thinking space to help them to express their feelings. It also allows you to have a balanced conversation because it talks about the positive things in daily life as well as the opportunity to talk about difficult things.
Tina is a 13 year old girl who initially had coped well with the transition to High School but in February had started to refuse to come to school. She was unable to explain what the problem was and when asked about the reason for her absence, would say “ I hate school”.
The “Consulting children and Young people -secondary resource” was used to consult with Tina. She was presented with some of the options from “My body and Skills” to think about how she was feeling. Tina used the top scale Happy(Things are going well and Not happy (things are not going well).
During the Talking Mats interview she opened up about how she felt about travelling to school (she hated going on the school bus and felt embarrassed) She clearly identified the fact that she has specific learning needs as she has difficulty understanding and concentrating in class and often falls behind with her written work. Attending her maths class was particularly difficult and she did her best to avoid going. She also talked about her difficulty with talking to adults and also to her peers. Often she feels excluded in conversations as although she is listening, she doesn’t always understand what they are discussing and doesn’t know what to say. She has a problem with sleeping and feels her mood is low a lot of the time. She also commented that she can feel extremely angry and this has a negative effect on her behaviour. On the positive side, she loves to read and feels happy about her diet and her weight.

Helping Tina to grade her feelings about specific issues helped to identify what needed to be done in the first instance to get her back to school.
Alternative travel arrangements were put in place, extra support provided for her in class and from the learning support base.
She is attending school again and the pupil support team are gathering together the appropriate “team around the child” to explore her difficulties further.

Find out more about how to use Talking Mats by signing up for a training course at Talking Mats.

The communities where children grow up can have a significant impact on the well-being of both children and families. The Consulting Children and Young people pack contains the topic “My Wider World”. This topic allows exploration of the impact of both school and life out of school as well as the support systems available to them. The World Health Organisation reminds us of the importance of gathering environmental information from children. As a child develops the environments of their everyday life are closely connected to home and school and finding out how the child feels will give insight into their independence and activity. Negative environmental factors often have a greater impact on children than on adults. In order to promote a child’s well-being, effort needs to be given to enhancing a child’s physical environment as well as their social or psychological environment.

Daniel is an 11 year old boy with a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome. He completed a Talking Mat to explore the impact of his environment on his condition. He was asked to grade his responses using the top scale Happy (Things are going well) and Not happy (things are not going well).

He immediately commented about how he felt about school (“yeah –it’s okay”) He expressed a strongly negative reaction when asked about where he lived. He was very unhappy about the location of his house as it is in an extremely remote location and he can never have any friends round to play. He never gets visitors to his house apart from an uncle that may drop by. He feels bad that he doesn’t have any neighbours and would love to live somewhere that has got other houses nearby. He has talked to his mum about it but she says, “she can’t take me places – too much petrol” He knows that his mum is worried about money. He also really dislikes “out of school care” as he is rarely allowed to play on the computer. He is happy with his teacher, support from health services and the emergency services.

Daniel was clearly upset about his lack of social integration and contact with his wider community.
Environmental support included supporting the care-givers in the “out of school club” by providing training and advice about  Asperger’s Syndrome.
Social work became involved to help to help locate local youth groups and finance.

Find out more about how to use Talking Mats by signing up for a training course at Talking Mats.

Talking Mats is fun! Whether you are sitting on the floor completing your mat or sitting at a small table, young children enjoy the fact that they can give information through multiple channels – Talking Mats is visual, auditory and tactile. It is an engaging tool to use when consulting children.They can express a view without words if they want to or they can have a conversation if they enjoy chatting. Watching a young child thinking and reflecting about where they place their symbol on the mat can be a humbling experience. Some adults still consider young children as incapable of expressing their views or opinions but in reality they can often express strong views about things and are very capable of grading their responses. Sometimes we just don’t take the time to ask them about the issues in their lives and free up some time to listen.

Talking Mats has created a specific Early years resource to make consulting young children easier. The symbols have been graded according to their developmental stage. When using the picture symbols it is important to remember:

• Most of the symbols in the Early years pack are concrete and you can quickly identify the shared meaning for example – “drawing”
• Others are concrete but have a broader meaning. An example of this is when asking about “eyes”
• 

We have found that it is best to allow the child to interpret the meaning at their level so it maybe they have sore eyes; they don’t like their glasses or they have brown eyes. Try not to be too prescriptive when presenting the option to the child; a symbol can act as a jump off point capturing what fits for the child at the time. Just allow the meaning to emerge.

• The abstract symbols do need a bit more explanation because they ask about more complex concepts such as safety. The Early years pack asks about safety in relation to the road,  physical safety and safety around others.

Asking about daily routines will give insight into how nurtured and cared for they feel. Let the child lead the discussion as much as possible.

Using visual communication is a great way to have a conversation with children in the early years and a good tool to involve children in decision making. Listening to the child’s view is essential for the GIRFEC process in Scotland and for co-producing Education Health care plans in England and Wales. Talking Mats has created a unique resource which is based on the “International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth version” Talking Mats uses a framework which helps children to express themselves in a way they feel comfortable with. As adults we need to be able to facilitate the conversation.

We find that to realize the full potential of Talking Mats it is best to attend a Talking Mats course . The courses allow you to focus on your situation and how you can be creative and apply it in your own work,

I undertook the ‘Talking Mats’ on-line course to acquire a new skill and a way to enhance my communication with people with dementia in practice. I have found the learning strategies used are varied and interactive – so there is not a sense of sameness, even though visually there is a consistent layout to the presentation of each module (this expedites navigation). This enhances engagement and my interest so that I am never reticent in logging on to complete the next module! In the beginning, I felt that I could move a lot quicker through the course if the modules were available once each part was completed, instead of having to wait for feedback on each assignment. However, nearing the end of the training course, the benefits of this approach are now clearer. Spaced learning and spaced practice allows for thinking time and internalisation of the module components. In this way, I have come to appreciate the part skills involved in the overall process and how they come together. I now find myself observing the skills involved and the reactions of all communicating as well as the surrounding environment, body language etc. I have also found myself looking back over the past module materials to ensure I am integrating as I go and to remind myself of the rationales for the actions that need to be taken, as well as ensuring that I am more and more familiar with the new terminology that I have been exposed too.

Little did I know when I signed up that the benefits of learning about and how to use ‘Talking Mats’ would stretch wider than what I initially anticipated or wanted! In completing the course, I am now much more aware of my communication practice in general, and the part-skills involved. I can also now see the wide applicability of ‘Talking Mats’ to different populations, age groups and conditions. Communication is everywhere but it needs to be efficient and effective – I am now more confident that my communication practice will improve as a result of this course. For me this is the best outcome possible.

Please click here to find out how to book on the next course 

The following are thoughts from Jenni, a Psychologist who attended the Talking Mats Accredited training course.

‘Meeting with five colleagues from Sweden, England and various parts of Scotland for the accredited Talking Mats Training this month has been a fascinating experience. I have been accustomed to using Talking Mats with children and young people over the past seven years, and have seen the value of the approach in helping young people give their views for a meeting – particularly if they have communication difficulties and would struggle either through lack of confidence or skill to speak out when others are present.
However, we were not just a group who work with children and young people. Most came from health settings and examples were drawn from elderly patients, some with dementia, others with autism. As we shared our videos and told our stories it was obvious to me how relevant Talking Mats can be in those settings too. Some of the stories shook me. One person told how she was deep in conversation with a lady over her Talking Mat when the tea lady burst in, poured a cup of tea for the resident, asked if she was having a good time playing at puzzles, then left before any answer could be given. Time and again we found ourselves asking what is it about our institutions that puts routines above real communication and above proper respect for an individual.

In preparing a video to bring to the training I undertook a Talking Mat with my father, who is almost 90. It was a new kind of conversation for us both, but we were surprised – the structure allowed us to talk about what was going well and what needed a bit of an adjustment in domestic life and we both learned from the conversation. I think we will do it again!

Indeed, at one stage in the training we were asked to dream big and look at how we might want to take use of Talking Mats into new areas. I identified some good friends – one 91, one 101 and one 104 – where conversation can become rather one-sided. I am interested in the power of Talking Mats to help create a genuine dialogue when these friends are reminiscing, in other words, to help me to be not just a listener but to enter the dialogue. Having a record of the conversation will help us take the discussion further when we return to it.

As ever, the time spent with Talking Mats colleagues was refreshing, stimulating and I can’t wait to go home and try out some new ideas!’

Jenni Barr, Educational Psychologist

We wanted to develop a tool that would give a holistic picture of how a child or young person feels about their lives at home at school and in their communities. We took into account the significant developmental changes that occur from 3 to 17 years and the influence of environmental and personal factors surrounding the child or young person.

We asked our artist to reflect the age and stage of the child in developing a symbol set for:

• Early years
• Primary and
• Secondary

The symbols are organised into three topics:

My Body and Skills: In this section you explore how the child is growing and developing by focussing on the functions of the body as well as skills that are emerging.  You can gain an impression of how the child feels he or she is progressing physically, socially, cognitively and behaviourally.

What I do and my support: In this section you look at the child’s lived experience by asking about the activities they participate in, as well as how they feel about the support they receive.

My Wider world: The communities in which children grow up have a significant impact on the well-being of both children and families. In this section you look at the child’s wider world by exploring the impact of nursery or school as well as the support system available to them.

Talking Mats prompts you to cover the relevant topics for each age group you’re working with. You can help children and young people to see their personal strengths and abilities and take time to consider what their problem areas are.

The mind map below shows what is included in the Primary pack – What I do and my support.

If you want to read about how Talking Mats were used to help young people think about targets for their IEP read the 2012 research report.

If you would like the complete Consulting children and young people pack, covering Early years, Primary and Secondary then buy the silver resource which can be purchased either as an original or through a digital subscription.

Talking Mats role in child protection

Here are 3 stories of how Talking Mats has been helpful to staff from Edinburgh Council – Child Protection Team.

Use with parents

N. works with chaotic drug using parents and said “TMs was a turning point – like gold dust – it helped parents identify important issues”.

Involving child in access decisions

A young girl completed two mats the first one about going to mum’s and the second one about going to dad’s. The social worker was then able to explain to the parents how the child felt and TMs allowed the parents to discuss positive ways to unify care. The visual impact of having two differing viewpoints is very powerful.

Use of Talking Mats in children’s panels

L. has trained many Children’s Panel members in Edinburgh and some are now asking social workers if they have used a TM. Using the actual mat rather than a photo was considered to be more beneficial. “it is like the child is present in the room”. An example was given of a young child bringing in her mats about cats. She showed the panel member her mat and it acted as evidence to show the panel that the girl is now able to separate from her mother. Her mother had suffered abuse as a child and she had become over-protective of her daughter. TM increased the child’s participation.

If anyone has used Talking Mats in Child Protection we would love to hear from you.