The Talking Mats Team have been funded by the Scottish Government to adapt the CARE Measure to make it accessible for children and to examine if the Paediatric CARE Measure (PCM) can be used to gain the views of children or parents attending AHP services. It is a patient-centred measure of relational empathy. It measures patients’ experiences of the interpersonal aspects of clinical encounters. It is recommended that the PCM is used by all Paediatric Allied Health Professions as standard practice. This should be supported by AHP Child Health Leads and will inform the self-assessment component of recommendation 5.6 in the AHP National Delivery Plan and will be integral in the development of the AHP Children’s Services Plan (Recommendation 4.1).

For information about the research project which was carried out to establish the feasibility, reliability and validity of the PCM please click on the following links:

Paediatric CARE Measure – Phase 2 Final Report

Paediatric CARE measure – Phase 2 Summary

For copies of the AHP guidance, PCM forms and information sheets please click below

Paediatric CARE Measure

Involving young people in making decisions that affect their education can be both challenging and time consuming. Margo Mackay has just completed a research project, funded by NHS Forth Valley, which examined whether using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) can be usefully combined with Talking Mats to provide a practical framework for decision making and target setting. It tested whether:

1. combining Talking Mats and the ICF-CY framework was acceptable to secondary pupils with complex needs, and
2. using the information obtained from them is helpful in setting targets for their Individual Education Plans

The project found that Talking Mats, when combined with ICF-CY, is a powerful tool with the potential to greatly enhance the nature of partnerships between pupils, parents and professionals.

Getting it right for every child is a national programme to improve outcomes for all children and young people in Scotland. It threads through all existing policy, practice, strategy and legislation. New Scottish Government legislation will be introduced to parliament in 2013 which will embrace the key principles of the GIRFEC approach to all of children’s services.

Yesterday (3rd September 2012) Leanne Turner and I attended an excellent conference at Stirling University where a wide range of people explored key aspects of implementing the GIRFEC approach. (Leeanne is Employee Development Officer: Child Protection with Edinburgh Council and one of our accredited trainers)

Talking Mats and GIRFEC: Leeanne and I ran 2 seminars which described how we have worked together to develop symbol sets based on the GIRFEC model to be used with the Talking Mats Framework. We illustrated the seminar with some moving case examples of how Talking Mats has been used to get the views of children at risk. We also discussed plans for future Talking Mats developments and training.

To read one of Leeanne’s case studies click here

We have also had an article published in the Times Educational Supplement (Scotland) about talking Mats being used to help young people set their own targets – click here to download it