Impact Stories

This website is full of information about Talking Mats and how effective, innovative and valuable they are. We believe that one of the best ways to truly see the impact Talking Mats have had all over the world is to provide stories of people’s experiences using them. You can see just a few of these stories below.

Health and Wellbeing

• Find out how Jo Brackley, Clinical Lead SLT, and a group of Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) working in a secure hospital embarked on a mini project using Talking Mats to check in with our service users with learning disabilities during Covid-19: Read more 

• Read about how Georgia Bowker-Brady, Advanced Specialist SLT, uses Talking Mats to support patients in acute mental health in-patient services to organise and express their thoughts: Read more 

• Find out how Talking Mats can help in determining capacity: Read more

• Learn about our project focusing on using Talking Mats to improve health and housing outcomes for tenants: Read more 

• Rachel Woolcomb, our OT Associate, talks about how Talking Mats can support delivery of Personalised Care: Read more

• Find out more about how the Talking Mats Keeping Safe resource promotes safeguarding and well-being: Read more

• Rachel Woolcomb, our OT Associate, shares a recent personal experience where she used our Talking Mats ‘Thinking Ahead’ resource set to support a conversation about end-of-life: Read more

Children and Young People

• Read about our recently published Scottish Government project: ‘Can Scotland Be Brave – Incorporating UNCRC Article 12 in Practice’, including information about the Laura Lundy Model of Participation Read more

• Read about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC): Read more 

• Read how Sophie Mitchell, SLT supported her students in a Secondary Special School to develop their EHC Plans using the Talking Mats app: Read more

• Read how Talking Mats was used by a Teaching Assistant in a mainstream Primary School to help children to share their thoughts and feelings about an upcoming residential school trip: Read more

• Read how Talking Mats can be used to support Learning Conversations with children: Read more 

• Read how the Talking Mats ‘Consulting Children and Young People’ resource can be used to support children to contribute to their own EHC/SEND Planning, enabling them to make their voices heard. Read more

Mental Health

• Claire Hennings describes how using the Thoughts and Feelings topic in the Keeping Safe resource helped her to support a young person in school who was worrying about his ability to control his anger. Read more

• Philippa Blackbourn writes about a student who had limited expressive vocabulary but who found Talking Mats key in helping her think about issues like grief, separation and change. Read more

• Vanessa Lloyd writes about using Talking Mats with a young boy with Selective Mutism to find out more about the situations that increased his anxiety and how the therapy from school was carried over to his home.  Read more

Justice

• Read about our Talking Mats Youth Justice conference 2018: Read more // Read even more

• Find out how Talking Mats can be used in Youth Justice Research: Read more

• Read Sally Kedge, Speech and Language Therapist from Trouble Talking New Zealand’s powerful case examples of using Talking Mats with children and families caught up in the criminal justice system: Read more 

• Find out about Jacqui Learoyd’s experiences in setting up an SLT service at HMP Berwyn: Read more

• Read about two cases where Talking Mats was used as part of the achieving best evidence (ABE) interviews: Read more