Consultancy

We will work in partnership with your organisation

Using Talking Mats is a creative process and we can work with you to develop resources to help you to structure your conversations. Although our resource sets are expanding all the time, you may not find exactly what you are looking for.

We will help you to break down complex ideas to make information more accessible using our three-step process:

Discover – What are your requirements? Who are you asking? What topics do you want to ask about? Are your options concrete or abstract?
Design – An iterative process in collaboration with our artist to represent the options you want. Produce a pilot set for you to trial and give feedback.
Deliver – Produce your final sets which can be available as physical and digital resources.

Our consultancy projects are diverse and designed specifically to fit your requirements. Here are some examples:

Helping dentists to produce a resource to help people with learning disability consent to dental treatment.

Helping V for Life produce a resource to ensure the dietary choices of people in care homes are respected.

Helping podiatrists from NHS Fife discuss and explore treatment options.

Helping a Housing Association to ask their tenants about Quality of Life

Working with Greater Manchester Youth Justice service to explore 3 topics: These sets are designed to support Young People accessing YJ services to be able to explore and express their feelings about:

– Their Safety (Places and Spaces, including virtual), to open discussions around areas where the young person felt safe/unsafe, which could also support an understanding of wider antisocial behaviour.

– Their Relationships, with the aim that this would support assessments around sexually harmful behaviour.

– Their YJ Experience, to ensure user voice was captured.

What people have said:

“Very enjoyable experience. Worked to professional strengths and jointly delivered a very consistent training and message to stakeholders. Very good scoping phase enable strong project definition..…… Excellent commitment sustained throughout project. Demonstrated flexible approach to match evolving project needs, towards achieving best possible outcome.Would highly recommend the experience of working with Talking Mats.”

Yolanda Strachan, Adult Community Speech and Language Therapist, Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh

“Professional, approachable and highly creative. Consistently able to listen to and work with the needs of the project sponsors.”

Michelle Brogan Speech and Language Therapy Manager Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh

“In my personal experience, the Talking Mats team consistently manage projects efficiently and effectively in a helpful and friendly way – always with the interests of people with communication support needs to the fore.”

Kim Hartley, RCSLT Scotland Officer

“By developing a specific Talking Mats resource, we were able to explore treatments options and impact of conditions and actively engage the person in expressing their views thus creating a person centred care plan”

Karen Mellon, NHS Fife Lead Podiatrist for Learning Disabilities and Care Homes

Talking Mats have been excellent partners in regard to helping us develop new and innovative ways to do research with vulnerable groups. We have developed bespoke projects, working in partnership to bring housing, health and social care sectors together and develop more people-centred approaches to front-line delivery.

Dr Vikki McCall, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, University of Stirling

Consultancy

“Professional, approachable and highly creative. Consistently able to listen to and work with the needs of the project sponsors.”

“In my personal experience, the Talking Mats team consistently manage projects efficiently and effectively in a helpful and friendly way – always with the interests of people with communication support needs to the fore.”

“By developing a specific Talking Mats resource, we were able to explore treatments options and impact of conditions and actively engage the person in expressing their views thus creating a person centred care plan”

Awards