I was selected for the HCPC Continuing Professional Development audit, so I’ve been reflecting on how we apply what we learn to our therapy. As I put together my CPD “portfolio” I noticed some common features of the CPD that I’d found most useful. I’ve used these common features to make my new conference an effective learning experience. 

I needed to demonstrate that the CPD I’d done:

• contributed to the quality of my practice and service delivery and,
• benefits the service user.

What makes learning easy to apply in therapy?

As I reviewed the entries in my CPD diary, I began to see some patterns. The learning I was able to apply immediately helped with a specific problem I was having, or a question I needed answering. For example, several parents told me that their children enjoyed music, but I was stuck with how to use music in a structured way, or how to incorporate my communication targets into musical play. I found a workshop about using music with children with autism that gave me some specific ideas to try to solve this problem. I went away and tried the ideas from the course in therapy sessions the very next week.

In order to apply what I’d learnt, I also needed it to be specific enough. I didn’t need all the answers but I needed to have enough detail to go away and try it. My supervision partner suggested I try incorporating more input tasks into my sessions with a particular client whose progress was slower than I wanted. If she’d left it like that, I think it’s unlikely I would have acted on the suggestion. She gave me three examples of therapy activities I could use, so I was ready to go. I used the activities she’d suggested as well as some of my own, and was happy with the result.

Finally, the learning needs to be relevant to my clients. It’s obvious: it’s tricky to apply learning about selective mutism if I’m not working with any children with selective mutism. Tricky, not impossible. It takes a lot more work to filter through information and pick out bits that would be useful with other children, who may, for example, be shy or lack confidence. And it takes time, which I don’t always have directly after a course or lecture.

Join us for the Therapy Ideas Live Conference

At the Therapy Ideas Live Conference on 2nd November, we’ll be practising person-centred techniques that help clients to meet their needs. We’ve designed the day to make it as easy as possible to apply what you learn at the conference, at work the next day. We’re starting the day figuring out what challenges we have and what questions we’d like to answer. There are workshop sessions, so together we can take what we’ve heard in the talks and apply it to our particular client group. We’ll be practising some of the techniques, so we can get specific, and we’re finishing the day by identifying our next steps. You’ll be all set to apply what you’ve learnt!

Join us for a practical day of interactive learning and workshopping. Register by 19th October to save £50. If you have any questions about the conference, get in touch.

I’m organising the Therapy Ideas Live Conference on 2 November 2015 in London. Speech and language therapists will practise person-centred techniques that help clients to meet their needs.

When I started working independently I looked for ways to continue developing my skills. I hoped attending conferences would allow me to learn new skills and meet other therapists, but I couldn’t find any that seemed to meet my needs.

I was looking for something that I’d be able to apply to my work immediately. I didn’t want to focus on a particular therapy technique or listen to lots of research presentations (although these things are valuable).  I briefly considered attending the ASHA convention, but I was overwhelmed at the idea of 12,000 attendees!

Announcing my new conference!

I couldn’t find the conference I wanted, so I’m starting my own!

For four years I’ve organised Therapy Ideas Live: after work events featuring 5-minute lightning talks about speech and language therapy. During that time I’ve also helped my partner Jonathan run conferences in a different industry. Now he’s helping me put on the first Therapy Ideas Live Conference on 2 November in London.

The conference will be a positive and inspiring experience. I hope people will leave excited to try out what they’ve learnt. All speech and language therapists are welcome! There’ll be a mix of speaker presentations, interviews and workshop sessions, with time to meet new people and discuss what you’ve learnt.

Person-centred techniques help clients meet their own needs

By making our therapy more person-centred we can position communication within broader life goals and help clients to motivate themselves to make progress. We’ll see goals met faster, without relying on “one size fits all” care pathways or increased workloads. We’ll see increased autonomy in clients as they work towards their goals independently, outside the therapy room.

Come to the conference to learn how to:

• set goals together with the client that are ambitious and motivating
• build empathy with clients (and their carers) to encourage them to make choices about therapy
• take risks during therapy to encourage learning together

 Join us for an upbeat day of learning and networking

If you come to this conference you’ll be part of a small, pioneering group. Everyone will participate in the same sessions which makes it easier to chat over coffee. Our 3 speakers show joy and enthusiasm for their work; it’s going to be an upbeat day, focussing on what we can achieve with the resources we have by working together.

Register by 31 July to save £50

Register by 31 July to save £50 with our early bird rate of £150. Check out the schedule and let me know if you have any questions. I hope you can make it!

Gina Davies—who is presenting at the conference—presenting a lightning talk at one of my events.

A couple of weeks back, at the ASLTIP conference,  I led a session about how to start a speech and language therapy blog. I knew I didn’t want to stand and talk for an hour, so I included activities as we went along, which I hoped would leave attendees ready to write their first blog post when they got home.

We started by discussing why we were interested in blogging and who we wanted to read our posts. People were keen to explain what speech and language therapy is and how therapists work, share their expertise and resources, and use their blog as a place to reflect, so as professional development.

Next I showed the group how easy it is to start a blog with WordPress. I played them a video of me setting up a new blog and writing my first post in 5 minutes. I hope I reassured them that you don’t need lots of technical skills to start a blog.

We talked about titles and the importance of being clear, so that people know what you’re writing about and can find your posts. I talked about how using photographs can makes posts stand out, encourage people to read them and break up the text. I explained the purpose of linking to other websites (it helps your reader and respects your “sources”) and showed them how to do it. And I encouraged them to share their posts on social media.

We discussed finding our voice, and sounding like ourselves. Blogs aren’t reports or research papers, so don’t need to be written in a very formal style. I shared with the group a tip from Kate Kiefer Lee: try reading what you’ve written out loud (or to your dog!) Does it sound like something you’d say? If it doesn’t, go back and take out some of the words you wouldn’t use in conversation.

We discussed the responsibilities of being an SLT blogger. Then I finished up by sharing resources. I use Trello for keeping track of ideas I’d like to blog about, then when the mood to write strikes, I can just pick a topic from my list. I read other blogs (you can find SLT related ones by searching on google or using the #slpeeps hashtag on Twitter) and find the resources about blogging from Braid Creative useful.

The group got stuck in with the activities and asked some questions that made me think, thank you! If you were at the workshop and you’re now blogging, send me the link, I’d love to have a read.

Any questions about blogging as a Speech and Language Therapist? Let me know.

Here’s a summary of two of the presentations.

Intensive Interaction

The keynote presentation was given by Dave Hewett, who, along with Melanie Nind, developed the Intensive Interaction approach. He pitched his talk at just the right level — making great use of video clips, the talk was both clear and fun.

Dave talked about the fundamentals of communication, such as enjoying being with another person, taking turns in exchanges of behaviour, and using and understanding eye contact. He questioned why most of the approaches we use to teach communication don’t attempt to teach these fundamentals of communication first. It seems obvious: if a child hasn’t acquired the fundamentals, it’s very difficult to learn anything else. So why do we tend to start by teaching symbolic representation?

Dave & co started working on Intensive Interaction because they felt the existing curriculum was inadequate — this was in the 1980s. He asked us to think about whether this is still the case today. We don’t expect babies to follow a timetable, so why do we expect this from children with Autism, some of whom are at the same developmental level?

Dave’s visualisation of communication learning and performance showed how complicated the process is. He suggested that the conventional linear teaching approach probably won’t work for something this complicated. He uses the idea of a spiral to describe learning through Intensive Interaction and play: learning takes off and spirals upwards; repetition means that each activity builds on what has gone before.

Again, this seems obvious to me. However, I often identify a target, and then consider which therapy activities I will use to work on it. Which takes me back to the linear model! I’m going to need to think about this: Dave suggested using video as a progress outcome, but I can’t write that on my goal sheet…

Attention: the Bucket

I also attended a workshop called: “Attention: getting it, building it and sharing it — the Bucket and Beyond”. Gina Davies started her session with a dancing chicken, giving us what she gives the children: “an irresistible invitation to learn.”

Like Dave, Gina also used video clips: she showed us a group of children with autism, before and after her 6 week program of attention work — it was amazing. The children in the ‘after’ clip were able to maintain such good attention that the Teaching Assistants in my group didn’t believe they were autistic.

As I understand it, Gina’s program works like this:

The children sit on chairs in a semi-circle facing the lead adult. The adult has an opaque bucket, with a lid on, containing highly motivating toys. She must be the most interesting thing in the room, so anything more interesting must be put out of sight. Along the same lines, the supporting adults should be boring! When a child gets up out of his chair, he must be slowly and calmly guided back to his seat — without verbal instructions.

The adult at the front takes out a toy from the bucket and demonstrates it to the children. The children’s reward must be intrinsic to the activity: the joy of watching a dancing pig! Gina suggested using 4 or 5 different toys in each session.

When the program begins, the children are only able to cope with sitting in their chairs for around 5 minutes, but after 2 mornings each week for 6 weeks they are able to maintain focussed attention for between 10 and 20 minutes. Each morning session is made up of around 4 cycles of 5 minutes bucket time and then a period of free play. Gina also said that at The Little Group, where she devised the program, they take the children running before they start the bucket time!

Gina was an outstanding presenter — I came home rambling on and on about buckets, and was so excited I had to text a friend, to share the bucket idea with her! I will definitely be giving this a try. I will also use it to support me in my quest to get the child-height sink removed from our therapy room; it’s competing with me as the most exciting thing in the room, so it has to go!

Gina also had lots of great ideas about motivating activities to do with the children once they had integrated attention. I need to email her and ask if I can add the flour castle, spagetti fireworks and lemonade fountain to this site!