Gary Seath 1 week ago
The project brings Forces Children Scotland and Talking Mats LTD together to co-develop a first-of-its-kind forces-life-specific Talking Mat, scheduled to launch in Spring/Summer 2025.
A Talking Mat is a visual communication framework that supports people with communication difficulties to express their feelings and views.
Emerging research indicates significant numbers of children from armed forces communities receive little or no specialist support to overcome ASN challenges. Many find adapting to change and communicating about this extremely challenging.
Having a parent in the military often means moving frequently and having to settle into a new home, school and community, while dealing with separation and disrupted routines. Funding will enable children from armed forces communities to access this tool to express their feelings and views about their experiences which are difficult to verbalise.
The communication tool will also be available to professionals supporting children from armed forces communities across geographical boundaries who hold a Talking Mats Licence.
An example of digital talking mat being used, via tablet, using symbols to communicate preferences and feelings.
Since receiving the finding earlier this year, our team has been working behind the scenes, in partnership with specialist social enterprise, Talking Mats Ltd, to roll out team training and to complete the discovery phase of the project.
Nina Collins, Children and Young People’s Participation Manager describes how things have been going so far:
“Five members of staff have received Talking Mats training in advance of the commencement of the discovery phase of the project. These staff played a key role in the initial phase of the project using the Talking Mat resource to identify the themes to be included in the new resource.
Nine discovery workshop sessions were delivered in key locations across Scotland with at total of 85 tri-service children and young people attending. Using a range of creative mediums and a Talking Mat™, children and young people explored the questions that need to be answered to provide the right support when forces children are experiencing forces related challenges.
Images taken from the co-production sessions held with young people during the discovery phase.
Key topics for the Talking Mat included communication, separation, asking about non-serving parents, self and sibling care, friendships, moves and coping with feelings.
As part of the discovery process children and young people were encouraged to use sketches for their proposed topics and this, along with all their comments and priority symbols have been sent to the graphic designer to inform the design of the draft symbols.
The draft symbols will be shared at sessions with the children and young people in the new year and any required revisions will be made before we move on to the piloting stage of the project.”
Are you a parent from an armed forces family, an educator, or a wider professional supporting this community, and would you like to know more?
Click on the ‘contact us’ button below and Nina will get back to you as soon as possible.
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