Capability Scotland Matters - Summer 2022

Inclusive
Suzanne
Naomi
Communication
Rufus and Steven interviewing new staff
Gary telling Halloween jokes with his
updated communication aid
22
Suzanne Green and Naomi Smith work with Capability
Scotland as our Inclusive Communication Officers. This
post is a new addition to our charity but is filled with two
expert ladies. An important role for our organisation, making
a huge difference to our customers’ communication.
Suzanne has been part of our team for 20 years, firstly as a Classroom
Assistant at Corseford School, supporting children and young people
within the school setting. She worked closely with our education and
therapies staff, ensuring all educational and communication needs
were being met. Through this work, she became passionate about
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), and the impact
this had on people with different communication
needs. Suzanne became a Speech and Language
Therapy Assistant in 2014, directly supporting
children and young people with their communication
over simply ensuring these needs were met.
Naomi is a qualified Makaton Tutor. Makaton is a lot like
sign language but it facilitates spoken language rather
than replaces it fully. It helps convey spoken ideas with
the aid of signing. Naomi’s Makaton journey began when
she led baby signing classes and through her time as a baby
swimming instructor. After completing her first Makaton
workshop, she was hooked! Naomi joined Capability
Scotland as a Support Worker at our Perth day opportunities
service, The Studio, where she led group activities for
customers, and some of the residents at Upper Springland.
Both moved into the Inclusive Communications role in
August, and their job is to promote AAC across Capability
Scotland, providing training and support so staff can improve their
communication skills and foster an inclusive environment. They have
a multitude of tools at their disposal: objects of reference, picture
exchange communication system (PECS), Makaton, symbol support,
to more hi-tech communication aids using the synthetic voice.
After surveying the charity to explore what areas were important to
focus on first, Suzanne and Naomi have rolled out AAC Awareness
training to all staff, giving a range of introductory knowledge on
communication tools and how to be a great communication partner.
One key development is training and developing on Boardmaker, a
specialist education platform that provides communication through
symbols. This fantastic tool allows the teams to create communication
books, boards and visuals to help non-vocal people communicate in
everything from choosing what to wear to doing their banking. This key
development helps to increase choice for someone, important in supporting
people to have choices to empower them, promote independence and
inclusion, express their wants and needs and have their voices heard.
The team has been doing a lot of work on
safeguarding and making news from across
the organisation accessible for everyone
in Capability Scotland. As our work on
our new Bertha Park project grows,
Suzanne and Naomi are making sure
everyone understands the project
by spending time converting
news to easy read, Makaton,
and symbolised formats. They’ve
also been pivotal in our creation
of a new, customer-focussed
newsletter, designed specifically
for the people we support (though
everyone is still welcome to
enjoy this magazine!).
We’ve witnessed a lot of great
successes from Suzanne
and Naomi’s work so far. One
customer recently had his favourite
music artists programmed into
his communication aids, allowing
him to independently play his music
through his Amazon Echo - delightful!
In the past few months, two customers have
had new communication systems set up
on their iPads, giving them a new voice.
One of these customers, a gentleman left
with no speech since having a stroke,
was increasingly frustrated about trying
to communicate. With this new system
in place, he became quite emotional at
being able to communicate with ease.
What an impact this had. The other
customer was particularly pleased to
be able to use this system to grill some
candidates during job interviews!
Suzanne and Naomi sincerely
believe this new role can make a huge
and continuous difference to our service
delivery, allowing us to engage and
interact with our customers in new and
better ways, and upskill our staff.
Pamela using her new communication aid
Fiona & Mark playing bingo
made with Board maker
Awareness Training in Perth
Naomi using Makaton
Wallace Court using Makaton