Professional training – Understand the issues of non-verbal problems and target support effectively

There are three main types of training programmes available to professionals. We always tailor training to the needs of the group so please do not hesitate to speak to us about bespoke training packages.

Awareness Training

Awareness Training gives participants an overview of the importance and effects of non-verbal skills in communication. It is suitable for all practitioners working with children from birth to 19 years old.

The session covers:

The role of non-verbal skills in communication
Why these problems are more prevalent today
The problems that a child with non-verbal communication (NVC) issues might face
A workshop highlighting the role & difficulties of a speaker/listener as experienced by the child
A workshop highlighting interpretation difficulties as experienced by the child
Strategies for dealing with a child with NVC difficulties
Question and answer session

An additional session can be added to this training to focus on problem solving once strategies have been implemented in the workplace.

Prevention training

Prevention training is most effective for children from birth to 5 years old. This is ideal for practitioners in play-groups, nursery schools, infant schools and child-minders. The training is split into two sessions:

Session 1 covers the awareness training element.

Session 2 focuses on prevention strategies promoting non-verbal communication in babies and children:

Pre-talking babies (including facial interest; intonation; interaction; anticipation; self-awareness; early use of body language)
Children who are talking (including awareness of others; imitation; prediction; turn-taking; information giving; body language use)
Pre-school children (including 1:1/group conversations; sharing information; interpretation and use of complex facial expressions and body language)

Intervention training

If a child has complex NVC needs and/or is 5 years + then intervention may be necessary. This training enables practitioners to deliver consistent and cost effective support to improve the child’s NVC skills in-house. Participants will need to have attended an awareness training session before attending this course.

Training covers:

Referral criteria—who needs intervention?
What happens in the intervention sessions
Strategies to promote interpretation
Effective use of resource materials
Success/discharge criteria

Follow-up/support sessions are recommended following this training to ensure participants continue to improve competence. The sessions allow participants to receive practical advice and guidance from experienced Not Just Talking staff as and when they need it after the training.

Assessment Training

Assessment Training focuses solely on Not Just Talking’s assessment techniques for the diagnosis of non-verbal communication problems. This unique non-verbal communication assessment training package has been developed as an extension to the intervention training that we offer.

This training is only suitable for professionals such as Psychologists and Speech and Language Therapists who have a background in assessment procedures and practices.

As with Intervention Training, follow-up/support sessions are recommended following this training to ensure participants continue to improve competence. The sessions allow participants to receive practical advice and guidance from experienced Not Just Talking staff as and when they need it after the training.

Thank you for the wonderful session you ran this week. All the staff have been talking about it and saying how useful they found it and how easily you delivered the information to them.
Headteacher in mainstream school
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