My
name is Joy, I am a Makaton Tutor and Higher Level Teaching Assistant
in Castle Batch Primary School, which is part of The Priory Learning
Trust in Weston-super-Mare. I just cannot believe the incredible things
are happening to me at the moment involving Makaton and the NHS during
lockdown!
This journey started 35 years ago when I was 22 years
old and driving double decked busses for a living. A little girl with
Down syndrome called Donna got onto my bus and gestured something to me.
Her mum, an old school friend, said “she’s signing to you she’s
learning Makaton at her school”. That was my first ever Makaton sign.
Donna had signed ‘cake’ her mum had just bought a cake from the shop.
From that day on I started to pick up the occasional signs from Donna,
who was a regular on my bus, teaching me new signs whenever we met. By
the late 90’s I had started a family and so changed my job to
accommodate my new lifestyle. This job was driving mini-busses for the
local council supplying home to school transport for an SEN school. This
is the job that changed my life! Having daily contact with children who
had a range of difficulties and abilities, children with Down’s
syndrome, children with autism, children with physical disabilities and
children with global delay all using Makaton in some way. I became
passionate about helping in any way I could including supplying respite
at a local children’s respite centre.
Moving
forward I retrained and was fortunate to get a position in Castle Batch
Primary supporting a boy with autism on a 1:1 basis, this led me into
the Speech and Language at the same school where I upped my retraining
and became a Higher Level Teaching Assistant. In 2010 I started my
official Makaton Training delivered by the Springboard Opportunity Group
and with the support of Castle Batch and Springboard completed my Tutor
training.
Present day in lockdown at home. My friend, who is The
Clinical Director of nursing, has been very busy preparing and
recruiting staff for the new Nightingale Hospital Bristol. However she
was very concerned about the feedback from other Nightingale Hospitals
saying they found it very difficult to communicate with each other
whilst wearing PPE so asked me to provide her with a few Makaton signs
to help, of course I said yes and jumped at the chance to help. The
Nightingale team decided on the words they needed, I put the signs and
symbols into a poster and recorded a little video of how to make the
signs for them to share during their own training. Little did I know
what impact this would have! These few signs have become a local news story,
I have been on local radio and local news broadcasts talking about
Makaton, the Press association has shown interest and I have received
hundreds of acknowledgments on social media! I am doing a webinar about
Makaton to the NHS (possibly an audience of 200) which may also lead to
more staff being trained up to use Makaton throughout Hospitals and care
homes throughout the country.