Introduction
A clinical course for speech and language therapists to
build practical skills in delivering communication partner training.
Delivered by:
Claire Farrington-Douglas
Dr Anna Volkmer
Dr Suzanne Beeke
Offering people with communication difficulties and their
communication partners (families, friends and relatives) advice on
conversations is a core component of speech and language therapy. This is needed
because speech, language and communication difficulties arising from stroke,
brain injury and progressive conditions such as primary progressive aphasia all
have an impact on everyday conversation. Delivering communication partner training
is challenging because it’s a complex intervention. This course aims to provide
you with the theoretical and importantly, the practical tools and experience to
deliver this intervention to your clients in a clinical context.
Overview
This newly created online/remote course will cover:
A brief overview of the theoretical
underpinnings of communication partner training and practical resources to
share with clients.
Opportunities to watch videos and identify
barriers and facilitators in conversations and plan an intervention session
Problem-based learning opportunities targeting
how to support a client and their family/friend to watch videos of their own
conversations and to jointly set goals
Opportunities to practice and problem solve how
to deliver communication partner training interventions remotely in break out
rooms with other participants.
Measuring outcomes of individual and group-based
communication partner training
Learning objectives
By attending this course you will develop skills in:
-
Identifying what to target in communication
partner training
-
Supporting the client and their family/friend to
identify barriers and facilitators and set goals for therapy
-
Delivering remote communication partner training
-
Measuring outcomes from therapy
About the workshop experts
Claire
Farrington-Douglas graduated as a speech
and language therapist from University College London in 2000. Since then
Claire has worked with adults with acquired neurological conditions across
specialist inpatient neurorehab settings and in the community. She is currently
employed part- time as a consultant speech and language therapist at the
National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in outpatients, specialising
in cognitive-communication disorders and aphasia and she works independently
with Linguistic resolutions. She completed a Masters of Research in
speech, language and cognition in 2006 and focused on communication partner
training with aphasia. She has jointly established and co-chairs a bi-annual
symposium in cognitive-communication disorders and is experienced in teaching and
supervision. She has set up an intensive comprehensive aphasia programme (ICAP)
at the National and is currently developing a virtual ICAP in the community.
She runs a range of community groups focusing on all aspects of communication
including social conversation, work, communication partner training and
project-based interventions. Claire has focused
on developing and delivering communication partner training to people with
acquired communication disorders and their families and friends. She delivers this
both individually and in groups and more recently has offered CPT
remotely.
Dr Anna
Volkmer graduated as a speech and language therapist from University College
London in 2002. Since then Anna has worked with adults with acquired neurological
conditions across England and Australia. She is currently employed as a senior
speech and language therapist at the National Hospital for Neurology and
Neurology, specialising in dementia. She completed a Masters of Clinical
Rehabilitation at Flinders University, South Australia in 2009 and more
recently a PhD at University College London in 2020. Anna currently holds an
NIHR Development Skills Enhancement Award and works as a senior researcher and
lecturer at University College London. In Anna’s clinical and research work she
has focused on developing and delivering communication partner training to
people with dementia and their families and friends. She delivers this both
individually and in groups, and has focused on promoting the continued delivery
of these interventions remotely since the beginning of lockdown.
Dr Suzanne
Beeke is an Associate Professor at University College London and leads the
Better Conversations Lab. She trained as a speech and language therapist and
her research focuses on understanding the impact of language and communication
disorders on the everyday conversations of adults with acquired neurological
conditions. She has a particular interest in using the finding s of
conversation analytic research to underpin communication partner training
(CPT). She is lead author of Better Conversations with Aphasia, a free
online training resource and CPT therapy programme available at https://extendstore.ucl.ac.uk She is currently co-editing a book, Better
Conversations with Communication Disabilities: A practical guide for clinicians with
colleagues at UCL.