On 28 August, it is Makaton Awareness Day. The event was set up to celebrate the excellent system of symbols, signs and speech devised by Margaret Walker to support the development of communications skills, memory, language and expression. Makaton works well with young children who have difficulties with communication, many of whom live in residential care or have a level of outside care support.
Makaton can back up emerging speech skills and help make the person’s needs or wishes clearer to those looking after them. It can also help enhance people’s social interactions, as it offers another way of communicating and sharing stories. Makaton is easy to learn and can be adapted to match each individual’s needs, abilities and style of communications.
Dignity in care
In residential care, there can often be many different ways of communicating in use at the same time. These can include sign language and Makaton for people with communications difficulties, as well as Braille or large print written material for people with visual impairments and social stories and visual timetables for neurodiverse residents. All of these methods combine to ensure all residents can experience dignity in how they are cared for. They enable residents to access important messages, stay safe and enjoy friendships in the most suitable way for them.
Making sure that people can communicate and understand when they are being communicated with keeps everyone safe and informed about what is happening to them. This is another key aspect of promoting dignity in care. None of us want to be kept in the dark about what is happening, especially when it directly relates to personal or medical care. This can be very frightening, especially for younger children who may not have had experience of certain treatments or care processes before to remember and be reassured by.
Other non-spoken forms of communications
Young people living in residential care can benefit from a range of communications methods used in tandem with each other. These can include Makaton and sign language, as well as other non-spoken forms of passing on instructions and interacting with others. One popular tool is a diary – either written or using pictures, photographs or diagrams. This can be used to help people understand what they are going to do in a day and a rough ideas of timings, e.g. morning, afternoon or evening. Diaries can also be helpful for residents to communicate how they are feeling, or what they would like to do – again using words if able or preferred, or symbols and images to represent what they want to say.
Other non-verbal communications can include physical touch and facial expressions. No matter how well we are able to use verbal or written communications, we take in visual cues from body language, posture, how near someone is standing or sitting next to us, the volume of someone’s voice, the presence or absence of eye contact and hand and body gestures. In order to help people who struggle with various forms of communication, for whatever reason, making sure that accompanying visual cues match the message you are trying to put across can help prevent confusion and distress and replace them with safety and dignity.
How Care Vision can help
Care Vision’s care planning software offers yet another method of communication between residents, families and care staff. While family members and staff can disseminate written feedback and key data, the system also allows photos to be uploaded and shared, as well as visual timetables to help residents understand what they are doing and at what time. Care Vision also has features allowing care staff to update personal records, including details about how people prefer to receive communications and the methods they use themselves to express wishes, make friends and interact with those around them.
Finally, Care Vision can help staff identify any gaps in knowledge around Makaton, sign language and other forms of verbal and non-verbal communications. This can inform career plans and point people in the right direction for training courses and on-the-job learning opportunities. It can help match carers possessing the right skills and experience to shifts where there is a greater need for multiple forms of communications. This could be during short-term respite care visits, or a day trip where more assistance could be required than day-to-day life in the care home.
