Picture Perfect!
The virtual champagne corks were popping last week as we received the wonderful news that there is to be further funding for the Speak With A Picture programme.
Speak With A Picture (SWAP) is a project aimed at pre-school children aged 2-4 years old who live within the boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge. The project began in 2018 after receiving funding from BBC’s Children In Need and we’re delighted that Children In Need have agreed funding for a further two years.
Ann Marie & Cheryl
SWAP is designed to support children who experience social and communication difficulties and supports them and their families to learn to communicate using symbols based on the PECS® (Picture Exchange Communication System). Since it began in the autumn of 2018, it’s been incredibly popular, with almost 300 families referred to the service. The full ten-week programme has been completed by 90 families, and another 50 families have completed a slightly shorter version.
The new funding will take us to the autumn of 2023 and ensure that another 60 families will be able to take part in the ten-week course. Among the first to take part in the programme were Paul & Jemma Taylor from Romford, who brought their daughter Olivia along in early 2019. Olivia completed the course and we have remained in regular contact with the family since then. They were delighted to hear that other local children would benefit thanks to the extra funding from Children In Need.
Paul & Olivia
Dad Paul said “We have been using the Sycamore Trust now for 2 years. Our daughter Olivia has social and communication difficulties and the Sycamore Trust opened up a world for Olivia and us to communicate together. Thank you, Sycamore Trust, we are so pleased you can continue to help other families and always be part of our journey”
We’ve been able to call on the expertise of our SWAP team throughout the last three years, and our team of Lynn Chapman, Cheryl Kearney and Ann Marie Lyons-Mummery have faced some challenges, not least the disruption caused by the outbreak of Covid-19. They adapted their methods to ensure that families were not left unsupported as we switched our delivery to Zoom.
Developing social and communication skills can be extremely challenging for individuals who experience difficulties in communicating their own wants and needs in a face to face environment and we understood that providing our services via video technology would bring up new challenges, but delivering the sessions on a virtual platform proved very successful.
Lynn Chapman has worked on SWAP since it began. She said; “We are all delighted that Speak With A Picture will be funded for another two years. The project has been a huge success thanks to the dedication, patience and understanding of our fantastic team of Cheryl and Ann Marie and demand for places has been huge, because it is so desperately needed by local families. We look forward to supporting many more families in the next two years.”
SWAP in action
Our staff team of Cheryl Kearney and Ann Marie Lyons-Mummery have worked on this programme since the very beginning, making many friends among the way. Ann Marie welcomed the news; “We are so excited to be able to deliver SWAP to more families. To some it has been a lifeline and for Lynn, Cheryl and I, it is an honour to work with such inspiring young people and their families.”
When SWAP began in autumn of 2018, we could not have predicted that it would become so successful in such a short space of time. From that very first intake, it was clear that SWAP was going to help a great many pre-school children and their families. There can be few things more frustrating for both parents and children than being unable to communicate and the aim of the programme is for children and their families to develop communication skills that can be widely used every day. Another of the families to sign up at the beginning was Sean and Lynsey Counihan from Hornchurch, who brought their son Conor along in 2019. He displayed real enthusiasm for exchanging, making rapid progress whilst under the wing of our SWAP team.
Sean, Conor & Lynsey
His mum Lynsey had this to say when she heard of the new funding. “My son is autistic, and he was non-verbal and frustrated when we came to the Sycamore Trust as a three year old. The SWAP programme gave us the tools we needed to be able to communicate with our boy using pictures and I will never forget the look on his face when he started to realise we knew what he wanted. Our son is now 5 and verbal but we still use the picture cards for visual timetables. We will never be able to thank the wonderful people at the Sycamore Trust for everything they have done for us over the years and we know they are just a phone call away if we need any support or have any questions.”
Sycamore Trust CEO Chris Gillbanks also welcomed the news. She commented; “SWAP has become an integral part of the Sycamore Trust offering since it began three years ago and I am thrilled that we are going to be able to support even more local families. We’d like to express our gratitude to BBC Children In Need for recognising the benefits of this wonderful initiative and for providing two more years of funding.”
Parents can self-refer to SWAP and we also accept referrals from professional bodies. For more information about Speak With A Picture, go to; http://www.sycamoretrust.org.uk/our-services/swap
