I was contacted by an adult Learning Disability (LD) care home this summer. They contacted me due to having a large staff turn over and a desire to make their communication setting more communication friendly. They had never had a Speech and Language Therapist (SALT) visit them before and were unsure of what the next steps were.

What happens when an adult service wants a SALT’s input?

Every setting is different. But an initial telephone consultation should always be made. This helps to identify the next steps.

Reflection of Input

Following the telephone consultation for the adult LD care home this summer, it was identified that the senior manager would benefit from a meeting to discuss in detail care home aims, OFSTED requirements, staff needs and an observation of the care home environment. A management plan was then made. For this adult LD setting it was agreed that signing training was really important along with raising awareness of communication enhancing strategies. So a bespoke training package was created by the SALT.

How do you measure impact?

You can measure quantitative data before and after training with staff and the environment itself. This can be done through use of questionnaires and environmental audits. Another way to measure impact is through target setting. Has the target been achieved? Immediately and/or after a period of time following intervention?

Reflection of Input

For training within the adult LD setting the service had specifically requested for measurement of impact to be done in the training session. Therefore, a rating scale was used in a number of areas pre and post training. Following each training session progress was made. A reflection at the beginning of every session was also undertaken to share if/how staff had achieved the targets set for them in the week.

What next?

For some settings they may want more than just training. They may want direct therapy intervention and/or environmental support. This is agreed with your SALT.

Reflection of Input

For the adult LD setting this summer, they wanted to have ongoing SALT input through training. This enabled them as a care home to target developing everyone’s communication at a universal level (as recommended by Jean Grosse in the Three Tier Model Approach).