Over the many years of working in the field of dyslexia, I have had the wonderful pleasure of meeting so many other professionals, who are equally as passionate about helping individuals and their families. With the help of all these generous people we are now proud to present It Take A Village Conference – March 1-5 2021 (online).
I recently met Eloise Grobbelaar her organisation, Growth and Grit, is based on the the latest research, incorporating principles of Positive Discipline, Emotional Intelligence, Growth Mindset & Whole-Brain integration strategies. Together, we discovered we had a group of fantastic, trusted colleagues, who could form a wonderful team, to help inform parents to enable them to support their children, through challenging times that are emotional, educational and developmental.
We understand parents whose children are neurodiverse often experience difficulties and need help. That help can be hard to find and sometimes it is expensive or inaccessible. All our colleagues are passionate about supporting individuals and this often means working with the whole family. Some of our colleagues refer on to other specialists as they know a holistic approach is often required to support an individual. Some of the parents who contact us are just at the beginning of their journey, looking for answers and maybe a diagnosis, most of all, strategies to support their child both at home and in education. Others have progressed along the road of diagnosis and are perhaps concerned about over lapping or co-existing neurodiverse traits or learning differences and need to more about other areas.
We knew our team of colleagues could help so many parents, especially during these challenging times where accessing specialists can be difficult. We asked all of our colleagues if they would help us by offering a 60 minute parent information session.
We also wanted to be able to give something back to the community. All our professionals agreed to give their time for free. All the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to two SEN charities. Eloise is South African and so is one of our presenters. It was only natural that the proceeds would be split between the UK and South Africa.
Meet the two charities here: Talking Sense a UK charity helping families through the EHCp process and The Chaeli Campaign, from South Africa, helping families through various project.
One of our presenters, Libby Hill, I first met a number of years ago and she has been a firm supporter of all the parenting and professional awareness projects I have been involved in. She is an amazing and generous lady, so well-informed and has a wealth of knowledge and experience she is willing to share. Her specialism is language development and this covers language related to ASD/Autism, anxiety and language and demand avoidance behaviour. You can meet Libby here. If you’d like to join her presentation you can get your ticket here via Eventbrite. Language is so integral to all our education and development and often an unseen area of difficulty. Libby has won awards for her work as a Speech and Language Therapist and she provides practical techniques which are easy to implement at home or school.
I’ve probably know John Stevenson for most of my time working in the area of dyslexia. John introduced me to the aspects of visual processing difficulties. So often visual difficulties can impact upon how text is read/processed. This can be despite having a recent eye test which has shown no need for prescription glasses. Visual processing impacts upon the brain’s ability to process text and can sometimes be the cause of poor reading accuracy and slow processing speed. It can co-exist with dyslexia or stand alone. If you feel you would like to know more about this you can book onto his presentations here at Eventbrite.
I met Laura Graham after she had conducted a sensory processing assessment for one of my students. I knew the student was having extreme difficulties with sensory integration and regulation and she confirmed this, making practical recommendations for the school and parents. You can meet Laura here. Laura is an award winning occupational Therapist and her talks are very accessible to parents. If you’d like to join Laura’s presentation you can get a ticket here, via Eventbrite.
More recently, I met Fintan O’ Regan, we worked together during the first lockdown to help families understand anxiety related to Covid, particularly the impact this would have on the mental health of children with ASD and ADHD, regarding home education, lockdown and the return to school. Fintan specialises in behavioural management for individuals with neurodiverse traits, such as ASD and ADHD. He helps families put in place support mechanisms and strategies. You can meet Fintan here. If you feel you would like help and information to support your child, join Fintan’s presentation by getting your ticket from Eventbrite.
Finally, our Co-organiser, Eloise Grobbelaar contacted me about supporting her own child’s reading and spelling. We soon started chatting about work and our mutual passion to support individuals and their families. You can meet Eloise here. If you’d like to join her presentation, you can book here, via Eventbrite.
I will also be offering a presentation on dyslexia, helping parents to know if the difficulties their child is experiencing might be dyslexia and what does good intervention looks like. If you haven’t already met me, you can hear more about my presentation here. If you think you’d like to know more, tickets can be booked here, via Eventbrite.
In all, we have 10 presentations, each will take place Monday- Friday from 1st-5th March 2021. You can see the full list here.
We hope that you can join us, where you will be assured a warm and friendly welcome.
