00:00What began as a personal journey for one writing family has grown into a wider mission to improve
00:05communication and inclusion across the North East. Eleanor Bagley first learned Makaton
00:10after her youngest daughter Ava was diagnosed with Down syndrome. Today she trains parents,
00:15carers, schools, organisations and businesses to use the communication system in their own settings.
00:21So Makaton is a language programme so it's based on BSL, British Sign Language,
00:28for people with learning difficulties and communication difficulties to be able to
00:34communicate when they might struggle to be able to communicate verbally.
00:39My youngest daughter Ava was born in 2018 and we had a postnatal diagnosis of Down syndrome.
00:45I was very adamant from day one that her diagnosis was not going to define her and we were going
00:51to
00:51give her whatever opportunities we could so that she could live her best life. We all talk to babies
00:56as soon as they're born because we don't wait until they are talking to start talking to them,
01:03they start learning that straight away. So I knew that I wanted to start learning to sign so that I
01:09could sign with her as I was talking from the day that she, well it wasn't the day she was
01:14born but
01:14as soon as I could after that once I started learning the signs. Eleanor says learning Makaton gave her
01:21daughter a way to communicate from an early age and helped reduce frustration within the family.
01:26Around 18 months ago she completed the training required to become a licensed tutor and now she
01:33delivers sessions both online and in person across the region. There's a lot of schools that are
01:39starting to do it a little bit more and speak to language therapists and things as well. What I would
01:45really love to see though is more cafes and local businesses and things like that get in touch and
01:52just say actually yeah we want we want to make our environment much more inclusive we want to be able
01:58to
01:59communicate with those users that come in who even if it is just a hello like what's your name just
02:07to just
02:08to make them feel welcome because just a tiny little effort to speak to someone on their level
02:16can mean the world to them. We need to encourage as many people as possible to learn even just the
02:23basics of sign to enable that inclusion for members of society who might struggle a little bit more to
02:32to kind of verbally communicate but just if we can if we can just make it a little bit easier
02:38for those
02:38people to communicate on a day-to-day basis then everyone should absolutely make make that effort to
02:44do so. Eleanor continues to provide Makaton training throughout the northeast. She says her aim is to help
02:51create more inclusive communities by giving families professionals and organizations the tools to communicate more effectively.
02:59We'll see you next time.
02:59We'll see you next time.
02:59We'll see you next time.
Comments