Making a Difference
Sadie Skipworth
Managing Director - I'm passionate about making meaningful connections and creating opportunities for people to succeed. Proud Worcestershire Ambassador
For my Rotary Presidential year, I have chosen a number of charities and organisations that I hope to help, support in some way during 2021-2022.
The first being NAC, (Non-Verbal Affective Care).
Who they are
NAC is a registered Community Interest Company (CIC), operating on a not-for-profit basis from the UK and accessible from anywhere in the world where there is internet connection. They are dedicated to the emotional and mental well-being of people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities. Their vision is for the emotional and mental health needs of children and adults with severe and profound intellectual disabilities to be recognised and cared for using evidence and neuroscience-based practices and approaches. What they do to work towards our vision?is evidence-based and driven by their values. ?
What they do
They produce guidance on?tools, strategies, approaches, practices and activities that can be used to create emotionally enriching experiences and that do not rely on speech and language.
The experiences promoted are based on practices that are scientifically supported?to have beneficial mental wellbeing effects. The role of NAC is to show what they look like for people who rely on others to meet almost all, if not all of their care needs.
These ‘how to’ guides are designed to enable carers and educators to facilitate emotionally beneficial experiences that, whilst not ‘therapy’ can have a therapeutic effect. They aim to give step-by-step instructions that are easy to follow and with accompanying video or audio descriptions where possible. For many of the experiences, no special equipment is required and they would do their utmost to ensure that specialist terminology is avoided or explained.
Their website enables carers to ‘pick and mix' from the guidance offered to create individualised, personal collections. They can create up to 8 collections of guidance and return to these for easy access. This works a bit like saving favourites in YouTube or saving pins to your boards in Pinterest.
NAC offers training and consultancy?on emotional and mental wellbeing for people who do not use words to communicate. Training can be in the form of attended workshops, online courses and ‘hands on’ experiential sessions.
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NAC also wants to work with other individuals and organisations to improve mental health approaches, intervention and services for people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities.?
Why they exist
They set up in 2020 at a time when, in the UK, the need for mental health care was being widely reported and recognised. The long-established need for support in this area for people with learning disabilities was highlighted by many working and campaigning in this area. The impact of COVID-19 has been described as causing both individual and collective trauma and the need to find ways to support people through this difficult time has been highlighted.
NAC offers guidance on every day, safe, non-invasive and natural approaches, that can be enjoyable for all, to be used to benefit the emotional well-being of people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities, a group whose mental health needs can often be unrecognised and unmet.
For more information please contact:
Dr Julie Calveley, PhD, RNLD, BSc (Hons), NAC Director
Director of ARCOS and Speech and Language Therapist - brain injury, Expert Witness, Senior Instructor F.O.T.T.
3 年Wishing NAC the very best for the future and if there is anything we can do or provide to help please do let us know.