TRAINING
Afasic Cymru Conference entitled Speech and Language in Mainstream Secondary School - Thursday 5 November 2009
Village Hotel, Coryton, Cardiff
As always this conference will be aimed at parents and professionals alike and we are in the process of finalising the workshops. We are delighted that both Alex Kelly and Professor Gina Conti-Ramsden will be the keynote speakers of the day and that the Children’s Commissioner for Wales Keith Towler will open the conference. As soon as workshop details have been finalised, invites will be sent out to attend – what we hope will be an informative and enjoyable day. Keep checking this space to download your application form.
Alex Kelly has worked as a speech and language therapist for 24 years and in the author of the bestselling TALKABOUT resources which aim to develop social skills, self esteem and relationship skills. Her fifth TALKABOUT resource came out this summer and is aimed at teaching social skills to secondary aged children in mainstream school. After 23 years of working in the NHS, she now runs her own business providing speech and language therapy into a couple of local schools and also offering training and consultancy in social skills to schools and organisations around the UK and abroad. She is currently working with a number of schools across the country to assess the effectiveness of social skills interventions within the school environment and plans to publish this in 2011. She can be contacted through her website www.alexkelly.biz or by email alex@alexkelly.biz
Professor Gina Conti-Ramsden Ph.D., FBPS, FRCSLT, AcSS
Gina Conti-Ramsden is a Speech and Language Therapists with particular interest in specific language impairment (SLI). She is Professor of Child Language and Learning at the University of Manchester, UK. Gina has published extensively in the area and her interests cover a variety of issues regarding the development of individuals with SLI, from infancy to adolescence and young adulthood. Gina is the Director of the well-known longitudinal study of SLI which has been running in England for the past ten years, following children from age 7 to 17 years. She is a fellow of the Royal Collage of Speech and Language Therapists, a fellow of the British Psychological Society and an Academician of the Social Sciences.
Keith Towler - the Children's Commissioner
A lot of people describe the Children's Commissioner as the children's champion - somebody who will speak up for children, but the fantastic thing about being the Children's Commissioner is I'm independent of government. I have to listen to what children/young people say, and the great thing is that other people have to listen to what I say, so it's a really senior role. It allows me the opportunity to meet children/young people all over the place, listen to the issues that are really important to them, and convince those people who are holding the resources that they need to change the things that they're doing to meet the needs of children.