We have been very busy with our online group and also our in-person group. Ben Farmer attended our April meeting. Ben is a person who stammers and is currently looking at the effectiveness of a compassion skills course in increasing self-compassion, self-esteem and communication confidence in people who stammer. Ben took lots of questions from the group and there was a great discussion about his talk. For our May meeting we were joined by Carolyn Allen, Speech and Language Therapist and Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Strathclyde on the Speech and Language Pathology course. Carolyn gave a great talk about the latest approaches to therapy and answered lots of questions.
In June we held a speaking circle workshop. Speaking circles were originally developed as a way to combat stage fright and in this workshop we explored how they can be used to help with stammering and drew on the experiences of support group members who have taken part in speaking circles before. Everyone at the meeting took part in the speaking circle and was felt to be a really positive experience for everyone involved.
There has been great feedback on all of our meetings and we are currently busy planning our next round of workshops and meetings.
