Lamh - The Response? "We are already doing it"

Just to summarize I first contacted Lamh back in mid Oct 2008. I later suggested the DVD middle of January 2009 and had frequent communications from their Development and Liason Officer since.

It was argued for example that "Manual sign training is most effective when it is delivered face-to-face." Also when I mentioned people on the DS forums who had no access to training I was told "this issue can be answered by the Contract Training system, started in 2006, whereby groups of families can contract in a tutor themselves, so please pass on this information if required"

I got a response today. They are doing it already but it was a secret! Hmmmmmm.....

I would love to hear your comments on this and will draft my own response (to Lamh) in the coming days.

Please note the following before you read this and the section I have highlighted in bold below.

Kate08 from the DS Forums posted on this thread 22 Jan that "It's a great idea and I hope Lámh will go ahead with the DVD at last . I emailed the Lámh office almost five years ago about this , and was told that there were plans afoot to make a " Lámh Along " DVD of nursery rhymes with signs"

So five years later here is what just I got back from them today:-

9th February 2009

Dear Dave,

I’m responding to you on behalf of the Lámh Board of Directors. The Board would like to sincerely thank you for your letter and interest.

As mentioned previously in emails, Lámh identifies development goals for a period of time ahead, and several projects have already been planned long in advance. As you will see below, a DVD project is already planned for this year. A development of the type you described was previously undertaken and turned out to be a huge project that didn’t fulfil sign training needs. Hopefully the project Lámh has planned will be of great interest to you and the families you have been in contact with.

The project planned is a DVD of nursery rhymes/songs with signs, for young children who are using Lámh, so it’s very exciting! Lámh wasn’t in a position to make an announcement until the project was confirmed. The production has already begun. The DVD will be called ‘Lámh-a-song’ and the aim is that it will be available this summer. A huge amount of preparation has gone into this project already.

As discussed in previous emails, the teaching of signs in a face-to-face setting is highly valued, as is the opportunity that the Family Course gives to families to seek advice and support from both Tutors and other families. As you will know, the Lámh Family course is attended by families of children with different communication needs and it’s designed to provide the space for different issues and strategies to be discussed. As training is highly valued, recent developments have included:

§ Training 26 new Lámh Tutors from healthcare/education backgrounds;

§ Setting up a Contract Training system whereby groups or services can contract in a Lámh Tutor themselves to run training;

§ Piloting a new Training for Trainers course so that healthcare/education professionals can train as Family Course trainers in addition to the Tutor Training structure, thus increasing the amount of Family Course Trainers available.

Another development planned for this year is a review of vocabulary for families, looking at different age groups of Lámh users. This too is a very welcome development and will involve consultation with Lámh users and their families, teachers, speech therapists, Lámh Tutors and others.

Lámh would like to thank you again for your interest, to assure you that your proposal will be kept on file and we would hope to contact you again in the future in regard to this.

Kind regards,