Safeguarding

Saturday 27th October and 4th, 11th & 18th November 2025:  1pm – 5pm

The ‘Using Makaton in Safeguarding’ workshop is basically a vocabulary workshop around Safeguarding. There are 300 signs and symbols and only 60 of these are from the Core Vocabulary (mostly from Levels 3 & 4), so the majority are from the resource vocabulary. It focuses on setting up a high-quality, accurate Makaton profile about the Makaton user you’re working with and planning the teaching of the vocabulary to equip them with signs and symbols (and understanding) about people who they come into contact with, body parts, clothes, places, thoughts, feelings and behaviour etc. Online, it’s 4 x 4-hour sessions.

• first session: covers family/relationships/people (vocabulary includes things such as grandparents, adopted, married, physio, social worker, cleaner, cabbie etc.)
• second session: covers body parts/clothing (arm, chest, feet, swimming costume, pyjamas, coat etc.)
• third session: the focus is on places (e.g. bowling alley, park, cinema), then feelings/thoughts and behaviour (e.g. ashamed, depressed, anxious etc.)
• last session: we cover vocabulary around ‘bullying and abuse’ (from hair pulling and biting to sexual/physical/verbal abuse), then ‘intimate’ matters and sexual behaviour (periods/masturbation/body parts etc.)

In my opinion, everyone who learns Makaton should do this workshop as it’s thought-provoking and highlights the importance of our vulnerable people to be able ‘to tell’ from an early age. Please contact us if you’d like to attend and ask us about subsidies.