Welcome to my personal MakatonLDND Ambassador Blog !
So firstly, let me tell you a little bit about me and how I came to begin my journey to becoming a learning disability nurse. Back in 2006 I started working in a small residential home for adults with learning disabilities. It was never something I thought I would ever do but after a little time working there it felt it was what I was meant to be doing and soon the residents there began to feel like family. From then I worked in different settings such as support living, day care services and also as a SEN teaching assistant.
One day I was talking to a friend who was starting university to become a midwife, she was my age, from the same background as I was and it got me thinking, if she could do it why couldn’t i. That day I signed up to begin an Access course and began researching nursing and obviously learning disability nursing seemed like the next chapter in my career.
In my work I had learnt very basic Makaton signing but expected that as part of my degree as a learning disability nurse Makaton would be taught at some level, I was extremely shocked to learn that this was not the case. Communication is a huge part in any form of nursing, in the field of learning disabilities Makaton can be a huge form of communication if not the only means a person may have of telling someone their needs or wants.
So the only way of myself getting the skills I will need as a learning disability nurse to communicate with many people I will work with will be to learn myself alongside doing my degree, being a mam and many hours of placement.
This blog will be logging my journey through learning Makaton and also documenting ways in which as an ambassador I spread the word of this campaign and any work I can do to support it.