dyscover – rediscovering communication

Posted 29th March 2021

On Monday we welcomed Helen Ingram to the team – Helen will join our Kingston team but will initially spend some time visiting the different groups, so some of you will get to meet Helen soon!

Posted 29th March 2021
Dyscover have been delivering regular weekly zoom groups – over 300 to over 100 Beneficiaries for a whole year. The changes made to our service whilst continuing to support people with aphasia remotely has been immeasurable.
Speech and Language Therapy Assistant, Suzanne said “It has been an incredible year full of innovation, new learning and enduring success. We have such a loyal, dedicated and hardworking team of staff and volunteers that have made the last year a triumph. Our Members have also shown boundless enthusiasm and resilience and continue to be our inspiration”.

Posted 17th March 2021

Posted 17th March 2021

No better day than today to pay tribute to our Founder and President, Gill Jackson who set up Dyscover nearly 27 years ago. An inspirational Woman who continues to share her wisdom and innovate. Thank You Gill

Posted 17th March 2021
During our Thursday Group discussion, Claire described some of the most important friendships she has made since joining Dyscover.
This photo includes 3 friends she made when she first joined Dyscover. It was taken in 2006 and includes Frances (SLT) Trish (Member) and Mike (member/volunteer). They were visiting Parliament to lobby for improved funding for Aphasia Support. Claire said she enjoyed recalling this occasion and the time spent with her friends on such an important mission.
Frances and Mike continue to support Dyscover from afar and Trish continues as a regular member at our weekly groups.

Posted 10th March 2021
Empowering our Members to communicate using different strategies is key to our approach and this week a group of non-verbal members made use of pre-prepared signs and gestures to express their opinion and feelings regarding Environmental Issues.
We increased the challenge by asking partners to step out of the room and leave the Members to work independently on the Zoom Group session with the sole guidance of our staff and volunteers.
The result was impressive when Tim insisted that his wife Stella should not return to the room again as he felt confident enough to complete the session without her.

Posted 10th March 2021
Nick has only been a Dyscover Member for a few months and has attended 1:1 sessions with his wife and now our Wednesday afternoon group – all on Zoom.
Nick has limited speech and is finding the Zoom sessions difficult but fun; he hopes the face to face sessions resume soon so he can meet his new friends. He is also looking forward to Dyscover Golf after Easter.
Nick’s wife Simone said: “Initially we had some 1:1 sessions and learnt alternative communication methods. Now the Group allows Nick to put them in to practice and he is getting better at using gestures to make himself understood. It gives us hope that communicating and living with aphasia will get easier with time.”
Nick is developing his garden for summer. He plans to add an old aluminium bath tub to his planter collection.

Posted 10th March 2021
The Wednesday group had a conversation about “what is the highlight of your lockdown week?”.
Julian was really keen to explain, in lots of detail, that putting his bins out was pretty much the most exciting part of his week. He said that he could make it even more interesting by swapping the layout of the bins from one week to the next!

Posted 25th February 2021

This week it is Student Volunteering Week and we are very lucky to regularly have students volunteering with us. Many wish to gain experience in speech and language therapy before going on to study this at University. They generously give their time to support Dyscover and bring us so many different skills and talents -we are very grateful for all their hard work #studentvolunteeringweek

Posted 12th February 2021

We welcomed 5 health and social care professionals to last week’s online Visitor session.
4 Dyscover members joined us to explain what it’s really like to live with aphasia and how Dyscover has helped them. After an overview of Dyscover’s service, Rosemary introduced visitors to members in breakout rooms for some conversation. Visitors and members were equally enthusiastic. Visitors said they valued the opportunity to hear directly from the people who attend Dyscover. Members enjoyed being able to engage with people who work in hospitals and community services, and emphasised the importance of long term support.
The picture shows one breakout room, complete with extra visitor !