Communication Resources

We all know how important communication is, if it’s done right it can make all the difference in helping to reduce anxieties, particularly for people with learning disabilities and autism. We know it can be daunting to many to think about going away somewhere new and trying adventure activities for the first time so we have created this page with a variety of communication tools, to help support our visitors.

All of the resources on this page have been created by Kate McCallum with support from our wonderful corporate partners Amphigean, Adamedia Ltd & ARASAAC symbols.

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Activity Stories Collection

Social stories have long been used to help autistic people develop greater social understanding and help them to stay safe. Social stories were created in 1991 by Carol Gray, they are short descriptions of a particular situation event or activity which include specific information about what to expect in that situation and why. The terms ‘social story’ and ‘social stories’ are trademarks originated and owned by  Carol Gray. You can read more about social stories and how to implement them on the National Autistic Society website here.

Social stories can be used in many ways including to help a person cope with changes to routine and unexpected events.

We understand that for many of our visitors, coming to a new place is a challenge in itself, let alone taking on new challenges such as being asked to try climbing or canoeing. Therefore, Bendrigg have created their own activity stories to help ease peoples anxieties before a visit. If you are booked to visit and would like these stories to use with your group before you visit then please contact us. 

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Activity Story Videos

To take the activity story concept a step further, we have created a collection of short videos which in a similar fashion to the paper versions, provide a step by step of the most common activities here at Bendrigg whilst going one step further and providing real life visuals in-situ.

We have added the Activity Story Videos to playlist on our YouTube channel a so that they can be accessed by our visitors at any time before, during and after a visit. For a sneak taster of these click the video below or head over to the playlist to view all 21 videos!

We’d like to say a huge thank you to The Bailey Thomas Charitable Fund for funding the creation of our Activity Videos, we are so incredibly grateful.

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Bendifolk

Our Bendifolk images are used frequently around the centre here at Bendrigg and they are a great visual aid to help people with additional communication needs prepare for their trip. We are very grateful to our corporate partners Amphigean who have kindly created these Bendifolk graphics as a service in kind.

 

If you have any questions about our communication resources please do get in touch!