News and Events Newsletters September 2020 Newsletter Our New Normal In the last newsletter, I truly believed that normality was on its way. Lockdown was over and we were able to socialise again - a bit more than the previous weeks. With the pandemic not over, we are now looking at a new 'normal'. Our new normal is offering our service online. And with aphasia this can be very tricky. We try our best to provide a support service that benefits people with aphasia as much as possible. Though we understand that online support is not the best for everyone with aphasia. And so we would like your input. Please let us know how we can help you. What can we do more of? We would love to hear from you! Your browser does not support the audio element. Please click here to download the file You can text or call Colin on 07796143118, or email us at [email protected]. Family and friends of people with aphasia, try to find out how we can help your friend/relative even more. We would love to hear from you too. CONTACT US The best thing about our online support service, is that we can now support more people across the UK. Anyone can join in our online Zoom group. We would love to know more about what is going on where you live. How do people in your area help with aphasia? What are your struggles? And what helps you? We would love to write about it in our next newsletter. get in contact and let us know Success Stories As you may know, we provided online speech therapy to newly diagnosed aphasia patients, who would otherwise be on a long wait list to see a speech and language therapist. This was hugely successful as we helped 20 people with aphasia, who would otherwise be on a 3 - 4 month wait list. Recovery with aphasia can be different for everyone, and speech progress can continue to improve over many years. The brain is so complicated that it is hard to predict the level of recovery and speed of recovery. What we do know, is that speech therapy makes a HUGE difference! Speech therapy helps to retrain the brain - the brain is like a muscle, you need to exercise it to make it stronger! This is why we are offering this speech therapy service - to help reduce the wait list to see a speech therapist, so that newly diagnosed people with aphasia can relearn their communication skills as soon as possible. Someone who benefited from our online speech therapy is Simon, who kindly sent us a video of his speech therapy session. We would just like to say a massive thank you for funding Simon with some speech therapy. Since Simon has been out of hospital he has been so determined to get better and I can honestly say that without the help from Lizzie he would not of come as far as he has already. He continues to push himself everyday and I am so proud of the hard work he is putting into every bit of his recovery. He really does enjoy his sessions and since his first one he has so much more confidence. Again thank you all do much! With thanks, Louise Scott and Simon Herbert. Latest Grants We are very fortunate to receive £10,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund to continue our online speech therapy service for newly diagnosed aphasia patients. If you know someone who can benefit from this service please click here Thank you and Say Aphasia for the funded sessions, X has little speech and with no NHS service available we were really struggling. This support has meant so much to us and the progress that X has made is fantastic. Thank you. The Art of Conversation with Aphasia Over the last few months we have been meeting up with a group of lovely people who are dedicated to creating an art therapy for people with aphasia. In the Art of Conversation design group, we are working with Ashley McCormick, DLWP’s Head of Learning & Participation, speech therapist and PhD student Firle Beckley, Dr.Suzanne Beeke an Associate Professor at UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, and Nikki Hafter an artist who we had interviewed to help us design this art therapy program. Colin Lyall, founding Director of Say Aphasia, says of Nikki; “In her interview she used a lot of gestures and spoke slowly and clearly which is extremely important when speaking with someone with aphasia. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and her joyful approach fits well with the vibe within Say Aphasia. She is extremely inquisitive and positive which will help this project to excel”. Read more about why we commissioned Nikki for the job. National Aphasia Association A recent article from The National Aphasia Association shows the importance of aphasia support groups. "During a recent chat, we asked people if they knew other people with aphasia. Only 11% said they didn’t know anyone else with aphasia, while the rest listed friends met through clinics or support groups (47 people), family or friends (20 people), community (7 people), or an online chat group (18 people)." Click here to read more. Gardening with Company Would you like some company while you do your gardening? For those living in Brighton & Hove, and love gardening but would prefer some help or some company, you can be part of this project! https://bhfood.org.uk/get.../dementia-friendly-food-project/ I have spoken with the organiser and you do not need to have dementia to take part. This is available to anyone with a disability since the pandemic started. ..."friendly GARDENING VISITS are a wonderful way to provide meaningful companionship to those who may be isolating. We find that visits help improve wellbeing, enabling those with outside space to get outdoors and take time to notice nature. ..." If you or someone you know may benefit from our gardening and befriending project please get in touch via email on [email protected] so they can discuss your situation and requirements to ensure the best possible experience from our visits. The Stroke Association are now doing events online! Their yearly stroke conference was done online this year! It was a great success! Click here to keep up to date with the stroke association BRIGHTON HALF MARATHON FEBRUARY 2020! Are you interested in running a half marathon for Say Aphasia?! It is definitely one to tick off the bucket list! If you are interested, please see more information here. https://www.sayaphasia.org/Event/brighton-half-marathon-21st-february-2021 A Massive Thank You To Our Supporters! Thank you so much to those who have set up a regular donation. This regular income has been a huge help, to help us work out what we can afford to better our service. For example, these monthly donations have paid for our Zoom subscription, without this we would not have our 2 hour weekly support groups. If you would like to set up a regular donation, please click the donate button and tick the box to 'set up a regular payment'. Please select a donation amount (required) £5 can help us reach out to more people living with aphasia £10 a month can help us run our online support groups, like our weekly Zoom groups, and our 1:1 online befriending. £50 a month can help us run our drop in groups and pay for 13 venues across the UK. £250 a month will pay for our website, which provides vital aphasia information, as well as providing a platform to fundraise and raise awareness of aphasia. £500 can help us attend community festivals to raise awareness and additional funds. £1,000 A one off large donation can help us open up more drop in groups across the UK, to further help the 350,000 people who live with aphasia in the UK. Other Set up a regular payment Donate Also thank you to everyone who shares our social media posts to help raise awareness of Say Aphasia. Got something to say? Comment below! Manage Cookie Preferences