As summer drew to a close ICE brought a ray of sunshine to an otherwise gloomy day on Clacton beach.  The team had been invited to provide a quiet space at Action for Children’s Family Fun day. What families discovered in the Changing Spaces beach hut was a sensory haven where children could enjoy soft play borrowed from Clacton library or take part in one of the sensory stories from the ICE catalogue. 

Parents were amazed by the range of ICE resources that are available to borrow through the library service – a service unique to ICE. They took ideas away of how they can help develop their child’s communication skills.

One visitor, inspired by the ICE display, asked about borrowing ICE resources so that she could make her Parent and Toddler group more inclusive and accessible to children with disabilities.

A thought-provoking training session on making information easier to understand was well received by a number of colleagues from a variety of services, including HR and Information Governance. One delegate commented,

 “I will think in more detail about how my policies will be understood be everyone and encourage other to use more plain English.”

 A further training session, delivered jointly with the TEC team, inspired a social worker from the Increasing Independence team to make contact with ICE regarding using Talking Mats in interactions with their service users.

 Most recently, the team flew the inclusive communication banner at the annual SENCO conference. Several attendees commented that the ICE resources are invaluable in their working day. One SENCO went so far as to say that being introduced to ICE had been the most useful part of the day.