James’s Blog – Talking Mats

James is someone we support in Essex who has used Talking Mats for over 20 years. In this guest blog, James discusses his journey with Talking Mats and how you can get involved with using this effective communication tool either for yourself or people you support.

My name is James and I live in Essex. I’m 58 years old and I’m an Elvis Impersonator (that’s JC Elvis to you) but when I’m not doing that, I help people know more about Talking Mats. If you don’t know what that is then I can tell you.

Talking Mats are a communication aid. You can use physical cards to describe how you are feeling and in which area of your life you feel good, bad, angry or happy. You can use them in different ways like through plain paper picture cards, on the tablet, on a laptop or TV screen.

I started using them just over 20 years ago. Before that, I wouldn’t talk to people, I stayed in my shell. I wouldn’t show my feelings or emotions or express myself to anyone. I was angry, and I went through a hard time in my past. That was until one day, when I was in the hospital, a psychiatrist came up with the idea for me to use talking mats.

It took a long time becoming the person I am today and that’s really all down to Talking Mats. I still use them now with the psychiatrist, carers and friends. Using pictures instead of speaking out loud helped me to express myself with my feelings and emotions. I could finally open up and share my past.

I now teach staff and professionals on how to use them. Recently, I have been supporting Essex social care services. People I have trained said it’s helped them with people they work with. The big thing I have noticed is that some professionals think Talking Mats are for non-verbal people only but that is not the case. Talking Mats can help anyone communicate their thoughts and feelings that are hard to get out sometimes. They are for everyone.

Talking Mats help me with everyday life, like what I have going on and how I feel about the day. It’s all about my feelings and my emotions, past, present and future.

At the moment my mum is in a care home. She’s 82 this year and is being cared for and is safe. She has been moved to a care home that’s about 2 and a half hours away from me. I used Talking Mats to talk about mum and how I was sad about her being so far away. It helped me open up to staff so they could support me to see her more often and make phone calls. Talking Mats continues to help me talk about my mum’s health and the impact her dementia has on our relationship which, at times, can be distressing.

Talking Mats are a really special tool that can help people to communicate how they really feel. I would recommend anyone to learn more about it to help others or to use them yourself to help you communicate.