Longmead Book Club visit
Katie Smith with Longmead Book Club members
Katie Smith, CEO, and Gemma Sugarman, Project Coordinator, visited Longmead Book Club in Red Hill in March. They were delighted to meet the regular Book Club members and the visiting Young Epilepsy students from St Piers School.
Katie said
“We were such a large group we split into two with Gemma’s group reading Getting on with Epilepsy and my group reading George Gets Smart.”
In Katie’s group two participants had support to communicate their thoughts with other people. A has Usher's Syndrome and communicates with support from a British Sign Language interpreter; the bright, bold images in George Gets Smart allowed him to study the pictures despite his limited vision. B used a wonderful picture chart developed by St Piers to chose the words he wanted to share, such as colours and feelings. Together everyone really enjoyed the book and were pleased when George finally had a bath!
A highlight was hearing that St Piers have been proactively seeking out Beyond Words Book Clubs in the local area, so that their students can visit a familiar activity - Book Club - near to where they will be living when they leave college, proactively supporting the transition from education to adulthood. This is exactly the local networking Beyond Words are keen to support!
We are currently looking for funding to support a new collaboration between Surrey Book Clubs to author their OWN Books Beyond Words title. Please get in touch if you can help. katiesmith@booksbeyondwords.co.uk
Gemma with Longmead Book Club members
