1. 1.1
There are lots of reasons why people communicate at work. For example, to share ideas and thoughts, to express needs and feelings, to socialise, to gain and share information, to build relationship and to maintain relationship, to understand and to be understood and to receive instructions, to give encouragement and show others that we care.
In order to work effectively with children and their families, it is important to have good relationship with a range of people. Those who have good communication skills are likely to have strong relationship with children, parents and other adults.
Sometimes we need extra support and services to help people comunicate properly.
Translation and interpreting services - I know about few cases at school where teachers had to use translator services to facilitate written communication between parents whose English is an additional language. In addition, they may use interpreting services to facilitate spoken communication. For sensitive matters should be used a professional interpreter as they have trained to translate the message but not misinterpret it. They have also been trained not to say their opinion or change the nature of what the other person is trying to say.
Speech and language services – we may need to use these services to help us find ways of communicating with children and young people. They may provide suggestions and guidance as to how to use resources such as Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) or training in visual systems such as Makaton. They showed up to be very efective with children with autism and down sindrome as many more.
Advocacy services – a child or young person might be assigned an advocate whose task is to reflect their best interest. The use of advocates is needed for children or young people who are in local authority care or for children or young people with communication difficulties.
Third sector organisations – for example, Royal National Institute for Deaf