Following a career as a chartered surveyor, my passion for outdoor education drove me to retrain as a teacher and I worked with children with special educational needs in mainstream schools for 11 years. Much of my role in school was in supporting colleagues to facilitate learning for students with a wide range of physical and learning needs. This, in turn, led me to develop an interest in symbol based strategies to support language, learning, behaviour and organisation and I subsequently worked for both Mayer Johnson (Boardmaker) and Widgit (Writing with Symbols) over a period of 6 years where I trained and supported teachers and schools across the UK and Ireland. Further experience working with AAC/AT companies developed my knowledge of language and communication and the strategies available both paper based and hi-tech to support people who could not speak.
I joined Ace Centre at the beginning of 2015 at what was a watershed for the provision of AAC for people with complex communication needs in England and a very exciting time to be involved in the AAC/AT sector. My management role at Ace Centre in our South office is very much one of team leader. It’s a challenging, diverse and busy role but one I enjoy immensely. I’m very proud of the team we have built and the knowledge, skills and experience we have to share and apply to the best of our ability.