Saturday April 18^th should have seen senior Auditory Verbal therapist and AVUK’s Training Lead, Louise Ashton stand up in Toronto, Canada, at Sound Intuition’s Warren Estabrooks Speaker Series (WESS) conference, presenting on the subject of ‘purposeful play’ to an international audience of professionals and families of children with a hearing loss.

But “The Perks of Playing the Right Way Conference” was still able to go ahead through the online platform of Zoom and so Louise was able to deliver her presentation and workshop to 80 participants from around the world.

Louise, who specialises in mentoring, training, play and using books for Auditory Verbal^UK  is herself based in South Africa and used to working virtually with colleagues across the world.

She said: “Although it was disappointing not to be there in person, we actually reached a much wider audience and were still able to share and learn from each other as if we were all in the same location.

“Hosted on a Saturday, it enabled many people to join and we had a truly global audience from Taiwan, to the USA, Australia, Spain and Portugal.

“The online platform enabled the conference to be interactive and delegates had multiple opportunities to connect, share and discuss how to become even more purposeful when using play during their sessions.”

Louise added: “I really enjoyed delivering the sessions, meeting the delegates and working with the WESS team to maximise these opportunities available through video conferencing technology.”

Auditory Verbal UK has been working with online platforms for some time and has been delivering sessions via telepractice to deaf children and their families across the UK and around the world.

Online training has also been a key part of AVUK’s service for health and education professionals and new Auditory Verbal therapists are being trained by AVUK not just in the UK but in other countries across Europe, the Middle East and South Africa.

Louise said: “Technology means we can reach a much wider audience and ensure practitioners are able to fit their learning around their professional and personal lives so that no one misses out on learning and sharing new concepts to help deaf children.

 “The weekend event embraced all the new facilities of the online platforms including breakout rooms, live chat and the feedback was fantastic.”

Louise will be presenting her sessions in two two-hour events (repeated) "Keeping Children Engaged in Play - building therapy sessions around play even in telepractice". Part 1 will take place on Monday May 18th and repeated on May 23rd. Part 2 will take place on May 27th and repeated on May 30th.

You can book places here: May 18 Part 1

Part 1 May 23

 May 27th Part 2

May 30th Part 2