In continuation of a successful partnership with Montessori running since 2018, and further underpinning the work we undertake with different vulnerable people, Diagrama ran two day Montessori training courses in Clacton and also the London Borough of Bromley.

Montessori teaches staff to develop activities specifically tailored to each person's interests and strengths which help them maintain and develop their skills.
The training, delivered by Anne Kelly, a world leader in Montessori with almost 40 years experience, aimed to help enrich and enhance the quality of life of people in our care.

Through the training staff learned to create an environment in which the people we support can do as much for themselves as possible with meaningful roles, routines and activities tailored to the individual. It allows people to be as independent as possible to pursue their goals and strive to build self-esteem by supporting people to make a meaningful contribution to their community.

The Montessori way of working reflects Diagrama's ethos of focusing on an individual's strengths, needs and interests and this training builds on other projects, such as working with Montessori practitioners on research projects to train staff and develop new activities that support residents to develop their skills.

Over the two days staff found out more on how to:
• Focus on the individual - their strengths, needs and interests
• Support the person to be as independent as possible to pursue their goals by
• Build self-esteem by supporting the person to make a meaningful contribution to their community

Staff then took learnings from both of these projects and integrated them into ways of working day to day with a wealth of practical ideas, including adapting signage as well as integrating new ways of breaking down tasks to support people to do as much for themselves as possible. In addition to this staff looked at finding roles and activities that the people we support would like to take on, raising their self esteem and using their strengths and talents to the full.

Feedback from staff that attended the training was really positive and included: ‘brilliant and engaging’ as well as ‘highly informative and inspiring’.

Since undertaking the training we are inviting members of staff to take part in further training on this to further increase their knowledge.

Keep a look out on our social media channels to see how these approaches have been integrated into every day life across Diagrama's services to help support people to be as independent as possible.