Conversational partner training

Key Points:

• Reveal competence/ find  examples of positive conversational behaviours. 
• Access peer support - have another SLT view the video, they can be more detached and/or do a CPT group so that other family members can offer each other support.
• Try using a scale to identify positive/ negative behaviours.

Advice

• Run conversational partner group sessions. These are separate from individual therapy sessions and may reduce the pressure family's may put on you to do impairment based therapy.
• Set small functional goals e.g. to use photos as conversational starters.
• CPT group - discuss clips and then have separate individual sessions before coming back together and discussing learning outcomes.
• CPT often requires a lot of time e.g. staying late to ensure a family member can attend/ reviewing clips.
• Use scales to help identify negative behaviours e.g. behaviours 12345 - how often did you see these? - the client could rate 2 positive behaviours and one negative behaviour.
• Use an issue e.g. supporting a patient to make a decision about their care/ discharge as an example for CPT e.g. when we ........ to help .... make a decision we used .......

Convincing clients to try CPT

• Show examples of clips e.g. from SPARK DVD's to the patient/ client before beginning CPT in order to demonstrate what it is about.
• Explain that CPT is proven to get people to use certain skills/ behaviours in functional situations.
• Remove the video aspect.
• A family may be too much in crisis to engage with CPT or need more insight.

Method

• Get your perception and their perception of conversations informally and then more formally e.g. with sections from SPARK/ CAPPA/ LA - TROBE.
• Preview video's of the patient + friend/family member having a conversation before the joint session.
• Show clips of the video and highlight what went well, discussing the specific behaviours. You can use checklist sheets to help clients identify behaviours (SPARK is usefull for this + has checklists - but with formal language).

Further research

• Clinicians at UCL are creating online resources for CPT