Roles and Responsibilities
Last updated
Last updated
When viewing AAC provision throughout an educational setting, there is a requirement to consider staff roles and responsibilities. In the Knowledge and Skills section earlier in this guide we discussed what is required throughout a school structure, in this part we will consider who is going to fulfill this.
Some of our partnership schools identified skills to develop and defined staff roles working towards successful implementation. This involved identifying who had the skills and gaps where further training was required.
One school, Co-op Academy Delius, created an internal diagram (below) to highlight their role priorities and which staff members would take on each responsibility.
Delius were confident the school wide team would be involved with implementing AAC in some form. They agreed that all staff would have access to the school handbook; which detailed how to implement their universal AAC offering and all staff would be trained in recognising and promoting pupil voice.
The school also felt they were achieving most aspects of the defined roles in various ways throughout their current efforts in an ad hoc way, but without a specific focus or drive to move things forward. Therefore, they felt it was important to identify specific roles to take to Senior Management Team who could allocate and review the time required to complete the responsibilities defined for each.
For example, Access Method Champions were identified based on experience and interest from staff. Switch scanning and skill progression was an area not yet developed so identification and naming of a person(s) for this role allowed time for additional training.
What staff roles are needed within your educational setting?
Talk about what roles and responsibilities are already being performed by staff in their day to day. Discuss how these can be defined to give a detailed and dedicated focus. Perhaps create your own tiered diagram or mind map.
In our experience, working with many settings, we know roles identified will differ based on their unique experience and need. The roles required will be dependent on factors like learner population, what AAC is currently embedded and where they are on their AAC journey. Educational settings new to AAC may initially identify a small handful of broad roles and settings where AAC has been embedded for some time may identify several defined and very specific roles. An AAC policy, like all policies, and the roles defined within it will be reviewed and developed as change occurs.
Below is a statement from a school which you can use as inspiration to create your own list of roles and responsibilities.
At our School all staff have a responsibly to support learners with their AAC and provide universal input in the following areas as required:
Aided Language Modelling
Makaton
Visual timetables
Project core symbols
Objects of Reference
Intensive Interaction
Musical Cues
On-body signing
Aided Language boards
