Potential activities
This section contains a range of activities that may be available to User Group members. Members are not required to participate in all activities and can choose their own areas of interest.
Focus and prioritisation meetings
The world of AAC electronic Assistive Technology is broad. Our work identifies many needs, and there are many new and exciting resources being developed.
We would like to involve you in deciding what our priorities should be, taking into consideration both what is important to you and what you think would improve the experiences and lives of others.
Activities in this area would look at:
Research priorities: We would share information with you about new research areas and garner your views about what may be important and how the research goals could best be achieved.
Product development: What's missing for you or others you know? What can be improved upon? At Ace Centre we firmly believe in not reinventing the wheel and a key part of this activity will be to work with others to ensure we don’t duplicate effort, including demonstrating needs to AAC/eAT companies to engage them in product development wherever possible.
Social events
One face-to-face meeting a year will be planned and organised by the group Chairs. Ace will provide the venue and a lunch, and at least one Ace Centre representative will be in attendance. Some users may wish to demonstrate their setup and technology with videos or live demonstrations. Ace Centre could present and structure any session as well - it will have a structure to allow open discussion and debate about wider aspects. We intend to have this Nationally once a year - virtually and face-to-face. We would rotate the venue yearly to allow people to attend more easily.
We aim to structure this using the Ace Centre User Group lead to help put an agenda in place, but essentially, these are your sessions to do with as you wish.
Research network
Ace Centre want to answer many questions that come up, for example How many people feel they are adequately supported for their language? What kind of speed can people communicate at? How do you feel about your equipment? Some of these questions can only be answered by people who use AAC and Assistive Technology, but to get these answers, we need you to give us your consent to ask you.
Also, companies and universities often have similar questions. We feel that everyone would benefit from being able to ask you such questions, if you would consent to this.
We would like to:
Create and maintain a Register of people willing to be contacted about research - either to be involved directly or as a steering group member on a new study. Note that it is standard practice that all research goes through ethical approval, which would ask for your explicit consent.
Disseminate information about ongoing research in the form of Update bulletins. How would you prefer to receive these bulletins - via email and/or via announcements at the regional and national social meetings and/or others?
Host meetings (either face-to-face and/or remotely) as needed to support the work of ongoing research studies.
Equipment evaluation
Ace Centre resources review
Ace Centre create several resources for families, end users and professionals. We would value input from you to review this content for accessibility, effectiveness and accuracy.
Service Co-Production
Ace Centre - and other services such as NHS Services in Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) - may wish to set up new services such as a training system or assessment and treatment services. These teams would like to do this with individuals who need such services and have a broad range of experience using similar services. This may involve meetings and gaining opinions on such service development.
Email/Online discussion forum
Would it be useful to create an online forum to foster discussion and collaboration? If so, what should this look like and how should it be used? Would it be led by the Group chairs and/or Lead?
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