Doncaster Deaf Trust Therapy Team support South Yorkshire Colleges with specialist therapy training

Students across South Yorkshire are set to benefit from enhanced support thanks to specialist therapy training delivered by Doncaster Deaf Trust’s expert team.
 
The Therapy Team, based at the Trust in Doncaster, have been working with The Sheffield College, RNN Group and Sheaf Training to deliver specialist therapy training to staff.
 
Lauren Woodcock, therapy manager at Doncaster Deaf Trust said: “We have been thrilled to work with a number of colleges in South Yorkshire to share our expertise. Our team has delivered therapy training to staff, with positive feedback and plans for further collaboration.
 
“We’ve worked with more than 300 members of staff across the three organisations, training them to use speech therapy and occupational therapy approaches to support the students they work with.
 
“The training covered topics such as understanding neurodivergence, including conditions such as pathological demand avoidance, selective mutism, and developmental language disorder, as well as communication strategies like visual aids, social stories, and comic strip conversations.
 
“We also deliver weekly direct Speech Therapy for students with a Speech and Language Therapist from our team.”  
 
The training also addressed the connection between communication and sensory needs, emotional overload, and strategies for supporting emotional regulation.
 
“These sessions will have helped staff to gain further knowledge in these areas and provide even more robust student support. We’re looking forward to growing this collaborative approach to working and developing key sessions for 2026,” added Lauren.
 
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with participants describing the sessions as “first class, well-structured and clearly communicated” and “the best training session I’ve attended.”
 
Alexis Johnson, chief executive at Doncaster Deaf Trust said: “It is great to see this partnership approach to delivering specialist therapy services to students across our region. This developed thanks to our collaborative working with the South Yorkshire Colleges Partnership and will benefit students who attend any of our colleges.”
 
For further information about the specialist therapy team at Doncaster Deaf Trust visit www.deaf-trust.co.uk