The training was provided by June Grindley who is a Director and Autism Practitioner.

One of the parents who attends our parent group was keen to try Lego therapy as from their research they thought it would be useful for teaching a number of skills, from the motor to the cognitive, but also social communication skills. The goal of each play session is to practice skills such as verbal and nonverbal communication, problem-solving through cooperation, sharing, joint attention, and task focus - and of course to have fun. Each child in the group is given a specific job: engineer, builder, director, and supplier and whilst in this role they follow the “rules” for this job.

There were 15 participants who came from a variety of roles including, teaching assistants, teachers, family workers, play workers and parents. The training was to encourage some of the delegates go away set up Lego clubs in Shetland.

We got some great comments back from the participants including

"I will work with partners to implement lego therapy in my school. I can see great potential for the learners”

“Given me some great ideas to work with”

“Really enjoyed today. I can’t believe how useful this could be, but it's so simple to facilitate”

VAS initially applied for Better Breaks funding from Shared Care Scotland to send a parent and worker to the mainland to be trained. By pooling resources with a parent who has a direct payment package we were able to bring the trainer up to Shetland to allow many more people to take part in the training. This has also enabled us to share the learning experience from the lego therapy with other short break providers in Shetland.