Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

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Katie joins us from her previous role with the Southwark Schools' Learning Partnership and Dulwich College. She has also held senior roles with The Food Chain, the Neurological Alliance, and the International League of Dermatological Societies. Katie brings a broad set of skills and experience in the education and charity sectors and her passion for visual literacy will help us spread the news about Beyond Words and make sure that more children and adults can benefit from our word-free stories. Our CEO, Katie Smith, said: “Picture-based, word-free resources like these are vitally important in helping people who find visual mediums easier to understand than written ones. They allow people to build understanding of the vaccination process, as well as having open discussions about their anxieties, questions, and emotions. We are delighted to have been able to bring our approach to such a valuable resource”. If you've ever wondered how unique humans are with their emotions, family relations, problem solving, and intelligence get this book. The author is a famed conservationist, a marine biologist and has a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. Reading this book was fascinating due to its depth of information and the wisdom I found in the lines. Here is one quote: In 2011 with the support of the University, Sheila launched a new charity in which she hoped Nigel’s leadership potential would be able to develop. Since its launch in the community, Beyond Words has evolved in unexpected ways, always seeking to find ways to empower people in their own lives - including in schools. Beyond Words is now an award-winning small charity with a growing impact, even finding new ways to reach people during the pandemic.

She concluded: “ This has empowered them to be able to help each other more. As part of further learning in our Healthy Minds sessions, the students have participated in role play activities on what to do if they think someone is feeling sad or lonely.” Co-production remains a key principle. Several people with learning disabilities, including Nigel, are long term volunteers with the charity and involved in many aspects of its work including training people to start new book clubs. Carl Safina prompts readers to consider animal behavior and thought, not by comparing it with human behavior, but by viewing it as unique. He encourages marrying science and logic to draw conclusions about animal thoughts and feelings. For example, we may think it good science to very detachedly document the way a dog bounds and jumps up to greet us when we return home. We can also use logic and apply what we know about this dog and our experiences with feeling to say the dog is happy. Major sections include visits with scientists observing elephants, wolves, and killer whales roaming freely in the wild. Dogs, parrots, ravens, tigers, humans, monkeys, and many other species get brief mentions. Content is mostly anecdotal, relaying Safina's own adventures or those of the long-time observers he visits in the field. The resource has been funded by the RCN Foundation and was initially launched in 2021 to develop a visual resource that guides people through the benefits and practical process of getting the vaccine against COVID-19. Now, it has been expanded to assist people with learning disabilities – and their families and carers – to have open conversations about the benefits of other vaccines for long-term health and wellbeing.I had already read some of the book's material in Frans de Waal's book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?. De Waal also makes a strong case for animals and against humancentric schools of thought. It’s too easy for a professional to assume that you won’t understand. It’s called ‘diagnostic overshadowing’ and it applies whether you have an illness like depression or whether you have heart disease. It’s when the health or care professional thinks that your worries, or your pain are due to your learning disability or because you’re an autistic person. Since then, Lucyna and I have been meeting to discuss the changing perception of the war. We exchange our views on women who become ever so stronger in new environments. They work, they learn Polish, they raise children, they take on new jobs, they support each other and the elderly in need.

The Mental Wealth Festival takes place from 9-14 October and will be offering a series of free panel discussions on topics like art, creativity, our own discussion about the power of pictures, neurodiversity and much more. A female killer whale in Peuget Sound playing with her three-year daughter. Children are rare in this salmon eating species in decline, and this one was killed accidentally by naval practice gunnery or demolition With the last edition published when our small charity was just beginning, some of the resources and supporting information in the book were also out of date. We've worked with experts to overhaul this section of the book, bringing it up to the modern day.Teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) are uniquely placed to support children and young people’s SEMH. They spend more time with them than any other professional group. Their early identification, intervention and support of pupils’ SEMH difficulties can enable pupils to remain engaged in education, which delayed access to CAMHS might prevent. However, many school professionals are under-confident, under-trained and underresourced in providing focused SEMH support to pupils. This is a stunning book, the section on killer whales a true revelation—and as Safina himself points out, since the study of the behaviour, emotions, intelligence and consciousness of our fellow creatures is such a relatively new field (mere decades, barely begun) there are more revelations to come. And yet, surprisingly perhaps given its subject, Beyond Words is not an angry book; it’s remarkably restrained—albeit through gritted teeth at times when describing some of the grosser idiocies and atrocities routinely perpetrated on other animals by us. The project builds on the success of book groups for people with learning disabilities and autism and will be the start of a new focus on four stages of employment including leaving school or college, exploring work, finding and staying in a job.