Des Cooke BCBA
Des has been a Trainer for many years and now runs a training and consultancy company called D.ESCAL8 (pronounced de-escalate).
Des grew up with disabilities as part of his life, with family working in the industry and a close family member with a learning disability. Through his working career Des has assisted many families with their relatives who display distress in an unorthodox manner. Des disagrees with the common use of the outdated term Challenging Behaviour.
Des is also a carer for the Shared Lives Scheme in West Wales. As well as finding this role rewarding, challenging and a lot of fun it also means he has ‘real life’ experience of caring for individuals on a day to day basis.
Through a lot of studying and training Des developed a system which, from numerous testimonials, is different and superior to common training in this field. It is this training that the Family Support Project is committed to bringing to families.
Des runs open courses, not just for family, but also specialist courses for independent carers / therapists / support staff who cannot access training through an employer.
Please see descooke.me for all Des’s work
Dr Christianne Pollock
Christianne has a teenage son with autism who is non-verbal and has severe learning disabilities. She has a background in studying interactions of children with severe autism using a methodology called Conversation Analysis (CA) and has presented this work at international conferences as well as co-authoring two book chapters using CA. CA allows a non-deficit approach to be taken when considering interactions of those with autism and learning disabilities, instead seeking to understand how interactions are mutually accomplished.
Christianne works for NHS England as an independent Expert by Experience for the Care and Treatment Review Programme. This was developed following the Winterbourne View scandal and involves working as part of a panel to review the care of adults and young people with autism and/or learning disabilities currently admitted to hospital or at risk of hospital admission.
For the past 2 years Christianne has been working as a support therapist to increase her hands on experience with individuals with learning disabilities and mental health conditions.
Christianne is now training to be a speech and language therapist at Plymouth Marjon University.
