LCC employee experiences life changing Speech Therapy Training !

Tim, a Technician with Central Print, was able to access some training through Leicestershire County Council that has helped him both at work and in his personal life.

Tim has had a stammer for most of his life. As a result of this Tim often became nervous at the thought of having to speak to groups of people and so avoided situations where he, or rather his voice, would be the centre of attention. “It’s made me doubt my ability to pursue certain things in my career and personal life” says Tim.

As a covert stammerer Tim avoids using words that he knows he will trigger his stammer. Overt stammerers are more likely to push through difficult words making their stammers more apparent to others. Tim’s developed avoidance techniques for words that he knows he has difficulty saying. For Tim, T’s, P’s and F’s were especially difficult and given the T at the beginning of his name introducing himself was always a source of anxiety!  He’d successfully dodged training courses to save himself from this ordeal.

However there were some things that Tim could only avoid for so long. As a Team leader, he was asked repeatedly to attend a leadership training course. As keen as he was to go, the thought of having to introduce himself to a room full of strangers with all eyes on him was gut wrenching. He eventually got the courage together to do something that he’d never done before and admit to his manager that he had a stammer. “I immediately felt better at having finally told someone at work.” His manager contacted the training co-ordinator for his department who, Tim say’s, “worked tirelessly on my behalf” to find a course that could help. After some hard searching the Training Co-ordinator managed to arrange for Tim and another member of staff to attend a course run by an organisation called “STARFISH” (Supportive Training and Recovery for Individual Stammerer's Harmony)

The STARFISH project has been in existence for 7 years under the expert tuition of Anne Blight. The training combines compassion and care with proven successful methods of diaphragmatic retraining, avoidance reduction therapy and positive attitude development. Trainees develop breathing techniques and are put in real life situations to practise these. The course is run over 3 days and involves a 2night residential.

“When I walked in to the training room the first thing I saw was a camera and a chair and that all too familiar feeling in my stomach started” However it wasn’t long before Tim was feeling much more at ease due to Anne’s compassionate approach and the knowledge that he was among fellow stammerers. Tim says that he had initially been anxious about how he would be perceived by the group as he was a covert stammerer and so not as obvious a stammerer as others. However he soon realised that there were a range of stammerers there. Anne clearly makes the point that all stammers are individual and many people have developed complex ways of hiding them. She is also quick to point out that there is no “cure” for a stammer. She says that it takes discipline and persistence to unlearn old habits and use the new techniques. Tim admits that it wasn’t easy but as the course progressed his confidence increased. Nearly a year later he says that it’s hard to keep to what he learned but for the first time since he was a child he feels confident about the future.

STARFISH also run a course for young people which have proved very successful. Tim is very keen that young people who have stammers get to know about their work as he reflects on how different it could have been for him if he were to have had a similar opportunity when younger.

He is looking forward to going back to STARFISH, returnees are allowed to attend free of charge, to help other stammerers and practise their learned techniques. “I’m a recovering stammerer and feel no embarrassment in saying it anymore, I still get nervous in certain situations but I’m now able to use these methods to help control it.”

The first thing he did when he got back was to book onto the leadership course and asked to be the first on the course to introduce himself. Tim also works as a Stage Manager for a local theatre company and his next target is to deliver his first team speech.

Tim hopes that his story will encourage others to take the leap and tackle things that are holding them back from achieving their full potential.