Places
CARIAD is committed to raising awareness and widening participation through public and practitioner focused activities. The following organisations have provided venues for design labs, presentations, seminars and workshops. For details on individual academic conferences please visit our staff webpages.
ArtAbilitation: Second International ICST Conference on Arts and Technology http://artsit.org/2013/show/home
Society demographics indicate increased numbers of people with disability. Advances across technologies, methods and apparatus (as well as thinking) has resulted in a growing industry addressing future service needs of rehabilitation, therapy and associated disciplines. Presenting our work at ArtAbilitation enabled us to demonstrate how interactive art-related applications can impact on healthcare situations.
Wales Autism Research Centre
http://psych.cf.ac.uk/warc/
Wales Autism Research Centre (WARC) was initiated through a unique collaboration between Autism Cymru and Autistica, the School of Psychology, Cardiff University and the Welsh Assembly Government. We gave an invited presentation entitled to staff and students, hosted by Professor Sue Leekham.
The Bristol Autism Research Group (BARG) http://www.bris.ac.uk/expsych/research/processes/developmentalresearch/barg
The Bristol Autism Research Group (BARG) is an affiliation of researchers and professionals with a research interest in Autistic Spectrum Disorders. BARG has been set up to provide a networking and research sharing forum for researchers and professionals in Bristol and the local area. We were given a very positive reception and generated some lively discussion when we presented at one of their research meetings in May.
ThinkArk/Play Ark
http://www.thinkark.co.uk/speakers/29/07/2011/wendy-keay-bright-playark-speaker
Think Ark are a volunteer organisation targeting the improvement of services in Wales through co-design and prototyping activities. The PlayArk Festival heralded the beginning of the Cardiff Design Festival 2011 (http://www.designweek.co.uk/home/blog/cardiff-design-festival/3030452.article). Ben Milne from Ashgrove School co-presented with Wendy and energized the audience to dance around and play.
Scope Victoria
http://www.scopevic.org.au/
Scope is a not-for-profit organisation providing disability services throughout Victoria, Australia, to thousands of children and adults with physical and multiple disabilities. We presented at SCOPE in 2010 and will be running workshops in November 2012 for occupational therapists, speech & language therapists, teaching staff, families and adults with a range of movement and communication disabilities.
Hollies School
http://www.theholliesschool.co.uk/
The Hollies is a primary school for children aged 3-11 who have special educational needs. Staff and pupils, as well as parents, have partnered with us for many years and have directly informed the design of ReacTickles. We are now working together on the ESRC funded SHAPE project.
Beechwood College
http://www.beechwoodcollege.co.uk/
Beechwood College Wales' first and only Specialist Residential College of Further Education dedicated to students over the age of 16 years with an Autism Spectrum Condition or Asperger's Syndrome. Staff and students at Beechwood Special worked with us on the creation of Somantics, they also took part in a design lab with the Touch Trust at Wales Millennium Centre
The Touch Trust
http://www.touchtrust.co.uk/
The Touch Trust is a registered charity based in Cardiff, at the iconic Wales Millennium Centre. The Touch Trust provides unique creative movement programmes for individuals with learning disabilities, those affected by autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), complex needs, behaviour which challenges, and other vulnerable groups in the community.
CARIAD have a history of working with the Touch Trust, including the award winning Co-Creating Tools for Touch Project with Joel Gethin Lewis and Openframeworks software artists. This relationship has flourished this year and enabled new creative partnerships with Rhondda Cynon Taf Skills for Independence as well and enhancing our existing partnership with Beechwood College and Ashgrove School
Three Ways School, Bath, UK
http://www.threeways.bathnes.sch.uk/
Three Ways School is a generic Community Special School, opened in September 2007. The school provides for 165 children with a wide range of Special Educational Needs. It has a purpose built Sensory Studio. The Sensory Studio is an incredibly versatile space that can be adapted to any area of the curriculum and provides a platform for immersive environments, informational scenarios, interactivity, multi-sensory stimuli, extra curricular clubs and special events. We ran a series of short workshops in the Sensory Studio during which a number of groups of staff and children with a diverse range of abilities were able to interact independently and collaborative through experiments with cause and effect.
Rhondda Cynon Taf Skills For Independence Day Service http://www.rctcbc.gov.uk/en/news/archive/2011/april/disabledpeoplelearnnewskillsforindependence.aspx
The service provides a diverse, localised community based provision across the County Borough and aims to maximise the skills and give individuals a new lease of life. It is now regarded as being at the forefront of the pioneering services available to people with learning disabilities. A key aspect of the work over the last two years has been to develop activities, which encourage and enable sensory and cognitive development for individuals with profound and complex needs. CARIAD with partners in Cariad Interactive ran a series of co-creation labs with the staff and service users, leading to some early ideation concepts for “making movement irresistible”.
Mudiad Meithrin
http://www.mym.co.uk/
Mudiad Meithrin is a voluntary organisation specialising in Welsh-medium early years provision. It aims to give every young child in Wales the opportunity to benefit from early years services and experiences through the medium of Welsh. We are working with staff and children to create developmentally appropriate, playful “invisible” interactive technology applications that can be used in locations such as church halls.
Trinity Fields School & Resource Centre
www.trinityfieldsschoolandresourcecentre.co.uk/default.htm
Trinity Fields School and Resource Centre is a purpose built school at Ystrad Mynach which offers many unique and innovative features for children and young people aged 3 to 19 to develop their learning skills. We have set up applications for pupils and staff and continue to share ideas and work in progress. One of our future projects is to host a kinectogether as a forum for sharing examples of creative applications for the XBox Kinect technology.
ESRC Festival of Social Science
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/education/autism-technologies/index.aspx
The ESRC Festival of Social Science offers a fascinating insight into some of the country's leading social science research and how it influences our social, economic and political lives - both now and in the future. CARIAD showcased some of our applications at Topcliffe School, Birmingham (http://www.topcliffe.bham.sch.uk//), along with colleagues from Birmingham University, Southampton University and London Knowledge Lab. We are taking part in a follow-up event for the 2012 Festival later this year.
Connected Communities: Connecting Research for Flourishing Communities http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/connectedcommunities.aspx/
The Connected Communities programme is designed to build upon and compliment, the existing substantial body of Research Council-funded research on community-relevant issues. This is significant for CARIAD in enabling research and development work on communities and the creative economy. Through this programme we have hosted, and taken part in, events that examine creativity as a way of being for all people, regardless of status or diagnostic label.
Ashgrove School
http://www.ashgroveschool.org//
Ashgrove School offers specialist provision for children aged 3-19 years with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The school aims to provide a caring atmosphere in which each child is encouraged to develop effective communication, social and independence skills and achieve his/her full academic potential. We have been working closely with staff and children from Ashgrove in the creation of ReacTickles Magic and Somantics.
As part of furthering opportunities for children to discover their creative potential we have also taken part in events run by the school, such as Music Day and the Games Olympics. These were a lot of fun for all of us as we were able to witness the playfulness and freedom our technologies afford. Using the Performance Analysis tools we were able to capture and replay the event for staff and to encourage novel forms of communicative exchange.
Autism Cymru Forum for Primary and Special School Teachers Across Wales
http://www.autism-cymru.org/
CARIAD have a close association with Autism Cymru. Wendy is a trustee and has delivered workshops at their conferences and training events since 2004. The School Fora is set up to encourage the sharing of best practice across the autism spectrum through lively training activities and practitioner networks. This year we were able to engage teaching practitioners and therapists in activities that demonstrated the significance of rhythmic movement and gestural interaction in helping children reach their learning goals.
Further to this we are now exploring an opportunity to extend our collaboration to China at the the invitation of Professor Fuyong Jiao; Department of Paediatrics, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an. This is an exciting project for us and synthesises with much of the work we have been preparing for the charity Hope and Compassion, (http://www.hopecompassion.org//) providing training and resources for communities in Pingelwara, India.