Talkabout is a complete programme for developing self-esteem, social and friendship skills. It is based on teaching children in groups in school. It uses a hierarchical method of developing skills where basic or foundation skills are taught before more complicated skills.
It was developed by Alex Kelly who worked in a FE college. After a year of using social skills interventions with students, using pre and post assessments, she noticed a pattern in who was responding and who wasn't, centred around the hierarchy of self-awareness coming before non-verbal skills, non-verbal coming before verbal, and assertiveness coming last. Alex Kelly developed the Talkabout intervention based on this hierarchy after extensive testing and piloting.
In Rhiwbeina Primary School, we have two trained Talkabout practitioners, Mrs Powling and Mrs James, who received their training from Alex Kelly. Mrs Powling and Mrs James have used the Talkabout Intervention with a variety of pupils who have all benefited greatly from the sessions. The Talkabout intervention continues to run across many year groups in school.