As we bid farewell to 2023, it’s a good time to reflect and remember the developments, partnerships, and commitment to enhancing our services for professionals and families in the field of augmentative and alternative communication.

One of the major milestones achieved was the expansion of our workshop accreditation. Pyramid now proudly provides BACB (Behavior Analyst Certification Board) and IBAO (International Behavior Analysis Organisation) CEUs for PECS L1 and L2 workshops, catering to the growing needs of professionals in the field. Take a look here to find our more information and how to make a claim.

Louise Maggs, Clinical Director was honoured to be featured in a podcast interview conducted by Steph Reed, Autism Specialist Teacher. The discussion centered around the crucial topic of collaboration between home and school for PECS users. Louise shared insights, strategies, and success stories, emphasising the importance of a unified approach to support individuals using PECS in various environments.

In response to the growing demand for continued support, we initiated a valuable offering in 2023 – free post-training support for all PECS L1 and PECS L2 workshop delegates.

Participants can now benefit from a complimentary PECS Q&A session, facilitated by one of our Pyramid Consultants. This initiative aims to ensure that individuals and professionals receive ongoing assistance and guidance beyond the initial training workshop.

Don’t forget that we also offer further free support in the form of the PECS User Support group on Facebook; you can connect with a community of 40,000 individuals and share insights, experiences, and learn from others on the same journey. A visit to our resource hub of free tools, materials, lesson plans and symbol downloads is also a must for anyone implementing PECS.

In June we exhibited at the Autism Show in Manchester for the first time. It was a busy two days with lots of visitors who were interested in PECS and what it could do to help their learners’ functional communication skills. Geoff Evans who was speaking at the show visited the stand. Geoff attended the first ever PECS workshop in the UK over 25 years ago! He told us that he still recommends PECS all these years later!

July saw our long awaited whole company trip to Paris. Cancelled in 2020 due to COVID, it was fantastic to meet with our colleagues from near and far. All 15 Pyramid companies were represented, for some it was meeting up with old friends for others it was making new ones. It was just a short trip and went way too fast, however it was a great opportunity to celebrate 30 years of PECS and Pyramid together.

The PECS Summer School kept Pyramid Consultant Grace out of trouble over the summer holidays! You can read about the summer school aims in this blog post and about the 2023 learning outcomes in this one. With a handful of learners and many volunteers there was a lot of fun to be had whilst learning new skills.

August was a busy month for Grace, just a few days after wrapping up summer school she flew off to Lithuania with Pyramid Consultant Andy, and of course Dex, the PECS bear, for a week of delivering PECS L2 training to 300 teachers. They returned to Lithuania in September to train a further 400 teachers in PECS L1.

We didn’t just visit Lithuania this year, we also made it to Denmark, Malta, Finland, The Netherlands, Croatia and Ireland. Add in virtual workshops in Slovenia and all over the UK, it has been a busy year.

In October we held our annual FUNctional Conference “Beyond the Basics”. This 2-day virtual conference attracted over 100 delegates with talks on speech expansion, commenting lessons from around the world and ethical collaboration. October also saw the launch of the revised PECS L2 workshop. This workshop was revised by a team of Pyramid consultants from around the globe, led by UK Clinical Director Louise.

In 2023 we held 79 workshops, training over 1,500 delegates in PECS and The Pyramid Approach to Education. Looking ahead, we are excited about the opportunities and challenges that await us this year.

Check out the current workshops that are available to book. We are always adding new products to our range to support those implementing PECS and The Pyramid Approach to Education.

If you want to book group training and have at least 18 delegates please email lhotchkiss@pecs.com for further information and pricing.

Louise Hotchkiss

© 2024