You’ll find all of our Speech and Language Therapists are State Registered with the Health Professions Council (HPC), and Registered Members of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (R.C.S.L.T.) so you can be totally confident in the service we offer.  All our staff are also police checked with the Criminal Records Bureau.

Here are the current team of therapists, assistants and students who you will meet:

• McTimoney Chiropractic is a safe, gentle and effective technique for manipulating the spine and other joints of the body. 
• The aim of a course of McTimoney Chiropractic treatment is to improve the alignment of the bones of the body, thereby restoring correct nerve function, resulting in improved health.
• Kathryn holds clinics at Wordswell every Thursday and alternate Mondays.  For appointments please telephone: 01379 898807

• Victoria has completed a two year MSc at Essex University, and is a member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
• Before qualifying she worked for 4 years in the Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust, at the Royal School for Deaf Children, for two years as an assistant and in the Early Years Team, for two years as a Technical Instructor.
• Victoria is fully competent with Makaton and teaching it.
• Victoria has spent time in New Zealand at a university training clinic.
  
  

• Philippa studied at Leeds Metropolitan University and holds a BSc Second Class Honours in Clinical Language Sciences (Speech and Language Therapy).
• Philippa has been a voluntary helper within a Church Holiday Club working with children Pre-school to Year 6.
• She has worked as a voluntary teaching assistant within an autistic primary school.
• Philippa has experience working with children who use PECS and Makaton.
  
  

• Anna has a BA (Hons) First in English Literature and Language from the University of Leeds.
• She holds a CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) from Embassy CES, Cambridge.
• Anna also assists the teacher at a local children’s drama school one evening each week, with a view to writing some plays for the class.
• She enjoys theatre and dance, reading, dinghy sailing and pottery. 
  
  
  

Why Wordswell?

Let me explain how Janet came up with the name “Wordswell” for the business. To be fair, she didn’t come up with the name. Brian Keenan did. Janet met Brian in Henley in 1997 and wrote to him asking him to name the building. This is the letter he wrote in return:

“I thought a lot about this. So for what it is worth, here it is. I focussed on the notion of a language therapist being a kind of WORD smith – like a blacksmith! For some reason the wooden building and the work being done there made me think of a NUT. But the Nuthouse would be entirely inappropriate!!! My wife, who is a physiotherapist suggested “awakenings” as you awaken up the lost but residual capacity in people. I thought “The Wakenings” might be a good name for the place but it’s hardly a corporate term. – Awakenings or Wakenings might be more suitable.

But still that didn’t suit my own “draw” on things. I went back to my original thought about blacksmiths, and foundries and workshops. I liked the term “Smithy” - a place where new forms are created. But I also liked the notion of a well, a permanent place of substance – we draw from the well, water, life perhaps meaning. I thought of something like “Holywell” being the well of nourishment and Holy, meaning to make whole. So it became “The Holywell Clinic”.

Still I wasn’t sure and juggled again in my Blacksmith’s forge and finally came up with “WORDSWELL”. It has a plethora of associations for me too long for me to elaborate, but that’s what I resolved on. It may not be up your street but it seems to me to have a corporate and personal ring to it. It also “fixes” exactly what you do – I think!”

Janet thinks so too. Thank you Brian.

Read more about Brian Keenan: (External websites)

Times Online

BBC

Guardian