Hilary Wainer BMus, MEd, DipMTh, Dip Psychotherapy and Founder TACPAC
Hilary has many years’ experience as a teacher and music therapist, working alongside children with a wide range of learning difficulties, in different settings. She has a special interest in those who have profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), complex needs and multi-sensory impairment (MSI). Hilary is also an accredited music therapy supervisor with the British Association of Music Therapists (BAMT), and has worked nationally and internationally as a facilitator in schools and mental health settings. She created the ground breaking “Beat That!” events, popularising the use of the resonance board. She is an experienced trainer with a passion for everyone to reach their full potential.
How TACPAC started
1990s
TACPAC was created for children with PMLD, SLD and various learning difficulties in response to the total lack of appropriate sensory resources.
We improvised music and made various textured objects available which matched the texture of the music and made these available to our pupils. The result was very exciting.
To cut a long story short, we repeated the session for many weeks. The other staff became enthusiastic, and asked us to make it into something more permanent, easy to use and transport, so they could do this too.
2001
In 2005, we created our CDs and started going to events.
2000s
The word spread
2016
We launched our new website and App.
All our sets became digital, accessed via the website or our TACPAC App.
2019
Laura Cozier – Head of Operations
Laura joined TACPAC in the Summer of 2019 and bring with her a wealth of administration experience from various sectors.
Laura provides administrative support to the team and its customers and manages the operations of the day to day running of TACPAC.
Laura is inspired by the clients and service users who have benefited by using the resource and is driven by the potential TACPAC has to grow and flourish in communities and schools internationally.
2021
Vanessa Gilbert, Bachelor of Education Honours II i Qualified SENCo
TACPAC Trainer
Vanessa is delighted to be joining the TACPAC team. She was first introduced to TACPAC about 15 years ago and, like many of us have experienced, it was cascaded in a well-meaning way throughout her school but gradually the precise reason and theory became lost in translation. A few years ago, she led an amnesty of TACPAC delivery throughout her school to try and ensure they returned to the purity of TACPAC. Hence why she feels privileged to now be at the beginning of the TACPAC journey for you all.
Vanessa has always had a passion for communication and language development. She has an expertise in how development of this can be affected and what we as practitioners can do to maximise every opportunity to facilitate profound and meaningful communication with our communication partners whether they be children or adults.
Vanessa will be joining Hilary to deliver the TACPAC training and will be assisting in further development work as well as running various TACPAC groups. Vanessa looks forward very much to meeting you all whether it be online or face to face and most importantly to making sure we continue to spread the TACPAC message and maintain it’s integrity for the benefit of all our receivers.
Olga Driagina – Administration
Olga joined TACPAC in 2021 and is our office administrator, helping to run background processes. She likes to keep contact with our customers and is proud to be part of a community which exists to make life easier for our carers, teachers, parents and TACPAC receivers.
2022
To help train our international Tacpackers who can not make our Essential training days, we launched our own-pace training course.
2022
Yvonne Barlow, Ba (Hons) and Member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
Trainer
Yvonne is a Speech and Language Therapist who has 22 years of experience working within the NHS. She specialises in working with preschool children aged 0-3 with complex needs. She works closely with families, Nurseries and other professionals to support the children’s communication development and also their eating and drinking skills.
As part of this role, Yvonne often uses TACPAC with the children on her caseload as she has clearly seen the benefit of TACPAC in developing early communication skills within this client group.
Yvonne has also had many years of experience in delivering training around a range of different topics related to communication and dysphagia and is passionate about delivering training so that the people supporting those with communication needs are best equipped to help them each and every day.
Yvonne is excited to be joining the team at TACPAC as her role combines her love of training with her interest in communication development.
Yvonne will be joining Hilary and Vanessa in delivering TACPAC training and will be assisting in further development work. Yvonne is looking forward to enabling more people to learn about TACPAC and how it can support those with communication/sensory difficulties.
2024
Smitha George MA, BEd, Masters of Teaching Non Award program
Heading up our Australian Office
Smitha joined our team full-time in 2024 to head up our office in Perth, Western Australia.
For profile information and more on our Australian services please visit tacpacsensory.au