You can now have Makaton signed songs in your church services! I have partnered with Worship Lyric Videos to create 10 (to begin with) popular songs with lyrics and me signing in the corner! Here’s a freebie for you.
I run Makaton faith based sessions for churches and groups of people looking to use more signs in their services.
You may have seen the Makaton UK Blessing but there is more ways we can use Makaton in our churches!
A little about my passion for Makaton in Churches – In December 2017 I sat down with a friend called Sam who had lost her voice to throat cancer, she had started to come to WAVE (the monthly services for young people and adults with additional needs that I signed at) to learn some signs and get more involved in worshiping in that way.
I enrolled her onto my Foundation & Enhanced Makaton courses as she was relying more and more in Makaton to get through her day as it was so exhausting to try and use her voice, the whisper which she still had.
A year later Sam and I sat down in her office and drafted out some training for her churches annual conference. It was great, we were both really keen on ensuring that people interpreted the concepts accurately into Makaton as well as using the signs accurately too. So we focused on this and planned out 4 songs and a reading to teach some signs and for them to translate.
Soon after this Sam became quite poorly and passed away in February 2019.
I began meeting more and more people who wanted to learn the faith signs for church and I had moved away from WAVE so was unable to attend as regularly. I continued with our training and ran it for Blackburn Diocese in November 2019. Since then it has been so popular!
I now run sessions in locations where I am provided a venue and individuals can book on as well as group inhouse training for teams. It is a not-for profit session with a focus on accurate interpretation of songs and readings in churches.
Becky Makaton Tutor 