Fifth Trust Connect

Joining FTConnect this month, we have our new art and craft instructor Helen.

Helen joined the Fifth Trust as our design instructor earlier in the year and has been keen to start to produce videos for the site.

Helen’s first video introduces watchers to a printing technique which is affordable and easy to use at home.

Please check out her Gelli Pad printing video which is to be released in our monthly videos page, art section next week.

Helen will be using the Gelli Pad in future videos to help you create more and more detailed prints using different techniques.

Helen has worked as a designer in the past and we are sure that her experience and skills will bring new exciting and interesting challenges to FTConnect.

All of us at FTConnect would like to introduce you to our new wellbeing and mindfulness instructor Tiegan.

Tiegan has worked at the Fifth trust for several years, starting with work experience for her college placement before starting full time as a carer at one of our sites in 2020.

This year she changed her role to become a cover instructor across both sites and was keen to become involved in FTConnect.

Teigan plans to bring a variety of videos to our wellbeing section, including mindfulness relaxation, Deep breathing exercises, and yoga and exercise for all abilities.

We hope that you will join Tiegan and enjoy taking part in her videos.

As part of May's monthly videos look out for our video on the traffic light food labelling system! This will help you make healthier choices when food shopping

Student Chris created this rather impressive piece of anime art on the digital art app Procreate by following along with our digital art course and applying everything he learnt to create an original piece of art, well done Chris!

Elliot has followed along with Tom's railway tunnel sketch video and created his own sketch, in the process learning all about perspective! Well done Elliot!

Thank you to all our members for a fabulous year from the team at www.ftconnect.org, we have received some wonderful photos of all the work our member's have made to add to our student gallery, made some amazing courses and monthly videos, and exhibited at the Autism Show at the Excel London, it's been a great year! We can't wait to see what 2024 has in store for us!

Emrys has made some wonderful jellyfish and a railway tunnel sketch by following along with our videos on www.ftconnect.org under monthly videos! Well done Emrys!

Please come and visit the Fifth Trust Connect Team at Christmas Craft Fair on Saturday 2nd December, where you will be able to chat to us, grab a drink and peruse the crafts our students have made.
We would love to meet you! Please find us in the music/sensory room
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Announcing the winners of the Wizard of Barham competition! Drum roll please....

All of them! That's right, we couldn't choose so we decided each entry would have a chance to appear on the website for the thumbnail of the Wizard of Barham stories!
Well done everyone!

Check out the awesome art our member Marrisa submitted after being inspired by our Digital Art for Beginners Course, using an app called Procreate! Marrisa said "It was hard to get use to the app at first now I can’t stay away from it!"

To use Procreate you will need an ipad and a stylus or apple pencil. Marrisa used the soft part of the end of a pen as a stylus to create this stunning autumnal art!

If you'd like to learn how to make some digital art go to https://ftconnect.org/courses/digitalartprocreate/

We would like to introduce our games designer, Chris. Chris has been volunteering with us since the start of the project, developing simple and effective scratch games for our website. He is a valuable and vital member of the FTConnect team.

Yesterday we went to the Beacon's Next Steps event to promote and Fifth Trust Connect and met lots of wonderful young people. We really enjoy doing these kinds of events at schools as we get to meet lots of interesting people and show what we have to offer!

We have worked hard to make www.ftconnect.org as accessible as possible by adding a simple pictorial navigation bar, up and down scrolling arrows, speech to text icons, and side scrolling arrows. Did we mention our website is compatible with eye gaze technology too? Why not sign up today to see how easy it is for you to use the website? Plus get 50% off your first month with discount code 'FTC50'

We have plenty of life skills games to choose from on FTConnect.org both on our free content page and members only page, these were created by our volunteer Chris. Thank you Chris for all the hard work you put into making these accessible and fun games!

If you'd like to learn how to draw super spooky sketches like these Halloween themed artworks our art instructor Tom A created, then log on to www.ftconnect.org today and visit the art section on our monthly videos page!

Get 50% off your first month with discount code 'FTC50'

Our Creative & Digital Content Coordinator, Tomris, testing the website with our students at Day Centre. The accessibility of the website is highly important to the FTConnect team, that is why we are continually testing the website with our students. We test the ease of navigation, scrolling, finding pages and videos and understanding the pictorial navigation system. Here we are with students Ben and Debbie.

We want our members to have a say in the development of our website, that is why we have polls on our 'members only' page, log on today to vote in our polls and have a say in the videos we post at www.ftconnect.org/members-only/

We have text to speech icons which will read out the poll for you.

If you are looking for learning resources for someone with autism and/or a learning disability you can now find us on the National Autistic Society and Autism Eye Magazine online directories.

Please note, this is not an endorsement by either parties.

Look at our member's Emma's delicious cheese omelette she made after watching one of our cooking tutorials! If you'd like to have a go at whipping up at tasty dish too, log on to ftconnect.org today and go to monthly videos or video courses to see what we have to offer. We'd love to see what you make!

Get 50% off you first month with discount code 'FTC50' .

Here is our member Sydney with her stunning canvas she created by following along with Tom A's sketching course. She even added her own spin to the art by adding colour! Once you finish a course with us and send us your work, you will receive a certificate of achievement, here is Sydney with The Fifth Trust Vineyard Garden Centre and Cafe CEO Nikki Marley who presented Sydney with her well earned certificate. Well done Sydney!

Take a look at our member's Sydney's brilliant drawings that she did as part of Tom A's sketching course! Go to www.ftconnect.org and go to video courses to find the beginners sketching course under art.
We always love to see our member's achievements on FTConnect, so please send us your work to [email protected] for a chance to see your work on our member's gallery and social media pages!

Would you like to learn how to make art like this? Become a member of FTConnect today to complete our beginners digital art course using an app called Procreate, an ipad and an apple pencil or stylus.

Sign up and receive your first month half price with discount code 'FTC50'

The Fifth Trust Connect (FTConnect) team are hard at work editing the Halloween specials, ready to go on the website for spooky season! Keep your peepers peeled on www.ftconnect.org for the new video logo.

FTConnect is a progresive website. This means that it can be converted to an app for Android devices.

Using the app provides a safer way of accesing FTConnect as there is no way to further explore the internet from the app. There is only access to the content on our site.

We understand the need for our users to be safe online and are constantly working with our developers Colonel Duck to ensure we provide the safest online environment possible.

To install FTConnect as an app on an Android device please follow the walk through below.

The first step is to go to https://ftconnect.org/

Our first ever podcast is set for release on the 1st September 2023.

Stamping Out Stigma is the idea of The Fifth Trust's music instructor Dom.
In each episode Dom chats to people who have experienced difficulties and prejudice in living their lives with a learning Disability.

Dom wants to challenge the concept of 'normal' and raise the public’s awareness that his guests are no different to themselves in their ambitions and outlook on life.

Listen to the FTConnect exclusive podcast here: https://ftconnect.org/

FTConnect is pleased to announce its first cookery course.

Join cook club instructor Andrea to learn the safest and easiest ways to chop, slice and dice a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, herbs and carrots.

At the end of the course you will have learned how to safely prepare 10 different vegetables, ready to use for your recipes!

This course is for those who wish to develop their cookery skills but have no previous experience. With an emphasis on using the correct and safest techniques, Andrea demonstrates how to prepare a range of fresh ingredients in a number of ways ready to add to recipes.

We will be adding more videos to this course, to cover preparing fruit as well as some more vegetables. Use the skils you develop in this course to prepare some of the recipes on our monthly video page or from your favourite recipe book or website.

To find out more visit
https://ftconnect.org/courses/chopping/