October 22 is International Stuttering Awareness Day and I want to ask my fellow trainers to pause for a moment to consider what it must be like to stammer.

We will all have met people on the courses we run who find it a challenge to fully engage with and access the learning offered, because of varying difficulties and disabilities. Personally I have found it particularly tricky to know how to help a person who stammers. Do I look at them whilst they struggle to say their name, or glance away, knowing how awkward they must be feeling? Do I finish their sentence for them – or leave them to struggle? Do I ask them for their thoughts or pass them by in a round robin exercise? What do I do if another participant starts to giggle or makes unkind comments?

It is strange I should feel so helpless in these situations because my own grown-up daughter has stammered since childhood – and I myself stammered until my teens. Maybe it’s because we know instinctively how to help people with mobility, hearing or sight difficulties but are often completely at a loss to know how to help someone who struggles with their speech. Everyday life for people who stammer is just so difficult. Making a doctor’s appointment, phoning the garage, buying a train ticket – all these activities can be purgatory for someone struggling with their speech.

Like me, you may have been approached by a member of staff in your organisation, or met someone who stammers, asking for assistance and not known what to advise. Recently I discovered an organisation that offers real help – The Starfish Project. My daughter first saw a TV programme about a young boy who attended the programme with such great success that it prompted her to contact the Project and book a place on a course. She first attended about a year ago – and has never looked back.

The modestly-priced residential course is held in Sussex, lasts three days and numbers are restricted to offer individual attention. Participants learn a breathing technique to control their speech and practise in mocked-up situations such as ordering a meal in a restaurant and making a complaint over the telephone. There is also a focus on building confidence and self-esteem as many people who stammer will have had their self-confidence eroded by thoughtless people. My daughter has even had to contend with sniggers from a GP’s receptionist (incredible, I know, but true).

From the first moments I was captivated by the whole experience. The support and encouragement is second-to-none and the technique is taught in a straightforward, no-nonsense way that enables people to use it immediately. Within 20 minutes of learning the breathing technique, and after some practice with individual refreshers, people who had been unable even to say their name were able to stand up and introduce themselves to the rest of the group. For many stammerers introducing themselves is particularly difficult and giving their name and address over the telephone can be virtually impossible.

The three days were certainly demanding. As in most cases, people have to want to make the changes for themselves, not because their mum, partner, friend or manager wants them to. The course is intensive with a lot of hard work - physically, mentally and emotionally - but it is delivered in such an exciting, uplifting way that it carries everyone along.

The course culminates in an expedition to a local shopping centre where each new attendee is accompanied by a refresher to use their new-found speech and confidence in real situations. They go into shops to ask about products and into coffee bars to order a drink. They even approach shoppers in the street to ask directions and so on, all in a relaxed, natural way. A fabulous way to end - and one which assures everyone that they can use their new technique in the real world and not just in the safe environment of the course.

Before leaving everyone is given a copy of the phone list of previous attendees who are happy to be contacted at any time to discuss how things are going, offer help and encouragement and to reinforce the technique. The phone list is an extremely supportive community – people who attended their first course several years ago still use the phone list often because they know they need continuing support if they are to maintain their technique.

I have seen my daughter blossom with her increased confidence and she knows that her stammer will never hold her back now. She understands she is not “cured” and will always have to work hard to control her speech but, as she says, it is nowhere near as hard as stammering.