A look back over the last year at Lemonade from lemons CIC.
What’s included in this newsletter:
When Directors Firle, Ben and Nikki met to look back over the last year at Lemonade from lemons CIC, we were pleasantly surprised to see how much we’d achieved.
Highlights of year ending December 2025
✨ Got some amazing feedback that keeps us excited for what’s to come in 2026.
✨ Earned enough income to cover core costs and stabilise the business.
✨ Built a clear public brand and improved trust in the sector, launching a website and socials.
✨ Formed a strong working relationship with Retirement Villages Group (RVG) who are helping co-design training for integrated retirement communities.
✨ Delivered Awareness training at 5 RVG sites across the UK, training 29 staff from 9 Villages. Trainees scored the training 5/5 stars on average, and 100% said they would recommend it.
✨ Developed training products that support retirement communities to develop awareness, embed culture change, and become certified as communication inclusive.
✨Delivered talks and presentations for the local community in East Sussex, and for speech therapists and people with communication differences at UK-wide live events.
✨ Built international links with clinical experts all over the globe.
Changing the narrative
This year we’ve been working to change the language used to refer to conditions like aphasia, dysarthria and apraxia. This represents a shift in attitude towards communication changes – our attitudes have changed and we want other people’s attitudes to change too.
Aphasia, dysarthria and apraxia are often described as ‘communication difficulties’ but we say ‘communication differences’ instead.
📖 We’ve been thinking long and hard about how to de-medicalise communication differences
📖 We’re taking that “difficulty” out and starting to talk about this as just another difference that can happen to people
📖 We’re trying to make it less of a burden for one person, and more of a shared responsibility for society to accommodate.
Our training
In order to support this shift from individual to shared responsibility, we’ve created training that equips people to accommodate communication differences. We’ve started implementing this work in integrated retirement communities, where an older population means there’s a higher concentration of people living with communication differences.
In 2025, Lemonade from lemons delivered Inclusive Conversation Awareness Training at 5 sites within the Retirement Villages Group, training 29 staff from 9 Villages. The Awareness Training is a half-day course that introduces trainees to communication differences and teaches simple strategies to make their conversation more inclusive. Trainees were tested on their knowledge of communication differences before and after the training – the average score before training was 11%, and the average score after training was 85%.
From awareness to embedding
Inclusive Conversation Embedding Training is an enhanced product we’ve just developed towards the end of this year. We’ve agreed a planned roll-out of Inclusive Conversation Embedding Training with RVG for 3 villages in 2026.
🔮 It’s a 10-week online course for staff who have completed Awareness training, to help them become Inclusive Communication champions.
🔮 It’s been co-designed with the Residential Villages Group.
🔮 Trainees learn inclusive strategies for other aspects of communication, like writing and the environment.
🔮 Through the course, trainees embed an inclusive communication culture at work, as a step towards certification as an inclusive communication organisation.
We also developed a Village Inclusive Communication certification pathway and will develop this further in 2026.
Our communities
In 2025 we’ve built links with several communities, to keep ensuring that our services are designed for real-world people and situations, and are supported by the latest research. We spoke to:
🎯 Local residents of East Sussex
🎯 People living with communication differences across the UK
🎯 Speech and language therapists and clinicians, UK-wide and across the globe
🎯 Integrated retirement community staff and senior management in the UK.
We’ve engaged with local people in East Sussex:
🗺️ Firle was interviewed by Dr. Nick Harvey, the lead GP for South Down’s Healthcare Trust, who has a health and well-being podcast. Listen here.
🗺️ We held a public consultation called ‘Being Heard’ at the Hillbrow Leisure Centre in Eastbourne. We collected people’s thoughts on communication differences and how that might impact on their use of things in the local community.
🗺️ Firle gave a public talk about communication differences, also at Hillbrow, as part of the Full of Life Festival.
Postcards filled in by the public as part of Being Heard consultation.
We’ve kept the lived experience of people with communication differences at the heart of what we do.
🛟 This year Ben Goldstein formally joined Lemonade from lemons CIC as a Director and our resident lived experience expert.
🛟 Ben co-delivered our Inclusive Conversation Awareness Training all over the UK, sharing his story about life with aphasia first-hand.
🛟 Firle and Ben met with the Dysarthria COS advisory group online hosted by Dr Claire Mitchell to gather ideas on how to raise awareness of dysarthria and what important tips and tricks people need to know about it.
“I felt like I was adding to it rather than taking away from it.”
Ben
Ben delivering training for Residential Villages Group.
“Meeting someone who’s living with it is invaluable.”
Firle
We worked with speech and language therapy professionals and networks to share knowledge and experiences, UK-wide and globally:
🤝 Firle joined the Collaboration of Aphasia Triallists (CATs) group, an international network of multidisciplinary aphasia investigators in rehabilitation, social science, psychology and linguistics research from across more than 50 countries.
🤝 Firle & Nikki and the Leeds Teaching Hospitals team co-presented a talk at the national British Aphasiology Society conference for speech and language therapists and people living with aphasia in Dundee, August 2025. We shared our learning from a mini creative communication partner training project.
🤝 Firle wrote and delivered a communication partner training talk for the North West Neurorehabilitation CEN, attended by 36 speech and language therapists.
In 2025 we’ve worked closely with integrated retirement community Retirement Villages Group.
🏘️ Jo Atkins, RVG’s Head of Care and Wellbeing, helped co-design the Inclusive Conversation Embedding Training
🏘️ Nikki ran a focus group with RVG staff to create ideas for creative health activities and better understand what staff might be able to implement.
🏘️ Firle presented the Inclusive communication certification pathway to the RVG operations board in November 2025.
Your feedback
We’ve collected thoughts and comments from the people we’ve worked with this year, and been struck by how earnestly positive this feedback has been. Here’s some of our favourites:
“Ben coming in was very inspirational for me as it was nice to see and hear how his condition has affected his life and the support he has around him”
(Residential Villages Group staff member- Debden Grange Dec 2025)
“It was very informative and really opened my eyes on how to communicate better with others”
(Residential Villages Group staff member- Debden Grange Dec 2025)
“100% loved it and want more!”
(Residential Villages Group staff member- Elmbridge Village March 2025)
“Thanks so much for your brilliant talk Firle. You made it so accessible
and clinically relevant – thanks was very well received”
(Dr Claire Mitchell | Stroke Association Research Fellow and Senior Clinical Lecturer | Speech and Language Therapy CEN committee)
“Really great talk thank you! Head exploding with ideas now”
(Dr C. Snell Specialist speech and language therapist- Acute Teaching Hospital)
Looking ahead
So, what are we looking forward to in 2026?
🎉 We’re piloting an online version of our Inclusive Conversation Awareness training
🎉 We’re launching Inclusive Conversation Embedding Training for 3 RVG sites.
🎉 We’re planning to trial creative health activity sessions in local communities.
And much more… watch this space!
For now, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year, from Nikki, Firle and Ben!