I entered the room in which Sophie was sat and positioned myself beside her at the table, not adjacent but at the corner. Sophie was resting her head on the table and had her shirt draped over her head so that I could not see her face at all. I thought to myself – ‘I must get my facilitation skills right, in order for this to result in a Great Interaction’. The most obvious skills I wanted to get right were my touch, positioning, warmth and observation in the first instance.
I sat for several minutes just observing. Sophie had some pencils and drawing paper in front of her. She was grinding her teeth and kept lifting her head up to see what I was doing, somewhat intrigued, but still hiding under her shirt. I began talking to Sophie in a gentle manner, telling her a little about myself, speaking clearly and slowly. After this, I attempted to lift a corner of her shirt and peeked underneath to say 'hello'...this was to go one of two ways, but luckily Sophie did not seem to mind this and I caught a glimpse of her smiling when I said 'hello'.
After several more minutes of observing her, I then said that I was going to ask her some questions and I wanted her to nod to say 'yes' and remain quiet to say 'no'. When I asked if that was ok, Sophie nodded, still underneath her shirt. After asking one question, Sophie then lifted her shirt up and said, 'I'd prefer it if you write it down'. So I reached for some yellow post-it sticky notes and wrote down my first question and posted it under her shirt. Immediately, Sophie responded by writing her answer on the same sticky note then passed it back to me. The warmth between us grew as we continued to exchange meaningful written exchanges back and forth.
We were learning from each other. I learnt so much from Sophie, she was letting me into her world, which on this day, was full of turmoil. As time ticked by, Sophie opened up through this interaction and told me she was depressed and didn't have any friends. We pursued this topic for some time. After half an hour, the topic matter changed gradually away from her feelings of depression, into feelings of happiness and how she sees the world. I was fascinated by this and had to be extremely creative about what I wrote as the topic of aliens and outer space were not my strong point! After another ten minutes or so, Sophie took her shirt off her head and I asked if she felt better. Sophie answered, 'Yes, but I would like to write some more’. Refraining from pulling her shirt over her head but head still down on the table and with very little eye contact, we carried on writing. I started to number the sticky notes and we got up to 63 in an hour and a half! One of the last notes I wrote got me five seconds of eye contact and a beaming smile which made my day. I think this was an attempt at some kind of alien joke which obviously was a winner! Sophie's taxi arrived but she did not want to leave.
This was the greatest interaction I have had in a long time and it absolutely made my day, and hopefully Sophie's too. Ok, so she did not go swimming, but what a valuable way to share time with someone. I was mesmerised and hanging on every word Sophie wrote. It made me realise that sometimes we expect a lot from the people we support and pay too much attention to the big things, but taking the time to explore something so simple can have a huge impact on someone's life.
This kind of interaction could have easily gone wrong at any point, but with the time, effort and thought to facilitate it, it was a success. I would do that again every day if I could. Definitely one to remember!
Emily Wheeler
Programme Coordinator
MacIntyre No Limits
Oxford