So it was an absolute bolt from the blue when I asked Wayne if he would help clear the table after lunch and he took his plate away. When I asked him to come back and get his cutlery he came back and did the same again. All the time he was doing these chores he was looking directly at me and smiling!
I carried on with the short prompts asking Wayne if he would mind taking plates and cutlery from some of the other people who had been sitting at the table eating lunch with him. Wayne carried on smiling and cleared away all the dirty plates.
It occurred to me that I had never seen or heard anyone ask or encourage Wayne to help more than once and yet he appeared to be enjoying the fact that people were thanking him and smiling back at him and that people were actually asking him for help.
This has happened on two occasions now, and on both Wayne has been happy to help. It's great to see Wayne doing this, as mealtimes can often be especially stressful for him. I'm hopeful that Wayne will continue to enjoy helping in this way.
‘Giving’ is one of the 5-ways to Well-being, and that includes helping people and giving things like your time to others. It appears that Wayne is enjoying giving his help to others and he is obviously happy with the support we are giving him at the moment.
I'm so glad that we've found something that Wayne likes to do and we've also found how to do it in a way that suits Wayne. We need to keep building on this.
Janet Fletcher
Learning Support Worker
Holmewood
Chesterfield