The 3 day Great Interaction’s Training is great and really gets you thinking about things you’re doing well and also things that could be improved on, and the “My Key to Developing Facilitation Skills” tool for reflection is also a fantastic tool as you can set yourself goals and see where your doing well and areas that need to be improved on.
Great Interactions are important in any service but in a new service they are maybe even more important as you want to make the people you’re supporting feel that you are there for them: to help them grow, to build on new relationships and to support trying and experiencing new things. You need to build trust and learn each person’s way of communicating and if something is not quite right reflect with that person to make it better for next time.
When I started at Green Drift, we were supporting Thomas. I had spoken with Lindsay, my Head of Service, and also spoken to Thomas about things he would like to do etc. I read through Thomas’ support plan and history and then by speaking with Thomas ideas were coming together of how we could support Thomas in a more person centred way.
I wanted to support Thomas with re-introducing his picture schedule that he used to have where he previously lived, and to do this meant going around local places and supporting Thomas to take photos, such as the swimming pool, horse riding stables, Barnardo’s etc. Once Thomas had taken the photos, we returned to Green Drift where we loaded the photos onto the laptop and printed them. Thomas then laminated them and cut them out so they were ready to use with his new schedule.
Thomas also uses Makaton signing and not all the staff who work at the service have learnt Makaton yet, so Thomas and I worked together and have introduced a Makaton sign of the week from MacIntyre’s Key 50 Word Core Vocabulary for staff to learn. This week the staff learnt how to say ‘good morning’.
I love the fact that everything we do can be related back to the 10 facilitation skills – I might be new, but I’m already into Great Interactions!
Becky Thomas
Senior Support Worker
Hertfordshire