So an unintended bonus of Here to Hear for me has been the realisation that the term “Great Interactions” is firmly embedded in all of our minds and in the main people believe it is what makes MacIntyre special. This universal knowledge and understanding is a great testament to everyone’s hard work in adopting the Great Interactions “initiative”. We have won several sector awards for work associated with Great Interactions and have been shortlisted again this year by Skills Care - so the external world are getting the message too!
But what does this really mean in practice. You may be familiar with Bill’s strap line that summarises his original motivation for Great Interactions, “People experience our behaviours not our values”. The key question for me therefore is are we as a result of the Great Interactions focus and associated activity behaving in ways that ensures all our interactions are great all of the time and if we are what opportunities does this open up for people?
I have seen some wonderful and warm interactions during my travels over the past few weeks and indeed throughout the year. Interactions that are characterised by sensitive body language, positive use of language, calming tone of voice, really listening and interactions that ooze warmth, respect and are two way – everything that makes us feel good about ourselves and helps us to build mutually beneficial relationships. I have seen excited children laughing with their teachers and support staff as they build a fire in the pouring rain to cook marshmallows, I have seen great kindness and comforting of an elderly lady who had forgotten where her bedroom was, tactful and appropriate distraction of a young man who was not coping with crowds. Those of you who are regular visitors to this blog will have read many more stories since the blog began in 2012 and a few poems too!
It has been said that our Great Interactions work fell on fertile ground, in other words people were working like that anyway. I am sure that for most this is right but we must celebrate the clarity that the Great Interactions activity has given to recruiting like-minded people, defining what good care is, encouraging us to reflect on our behaviour and keeping us very focused on the things that are important. This is never more crucial than in the necessity to keep the children and adults who we support safe at all times. Poor, unkind, neglectful or abusive behaviour must never be tolerated and we must make this clear and support each other to speak out if we witness any behaviour that falls short of our high standards.
I have always thought that our facilitative and person centred approach is the spring board for so much. It enables us to be ambitious for the people we support and to facilitate learning and progression in a way that makes sense to each person and to ultimately improve their sense of well-being. We have seen great success with the People Plus work where with some intentional focus and some great facilitation this ambition has enabled people to pursue an interest or skill to another level, making friends and connecting with all sorts of people along the way. We have collated people’s stories and this will be published in the New Year, please look out for this as there are some great stories including John who liked art but this was a solitary interest, and how with support he was introduced to an art teacher, joined an art class and now exhibits his paintings publicly.
The success of the recent refresh of our commitments (now known as promises) can in part be contributed to the facilitation skills of all involved and of course to the person centred approach that was adopted. For those of you who have not yet seen these promises please follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qW9t6YmQYw (right click on link and click open in new window to watch film) to watch a great video showing the process and capturing some Great Interactions. You will also see the plea from those involved to all of us to keep these promises and to be accountable.
My conclusion is that we have embraced Great Interactions because the concept sits so well with who we are, it has been a catalyst for so much “progress” from an individual and organisation perspective. It is important that we continue to celebrate good practice and reinforce the message which brings me back to the blog. Thank you to all of you who took the time to reflect and to write a blog and to everyone who read and commented. The blog has had 39,711 hits this year! The stories reinforce the Great Interaction message and bring together everything that makes MacIntyre so special.
Sarah Burslem
Managing Director
MacIntyre