I am a support worker at Cherriton, on the Wirral and I would like to tell you about my experience of Great Interactions at the MacIntyre Roadshow in Bolton.
I accompanied Barbara to the Roadshow and when we arrived we were greeted with happy smiling faces which continued throughout the day and across the venue. Barbara and I tried all the different activities. We both enjoyed making bags and we drew our favourite things on them. We took our time and enjoyed doing this activity together. It was really special and Barbara is still so proud of the bag she designed.
We then went onto the Great Interactions stand and Barbara and I looked at the laptop which when you pressed
a large button it gave instructions, using pictures and speech, on how to bake a cake. Barbara took control of the button and was fascinated by the step-by-step picture recipe.
We learnt about the Great Interactions awards and had our photos taken with them and we were then up on the big screen sharing MacIntyre’s success. We were also on the MacIntyre Stories video waving to everyone.
After a lovely lunch Barbara and I attended two workshops. The first was ‘Let’s spend time together’ and was all about Great Interactions and exploring the senses. There were lots of things to try, touch, listen to and smell. We looked at fancy lights, noisy items, squeezy things, crinkly silver blankets, a sensory tent and much more. There were also cheap things like bubble wrap and bubbles – lots to do, explore and share, and all great fun! Barbara enjoyed
playing ‘bouncing the huge gym ball’, but it was the light up glitter ball which she was really interested in and we spent time investigating this together. We have recently purchased one of these balls and Barbara continues to enjoy this
on a daily basis, with staff.
At the end of the day we learned to sign the song ‘What a wonderful world’ and we went on the stage at the front and
preformed this to everyone in the finale. Barbara was better than me at signing and later showed the rest of the staff how to do it so that they were able to join in.
Barbara was so excited when we returned home, and told everyone how good the Roadshow was. We came away with lots of information, some great ideas and some new skills.
Great Interactions is SO important and this was a fun way to learn more about it!
Michelle Simpson Adkins
Support Worker, Wirral