The staff team felt it was important for the I4T team members to understand the training that their staff receive at MacIntyre, so we told everyone about Great Interactions.
We have found that a good way to learn things is through games and activities, so we had a chat with the group and they decided that they would like to make some Great Interactions playing cards and jigsaws. Little did we realise that this simple act would bring about so many new skills within the group. For instance, a group of people are now ace laminators and cutters and they can really work together as a productive team – this is something we hadn’t really seen before.
Now we were on a roll and our new card games and jigsaws were helping us to embed the 10 facilitation skills. Angela, the quietest member of our group said, “Wouldn’t it be great to make a snakes and ladders game?” and we all agreed. We didn’t know it then, but we had just given ourselves months of work and fun!
We played a normal snakes and ladders game to help us work out what we needed to plan and do. We used our chosen 10 Great Interactions pictures and together the group picked out some ‘bad interactions’ to go with the snakes. Then we decided that instead of being a table top game it should be huge, so people could stand on the squares and be part of the game. A super king sized sheet was needed!
We discovered previously unknown skills in our team as we designed and made our super sized ladders and snakes. One of our group members, Alan, is involved in printing at his hub in Holmewood, so we commissioned him to print our pictures and words onto the sheet.
Derbyshire library has asked us to deliver the new Great Interactions workshop to their staff and volunteers who run book groups for people with a learning disability. We will also be delivering the workshop to people from our local hubs. We think that everyone should know about Great Interactions, and we really do believe we have found a fun way of doing just that.
Alison Wright
Training and Development Co-ordinator
MacIntyre - Reps on Board