We have been supporting a young man called James for almost a year now, and the development he has achieved in this time is truly remarkable. James is a very bright and talented young man and has made models and pieces of art that are on display at local museums (see the photo below for one of his creations from his craft session with MacIntyre). James’ main barrier to integrating and engaging in successful interactions when in the community is his lack of confidence and ability to converse with others in regards to day to day conversation topics. When comfortable, James will happily talk a lot, but the conversation tends to be just reciting lines from Disney movies and can often be one way and reasonably closed.
On Friday mornings, we visit a café staffed and run by Homefield College, a specialist college that provides educational support to students similar to the young people that we are fortunate enough to support at No Limits. This provides a great opportunity for both us and James to engage with his peers and to try and make him more comfortable in social situations. We always make every effort to engage James in as much conversation as possible by talking about the weather, plans for the rest of the day, asking how people are etc. Last week, we commented on how sunny it was and how blue skies and nice weather makes us feel happy. At the café this week, as soon as we sat down, James looked out of the window, smiled and pointed whilst saying “look Bruce, blue sky and sunshine”. We asked James how this made him feel to which the reply was “James happy” which was clear from the warm smile on his face.
This for me is the real meaning of Great Interactions and as cheesy as it sounds given the conversation topic, it really brightened up our day and really made us smile. It’s truly amazing how something so simple has the power to make such a big difference to your day.
Bruce Smith
Community Learning Facilitator
MacIntyre No Limits, Leicester
Click here to view this month's MacIntyre Story, 'Does he take sugar?' by Paul Jenkins