at the brambles - st anne's community services · intensive interaction is a practical...
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Intensive Interaction at
The Brambles
St Anne’s Mission…
“To support individuals to achieve their aspirations by providing
services that promote dignity, independence,
opportunity and inclusion”
The Brambles
Communicating with Everyone
Introduction
Intensive Interaction is an area of interest of Sarah Harrison
Support Assistant at the Brambles. Sarah is our Intensive
Interaction champion.
Sarah works to actively encourage all staff members to use
intensive interaction techniques with our guests as they have
seen the results and benefits that such approaches have with
our guests.
Sarah Harrison
What is Intensive Interaction?
Valuing People Now (Department of Health 2009; page
38) describes Intensive Interaction “as an approach to
facilitating two-way communication with adults with severe
or profound learning disabilities and/or autism, who are
still at an early stage of communication development. It
can be used to teach people fundamental communication
or to provide them with a means to enjoy being expressive
and feeling connected.”
Intensive Interaction enables the building and developing
of relationships with people who find communicating and
interacting difficult. It ensures that we communicate with
people using their own language and provides
acceptance of such methods of communication. This
promotes engagement, interaction and self esteem.
Intensive Interaction is a practical approach to facilitating
communication. The communication partner works with
the person with a learning disability, an interactive style is
adopted and the approach should be interesting and
non-threatening. Interactions should be enjoyable for
both parties.
The background to Intensive Interaction
Intensive Interaction was developed during the 1980s by
teachers Dave Hewett and Melanie Nind working in schools in
long-stay hospitals in the south of England. They were
unhappy at the emphasis on teacher-controlled, task-oriented
activities and the failure of their students in this environment.
The main mission of the school was to help the students to
communicate and relate more to the people around them. The
staff started to try out different approaches both with students
and with themselves. They became at ease with joining the
students in their world, responding to them and developing the
interactions by repetition of the activities known to the student.
It became clear to the staff that by joining the students in ‘their
world’ by adopting a behaviour style that the person could
understand and respond to. The teachers’ efforts were
rewarded, students developed a willingness to participate and
engage in the interactions.
Intensive interaction was the name given to the approach
developed. It is now widely used in education and adult
services and is now explicitly recommended as good practice in
learning disability services by the UK Government in Valuing
People Now (2009).
Intensive interaction at The Brambles
Our Intensive Interaction Champions have received training from
some of the leading names in the field having attended courses
and seminars run by Phoebe Caldwell, Dave Hewett and Dave
Firth.
Sarah has delivered in-house training to all staff at The
Brambles to explain the concepts and benefits of Intensive
Interaction along with how to implement the techniques.
Intensive Interaction is actively encouraged at The Brambles
with all guests being given opportunities to participate
throughout their stay. It is incorporated into all aspects of guest
stays with enjoyment and quality of the interaction being the only
important factors.
All interactions are recorded in writing by the staff member who
was involved, this enables other staff members, parents and
carers to learn from the interaction and ensure that future
interactions can be more person centred as likes and
dislikes have been established. In addition recording
interactions enables any progress to be identified as well as any
beneficial factors to interaction such as the environment, time of
day or staff member which may all have an impact upon the
interaction.
What are the benefits of Intensive
Interaction?
The approach of Intensive Interaction has had much success
and has many benefits for people with a learning disability.
Evidence suggests that participating in Intensive Interaction
leads to more socially interactive behaviour. This includes
greater and more prolonged use of eye contact and being more
tolerant of and more engaged in activities involving physical
contact. In addition an increase in vocalisations that could
potentially be communicative and increased use of facial
expressions have been seen to result from Intensive
Interaction.
There is also some evidence that participants in Intensive
Interaction have started to initiate communication and social
interaction.
Importantly Intensive Interaction provides acceptance of people
and builds an individuals self esteem it lets a person know that
are fun to be with just as they are.
For further information regarding Intensive Interaction, please
contact Sarah Harrison at The Brambles.
The Brambles
28 Silver Street
Dodworth
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S75 3NP
01226 242348
Want to know more?
For further information contact our Head Office:
6 St Mark’s Avenue, Leeds, LS2 9BN
Tel: 0113 243 5151 Fax: 0113 2451526 E-mail: [email protected]
Visit our website: www.st-annes.org.uk, Follow us on Twitter @StAnnesCom
Join us on Facebook: St Anne’s Community Services,
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St Anne’s Community Services Registered Office: 6 St Mark’s Avenue, Leeds, LS2 9BN
A Company Limited by Guarantee, Registered in England No 1089026. Registered Charity Reg. No 502224. Housing Association Reg. No H3158
A gold standard organisation providing award winning services
For further information contact our Head Office:
6 St Mark’s Avenue Leeds LS2 9BN
Tel: 0113 243 5151
Fax: 0113 2451526
E-mail: [email protected]
Or visit our website: www.st-annes.org.uk Join us on Facebook: St Anne's Community Services Follow us on Twitter: @StAnnesCom Follow us on Google+: St Anne’s Community Services