Making a difference …. perhaps ... eventually … with Intensive Interaction!

The other day it suddenly dawned on me how change, often gradual and inconsistent, the 10 steps forward 9 steps back variety of change, can creep up on you ... and then 'Blam’ (or Batman type words of a similar nature) you suddenly notice just how radically things have moved on.

Since taking up my current role I have at times been asked to work with people in a local service for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. I used to mainly feel like a bit of an outsider (because I was), but at times I also felt like a bit of an unwelcome visitor (although that might have been my own insecurities playing themselves out). My general sense was that what I said or did (obviously based on Intensive Interaction), or what I wrote in a person's guidelines or activity notes, didn’t make much of a difference in the general ways of working at a staff team level, even if it did help with specific service users (which it undoubtedly did, sometimes dramatically – but there’s me getting all big-headed now!).

Anyway, over many years I generally felt that Intensive Interaction and I were bit-part players in a much bigger, more medically and behaviourally oriented care narrative; but then the other week I met with their new OT (who had recently completed our Intensive Interaction training course) to discuss using Intensive Interaction with a number of their service users (nearly half of them) – and I then talked to one of the nurses and was asked for (and offered) some more detailed guidance on engagements with a particular non-verbal service user … and then I noticed:

• a dedicated Intensive Interaction noticeboard by the main entrance, with new/up-to-date general Intensive Interaction guidance e.g. on using Intensive Interaction with people with language, some simple Intensive Interaction dos and don’ts, etc …

• and then I remembered that I had recently had a meeting with the service manager about developing some dedicated Intensive Interaction paperwork for the service (including an ‘easy read’ Intensive Interaction handout) …

• and I also remembered that the senior matron (the overall service manager) has recently been very supportive of a staff member becoming a dedicated Intensive Interaction ‘Champion’ for the service …

• and that a couple of their service users had recently be supported to visit one of our Interactive Cafe sessions ...

• and that a student nurse (who will soon start as a qualified member of staff on the unit) has shown a particularly keen interest in the approach (and has talked about co-authoring a paper on the use of Intensive Interaction with people who challenge) …

• and that the general socially interactive behaviour now seen across the staff team (the majority untrained formally in Intensive Interaction) is more and more coming to include aspects of Intensive Interaction practice ... as if the whole culture of care has now moved decisively in the general direction of Intensive Interaction.

And so I do now think to myself, after all these years, "yes" things are certainly different ... change really has come; albeit gradually, inconsistently, the 10 steps forward - 9 steps back variety of change that will eventually effect a deep-seated working culture ... and perhaps that is the moral of the tale; when you continue to do the right thing (Intensive interaction), and do so with an emboldening sense of optimistic perseverance, eventually you will notice the accumulated positive outcomes ... 

p.s. I am now going to sign off from my Blogs for a 4 week break over the summer, but first can I just thank all those people who have read, reacted and commented (mainly positively) to my previous 48 blogs. Thank you, it would be a pointless exercise without that kind of positive feedback … and hopefully I will be back blogging again in September.