- Intensive Interaction is still a person-centred approach: we are still trying to interact with our person by, in some way, sensitively joining in with (or reflecting back) some aspect(s) of their current activity or behaviour.
We still want to do Intensive Interaction ‘with’ our person, not to
them!
- Go at the pace of the person: there is absolutely no rush; use all the time you need to find the best, and safest, means of socially interacting.
- Good observation is as important as ever in deciding how best to safely interact with our person. Sometimes just sitting back (at a safe social distance) and patiently waiting for the person to do something potentially small, but potentially interactive, can give us the best starting point.
- Be sure to share your ‘adapted’ interactive successes with everyone else who should know. If you have found something important (e.g. about how best to adapt your Intensive Interaction practices) then let everyone know!
- Don’t be put off if things don’t always go well; especially when adapting your Intensive Interaction practices to fit with safe ‘social distancing’ and infection control practices (e.g. with full PPE). But remember, that is the very nature of Intensive Interaction; sometimes things go well, sometimes they don’t … but we adapt, try again, and thus continue to move forward.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help and support if you need it (from whoever else is available); this is surely never more true than at the moment. We all need help to stay strong and well for each other during this current crisis. Let’s get, and let’s give as much support as we all collectively need.
- Finally, please also remember that Intensive Interaction should still be mutually pleasurable, so to try to enjoy interacting with your person; this may be difficult at the moment, but it still remains our ultimate purpose.
(Adapted from
the work of Firth, G., Menzies, L. & Guthrie, N. - 2012)
Also,
to support the continued fidelity of our Intensive Interaction practices, it
might be useful to check any adaptations we make against Melanie Nind’s ‘5 central
features of Intensive Interaction’ (‘Efficacy of Intensive
Interaction’, 1996), these being (slightly adapted for the current Covid-19
crisis):
1. The central purpose of
Intensive Interaction is still the creation of ‘mutual pleasure’ i.e. Intensive
Interaction is still all about sociably ‘being with’ someone, with the purpose
of mutually enjoying each other’s company.
2. Intensive Interaction practitioners
adjust their interactive behaviours (e.g. their use of eye contact and facial
expressions, the use of their voice, the use of movements and posture) so that
they can be more visibly and/or audibly meaningful, and therefore more socially
engaging, to their person.
3. Intensive Interaction
engagements will develop a mutually agreeable tempo and sense of ‘flow’; such a
flow being enabled by the judicious use of pauses (e.g. to allow for
participant processing), and the repetition of aspects of a mutually negotiated
interactive repertoire.
4. Intensive Interaction
practitioners will accredit social ‘intentionality’ to the actions of their person,
responding to all of a person’s behaviours as if they potentially have
intentional communicative significance.
5. Intensive Interaction
practitioners contingently responding to the social initiations and subsequent actions
of their person; following the person’s lead and sharing control of any interactivity.
The
now required Covid-19 infection control practices (i.e. social distancing, and the
wearing of PPE) will inevitably limit some of the strategies we might
use in our usual Intensive Interaction practices. But it will still be useful to have
these ‘5 central features of Intensive Interaction’ in mind to ensure
that our adapted Intensive Interaction routines still fit within the
true spirit of our socially responsive Intensive Interaction approach.
Please
stay well, and practice Intensive Interaction effectively but safely!
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