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: info@st-annes.org.uk

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For further information contact our Head Office:

6 St Mark’s Avenue Leeds LS2 9BN

Tel: 0113 243 5151

Fax: 0113 2451526

E-mail: info@st-annes.org.uk

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