...the launch of the Great Interactions book – MacIntyre’s story of how our ‘award winning’ way of working all started, and where we are up to now.
About a year ago, we set ourselves the challenge of writing our story, but in all honesty it wasn’t hard to procrastinate. It seemed a great deal more interesting training staff, supporting new ideas, developing our skills, and of course meeting and working with people who use MacIntyre’s services, than sitting down and retracing our steps in order to share the journey. When Craig Crowther (The Ashwood Partnership) signed up to help us write the book, we had to become more focused and as we started to reflect on our journey, it became more apparent that what we have learned could make a real difference to so many other people.
Millions of interactions are happening all the time, I wonder how many of these are ‘great’? How do the people involved feel at the end of them? Were the outcomes as hoped? Perhaps not.
I was at a conference last week and as speaker after speaker spoke about how things needed to change in order to engage with their customers who have a learning disability, I was thinking, “It’s Great Interactions that’s missing”. However it’s not just about working with people with a learning disability. We all have stories of feeling disempowered or not listened to, at some time or another, in hospitals, meetings or when making a purchase. Well, perhaps it’s time to reflect on these interactions, to figure out what really works, what makes the other person feel good and achieves better outcomes for both parties.
MacIntyre has taken up this challenge and we are sharing our story to start the flow of ideas. We know we still have a lot to do, but we hope that by setting up this blog we can learn from one another, share experiences, the good and the bad, develop skills, find creative solutions and between us all support the move from interactions to ‘Great Interactions’.
We would love to hear from you, whoever you are – it’s an exciting journey!
Gwenne McFadzean
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