How can we develop our understanding of the best ways to communicate with deafblind people? And how can we ensure that this knowledge gets through to staff and families? Sense’s National Practitioners Working Group on Communication (NPWGC) has found a way.
The Group came together in January 2007 and was inspired by similar networks across Europe. It is made up of influential practitioners from across Sense, who meet regularly to share the latest approaches to developing communication and interaction between congenitally deafblind children and adults and their `communication partners.’ These approaches are also suitable for people with a single sensory impairment and additional disabilities.
Members of the group then feed these ideas to smaller teams around the UK – who can then set up their own local initiatives and projects.
What makes a good communication partner?
When we say `communication partner’ we mean anyone who engages with a congenitally deafblind child or adult and attempts to communicate with them – such as a parent, brother or sister, Intervenor or teacher. Our goal is to promote the principles of being a good communication partner. We have drawn on practice-based research and embraced the idea of supporting a natural conversational approach.
Recognising and respecting the equality of the two individuals involved in the conversation is also important.
Some key principles:
- active listening should be offered by the partner,
- give enough TIME,
- respond to an individual in a way that matches their own way of communicating,
- share impressions, emotions, memories, thoughts and ideas in whatever way the person has available to them,
- support this process of drawing out information from the person they are interacting with, and try to find out what their expressions might mean,
- value different ways of communicating so that we can learn from each other and introduce each other to our ‘language’. In this way, we aim to reduce the frustration associated with not being understood.
Video recording is a very useful tool for helping us to understand our ‘conversations’ with people who are congenitally deafblind. We have developed and shared different ways of using video footage to help us understand what people are telling us, and to identify the practical skills we need, as good communication partners, to support them. Some practitioners work with families and children to offer innovative approaches at the crucial time when a child is developing their communication skills.
But that’s just the start. We will also be working hard to spread the word to practitioners and to increase use of video analysis across Sense. And we will be aiming to create more opportunities for children and families to find out about the latest practice in communication.
We’ll keep you posted!
Written by Mary Foster, Asuncion Snow, Steven Rose and Graham Nolan on behalf of the group
The work of this group was recognised in this year’s Sense Awards in 2009
Putting theory into practice
Lynne Pawsey who is a Practice Development Worker explains how she has supported staff to become better signers and communication partners.
Learning sign language is just one of the skills a new Sense support worker needs to master. Sign language is an essential part of the total communication approach, and at Gough Road in Birmingham we have helped all staff learn it in a way that can be transferred to any Sense home.
With the support of our Care Manager Laura Blunt and two fantastic support workers - Clare Jackson and Beverly Samuda - we have set up a system which enables staff to learn and practice sign in a structured way. Clare (who is a student on the BSL level 1 course) pins a sheet of new signs to learn on our noticeboard, and practice times are scheduled in our staff diary. These take place on specified days at handover times and are led either by Clare or Beverly (a BSL level 1 signer). Our night staff who are equally motivated to learn, also get a chance to practice at evening handovers.
Signing in the home is also supported by other team members who have completed the BSL 1 course, and those who have recently attended a short course run by Anne Lucas at Birkdale.
All staff at Gough Road have been motivated to learn and enthusiastically take part in the practice sessions. Their increased confidence has resulted in sign being used more often in the home, and we have recently seen an increase in the use of expressive sign used by the deafblind men who live at Gough Road too, which is a great result!
