Exploring Diversity

The National Skills Academy Graduate Scheme is making progress at an incredible rate, and we at Insight are already impressed by the caliber of the Grads, and the speed of their development.

We recently ran the first of the Management in Social Care Development Days, focussing on Diversity and Disability. As part of this, the Grads had an opportunity to explore, first-hand, a number of the challenges their service users may face.

Insight would like to introduce you to The Diversity Carousel:

The Carousel has six 'stations', each with an activity. I'll hand over to the Grads to tell you what they found...

Fine Motor Skills

We particularly related this to the experiences older people may have as their fine motor skills deteriorate. Grads tried a number of tasks whilst wearing cumbersome gloves, including trying to put screws and bolts together, sending a text, writing a note... Here's what they said:

"This task... effectively replicated the stiffness of joints with age."

"We noticed: loss of capacity, feeling very self-aware, humiliating, stressful. The task was frustrating as we felt as though it should be easy, and that it was a task we should have been able to complete quickly. We adapted the task to pick the easier option - using bigger screws."

Learning Disability

This task focussed on processing - Grads had to complete a maze whilst only viewing it in a mirror. Here's what they said:

"It was frustrating - what I wanted my hand to do, and what it actually did wouldn't match up. However, it didn't make me any less determined to do it, and I felt a sense of achievement when it was complete!"

Autistic Spectrum Disorder

For this task, Grads were given two laptops, and told to hold a conversation over an instant messenger without using any punctuation other than a full stop, or any emoticons or smiley faces. Here's what they said:

"My group struggled with the lack of social cues, such as facial expression and voice intonation, as we realised how much we used nonverbal communication in our daily activities. We felt that a huge part of social interactions is lost for individuals on the autistic spectrum and we recognised the need to adapt our language and tone to ease understanding. We saw that conversations could become quite a ‘cold’ exchange through this. The lack of punctuation caused intended meanings to be misread or, at least, hard to decipher – in particular, we found it difficult to tell when questions were being asked. Conversations could be challenging if, for example, sensitive issues were not recognised as such. We discussed the perseverance needed to continue with a conversation in which the communicator knows the recipient will struggle to grasp their intended meaning."

Sensory

Grads were given a blindfold and an iPod and were asked to nominate 1 person to block their sight with the blindfold, and another to block out sound with the iPod. The remaining members of the group were to try to facilitate conversation. Here's what they said:

"As one of the facilitators in this exercise, it was hard to involve everyone as their communication needs were so different. As a group member with a sensory impairment, I felt isolated, and even when efforts were made to include me I felt self-conscious and embarrassed that others were having to go to such lengths just to include me in conversation."

Mental Health

This task simulated one of the ways Schizophrenia can manifest itself. Two Grads were told to hold a conversation, whilst another two whispered in the ears of one of them. Here's what they said:

"We found it difficult to concentrate on the person we were having a conversation with as the 'voices in our head' were hard to get rid of, especially when they asked questions. Not only was it hard to concentrate on what the other person was saying, but it was hard to hear them at all. This lead to confusion, and a person could become highly anxious as a result of this. Some people felt they wanted to be in their head, and make sense of the voices rather than deal with reality, which could of course lead to isolation from society and withdrawal socially. Other people also mentioned the whole situation was disorienting, and that they wanted to answer the voices no matter how hard they tried to block them out."

Homelessness

This 'station' was slightly different to the others - when Grads arrived at it, there were no instructions. The trainers wouldn't answer their questions, people walked through their area, and they were ignored. Here's what they said:

"We felt aimless and didn't know what to do with ourselves. We also felt very segregated from everyone else, and devalued by the way we were ignored and our space was invaded. We'd also underestimated how powerful boredom can be! There are lots of struggles in the life of someone who's homeless, but there can also be a lack of stimulation, and that can be incredibly demoralising."

Overall, the Grads recognised that while we may understand a person's condition or situation on the surface, and we can work to support them and meet their most basic needs, it's often the detail, or the underlying emotion that is overlooked. If we're to support an active state of Wellbeing in our Service users, we need to work with the whole person, not just an aspect of them.

~ Laura