Weekend Workshop

Sunshine, beautiful countryside, good food and drink (!), some extremely friendly people and ... oh yes, lots of talking about Intensive Interaction. That just about sums up the Intensive Interaction Weekend Workshop that took place in the Yorkshire Dales in mid-October. In a response to feedback from the annual conference that there was a demand for more time for networking and exchanging experiences with others, Nick Guthrie and Graham Firth from Leeds did a great job of organising an opportunity for Intensive Interaction Practitioners with varying levels of experience of the approach to come together from all over the UK in the surprisingly luxurious bunkhouse at Kilnsey.

There were formal slots for reviewing resources (DVDs, books, articles), looking at and giving supportive comment on practitioners’ own video footage, reflecting on the achievements of the last year and the challenges for the next, and brainstorming what is and what is not Intensive Interaction (fuelled by a number of glasses of wine and fruit juice, this took a while!).

The downtime was just as useful and just as much fun - the chats over the kettle, in the comfy bunkrooms, out on the patio, as well as during the forays into the countryside and the local picture-postcard villages.

There were queries and concerns but these were balanced by celebrations of great moments, lessons learned and ideas for the future. Everyone was happy both to ask for help and to give it. The unanimous verdict was ‘More of the same, please’. With numbers limited to around 20, more weekends in different parts of the country would allow more practitioners - parents, teachers, support workers, coordinators, health professionals - to benefit from the opportunity to have quality network time with other people interested in Intensive Interaction. Scottish practitioners enjoying a weekend in North Wales, London practitioners on the banks of Loch Lomond, the possibilities are endless. If you are interested in organising a similar weekend in your area, have a word with your local regional II network. Well done, Nick and Graham!

Helen Beltran and Fiona Tanner, SLTs, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde