Ryan Tindal
Director - Skilled Carer
How do we measure the unmeasurable and define how our participant's goals align to the work we do?
Let's define Capacity Building:
Capacity building in the disability support system refers to the process of empowering individuals with disabilities, their families, support workers, and the broader community to enhance their skills, knowledge, resources, and capabilities. The ultimate goal of capacity building is to create a more inclusive and supportive environment that allows individuals with disabilities to lead fulfilling lives and participate actively in society.
Pretty hard to measure right?
Wrong! The role of the support worker is to make themselves redundant. An abstract and paradoxical concept.
Let's discuss...
Help the individual grow through the interests that they have.
In my first job interview as a teacher and in an unfamiliar environmen. At a special needs school, I was asked... "What do you think is the most important subject at school?". I looked stunned and confused I'm sure! I looked at the principal like a deer in the headlights, that I'm sure gave a display of unknowing as to what the right answer was. She helped to calm me and said "Relax, there's no wrong answer". I said the first thing that came to mind. "The most popular subject was the subject that the individual was best at and liked the most". I still certainly agree today, but if I could add to that answer, I would say; numeracy and literacy skills learnt through and amongst the passions that we have for the things we like most. We can use those as opportunities to weave in real life use cases as to why we need to understand; algebra or angles, division, decimal points and different mathematical concepts along with adjectives and creative writing skills, social and emotional learning and conflict resolution... etc, etc, I could list applicable links all day.
We have a responsibility to the participant and to the care team to grow the participant's capacity to a point that determines our redundancy. That's the dream. That's the job!
How perplexing. Be so good at your job that you lose your job because you're no longer needed.
The best part of this job, I think, is that you're only limited by your own imagination, and you can always weave in practical life skills into everyday tasks and enjoyable activities. You have limitless potential to make everyday fun, enjoyable and engaging without the oversight of horribly demotivating bureaucratic processes and it's a privilege.
Tip #1 - Make it real
The best results engage people. As a teacher in special needs settings, I noticed the best results were when we made things real.
- Run a market day stall
- Create a business; carwash, selling fruit and vegetables, cooking cakes and cookies, online website creation.
- Create a business profit and loss with a budget
- Use the profits to purchase furniture from IKEA, have the students put it together or reinvest, expand and grow the business.
- Empower and harvest ownership; Use the money the kids have earned and have them debate reasons where, how and when it should be spent.
- Build veggie patches, grow vegetables from seeds in the classroom, replant into the garden, care and fertilise, learn alongside them and gift the vegetables to staff or kids to show kindness and then watch that kindness return to you, see that cycle of perpetual kindness grow and evolved.
People (kids and those with special needs who feel let down by the education system especially) thrive off energy and when we have a genuine desire to grow capacities and make each step along the way an opportunity to learn, we can inspire happiness and motivation for learning. If you're going to the shops to buy groceries, have the participant actively contribute; carry the basket, decide on the meal and ingredients. Yes, softly guide them when required, but let them make choices and have power and ownership over their own life and choices and most importantly, let them make their own mistakes!
When the guardrails are off, people are going to make mistakes, we need to make mistakes. If the participant has never known how to respond to adversity and life's inevitable challenges, then, how can they possibly show resilience? If you're going to a sport or recreational activity like bowling, basketball or tennis, have them pay, put their shoes on themselves, choose the bowling ball, navigate the social complexities of where to stand, whose turn it is, resolve conflicts when they arise and put the spot fires out. You don't have to control the entire situation and make sure that it's faultless.... because life isn't faultless... it is imperfect.
Tip #2 - Peer interaction
What parents, families and participants need is social connection and relationships within the community. We all saw the effects that social isolation had on us during covid, we all did some very weird things and tried different outlets, searching for that social connection. Humans are social beings, yet a lot of us don't have the skills, perseverance or confidence to find connection.
We aren't paid friends, we are there to support the individual with the emotional capacity building required to cultivate and create relationships. We are there to help sustain them and face down the inevitable confrontations that will occur along the way. We must help seek out relevant social groups, engage in hobbies and interests that will lead to associations and organically develop into friendships. Then we need to be there to provide a safe learning space for the unavoidable complications that will come from these social connections and from working with others and their triggers, traumas and idiosyncrasies.
For support workers and participants, if you've been doing something a certain way for a long time, it's easy to get complacent. Can we look at ourselves honestly in the mirror and ask: "Is there another way of doing things?". Raise the ceiling on people's potential. Maybe we just haven't found the right outlet and environment to succeed and thrive. There will inevitably be hardships from time to time, it doesn't mean that it won't get better or that we stop trying and our confidence and capacity won't change or adapt.
We aren't paid to be the participant's friend; we are paid to develop capacity so that they can make create and cultivate the meaningful friendships and relationships of their own.
Trust has an inextricable emotional dimension. Pat’s trust in Sam is not just an estimate of the probability that Sam will pick up the groceries but also a positive feeling toward Sam in this respect. In accordance with the semantic pointer theory of emotions, emotion binds a cognitive appraisal—in this case, that Sam will accomplish the required goal—with the neural representation of Pat’s physiological state, usually described as a “gut feeling.” For example, Pat’s doubts about Sam’s reliability may manifest as a nervous stomach or sinking feeling. To trust people, you need to feel good about them. - Psychology Today 'What Is Trust?'
The key to being successful as a support worker is to have genuine care and desire to help, ask questions, find out what the participant and the family want from your support. Do they want respite? Great! Does that mean that you can't hit as many birds with that stone as possible? Let's use that time to slowly but surely talk, think and explore opportunities that already exist in our community through interests that the individual has to connect with people. Are we playing a small group board game, first at home and then at a competitive board game store or in a public environment that may cause some anxiety and discomfort, but we are slowly safely growing capacity and creating new associations with previously intimidating environments through interests and new found trust and the opportunity for new associations to be created cultivated by a support worker.
Tip #3 - Make it personal
Connor's journey of self-discovery, discipline, choice and independence.
Connor visited his old school Peninsula Specialist College where he was talking to the students about what life is like after school. His comment "It's not actually about money. It's about finding new friends and learning new skills." Blew us away with how mature he is becoming.
Engage in activities that participant's want to, it's their life and we are just a part of it!
Trust and rapport is critical to enabling growth. Focus on the relationship, respect the relationship. If you are using basketball as the carrot, capitalise on the opportunity to expand the potential of success to the intersecting areas of maturity and exploration: nutrition, changing eating habits, strength & fitness training, good sleep habits, reading and learning, potential career paths, and an understanding of the benefits of team sport: improve communication, resilience, dedication, teamwork, responsibility, ownership etcetera.
Tip #4 - Track it
Chat with care teams, mum's, dad's, family, professional supports. Your moral and ethical obligation is to take in as much information as possible from many different views and sources.
Life isn't black and white, which is exactly why those on the autism spectrum have so much difficulty gaining understanding and using these models because their brains create in different contexts and circumstances. We all carry bias from our cultural and historical experience and preference and so no one is right when it comes to their opinions about the things important in our participant's lives.
I have created an Outcomes Spreadsheet for our support workers that tracks each session with the people they work with. It has a growing list of various outcomes and goals from either the individual's NDIS plan as well as some critical aspects of growth that I have recognised over my time in schools and homes.
Tip #5 - It's not baby sitting
Work with the participant on finding happiness and achieving goals. Make every day count, try every avenue to opening up a conditioned and closed mind by opening every door in finding the right combination of luck and location that may just create that spark and give purpose and drive, after all, isn't that what we all want?
Why should someone not be entitled to that purely because of the limitations put on them by others from a lack of inclusion or understanding.
What unique skills have applicability to real life jobs, interactions and opportunities?
We all have special talents and we all have sliding door moments in our lives.
Get in touch...
If you are inspired by the above, get in touch and let's see what we can create together.
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