What kind of support carer are you?

When under pressure we respond in a small number of differing ways. These tend to be in 2 main camps. Those who feel the need to control and those who have a more relaxed attitude.

The question is which has a better effect on the person in distress?

Picture this, you are under pressure and in distress and you shout at your partner "just get me my dinner!" and your partner replies "No, you will not talk to me in that manner! ENOUGH now."

As you are in a high state of distress you are unlikely to be able to accept this order / demand the way you might when calm.

I was amazed after explaining to a member of staff, who had already unsuccessfully told someone "NO", that you should not use the word "No" or "Enough now" or "sit down" etc. Then as soon as the pressure begins that is exactly what they did - repeatedly. I wish I had the clicker with me to take the data. Sure enough within 10 mins of the start the gentleman was highly distressed and the staff were both so hurt I had to step in.

These carers were definitely in the camp of need to control. However when discussing this with their boss the boss told that the staff do not do any physical intervention training as they do not want the staff to do any physical intervention. This can only mean the boss's experience of training was not a positive one!

The importance of good physical intervention training is that the individual member of staff gains the confidence, through the skill increase, to not need to do any physical intervention. This works providing the skills are well taught and the focus / attitude of the trainer is the correct one.

And so this boss was putting the staff in a situation where all they could do when they were being hurt was to default to the human response of someone who is themselves in distress. In a nutshell the autistic person's distress was met with distress through lack of training. To me this is tantamount to negligence on the part of the employer.

All that they needed to be taught was simple distraction, deep pressure massage, some minor physical skills and some pressure / stress training and they could have dealt with that very differently.........

And so while we all think we are the relaxed type of carer. Which one are you?

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What kind of support carer are you?

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