Hi. I work with a group of people with LD on a farm. We can be a bit too enthusiastic at times and like to fill wheelbarrows till we cant see over the top of them, or so that they are so heavy they are difficult (and dangerous) to move.
I am looking for some resources which could support people to develop a greater awareness of the danger of this as me telling them to stop and then emptying half of the wheelbarrow often causes upset and then stops anyone listening to my reasoning!
Any advice or signposting to some good accessible training or information would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Does your local LD services have an LD specialist physiotherapist? Maybe they could come and do a session with them on some basic’s principles of lifting and handling? Jaq
Great to hear that you’re looking at communication as the first step to reducing potential upset!
I had a quick trawl around to find any communication / symbol resources which covered this area, but didn’t find much I’m afraid - making your own may be the best bit.
Do you have the time /resources to make a photo story board with the people you are working with? If you could dedicate a session to this, you could create a poster that people could refer back to showing the right way to load a wheelbarrow and the consequences (possibly exaggerated) of overfilling it (bad back photo, wheelbarrow tipped over / person fallen over etc). That way the people you are supporting may be able to take some ownership of the process.
If you use iPads at all, Pictello is a really useful app (around £13 I think) which allows you to take photos and type / record a short sentence about it. I’ve used that to create ‘social stories’ of this type with people with learning disabilities, and it’s generally worked pretty well.
Depending on the capacity of your local Community LD team, you might find that speech and language therapy / OT as well as physio may be able to help you out.