Serious Play Forum

[Safak Korkut CH]

Now this is quite a challenge for me!
I am conducting a LSP workshop and one of the participants has one functional hand.
Anyone has an experience in such situation? Any practical support will be highly appreciated.

[Patricia Kistenmacher]

hi Safak, nice challenge ahead. It never happened to me, but I guess you have to stress metaphore and story-telling, as the complementary skills to building. It should go ok, I think.

[Tamara Christensen]

A great challenge Safak! I find myself thinking of ways to use the handicap as an opportunity to be creative with the builds and build empathy with other participants. For example, how about a round where everyone has to build their model with only one hand?
We also did a great pair activity at the North American LSP facilitator’s meeting last year with the ducks where people had to work with a partner (each used only one hand) to build models together. It was a fun way to explore collaboration, great debrief.

Good luck!
Please share your experience, I’d love to hear how it goes!

[Bruce Scharlau]

Safak,

I had this happen once. The person had a basic, unmoveable, prosthetic hand, which I only realised after I had distributed the fiddle packs. I asked him if he wanted help, with me guiding him, or something. He said no, he’d manage on his own with one working hand, and the prosthetic to hold things in place.

So, my suggestion is this: ask the person what they would like to do. Explain the basic process, and point them to a video of what happens perhaps, and then let them decide. Do not decide for them. Rather, reach out to the organiser to get the person’s details and talk them.

I would also not suggest that you do a paired ‘each person uses one hand’ session without asking the person either as this might be considered something which highlights their situation more than they would like.

Play well :)
Bruce

[Safak Korkut CH]

Dear Patricia, Tamara and Bruce,
You are amazing! I don’t know you, but i love you.

Thank you very much for your insights and advices.
This morning, I had the chance to connect with the participant, and had a short talk about handling of LEGO bricks, as well as storytelling/metaphor. He is very cooperative, and very curious how things will develop during the workshop. I am very lucky to have a very open-minded participant, and he said this: “My handicap is not a limit for me”.
I made a quick duck exercise with him, and there is a little bit of problem in disassembling the bricks; nonetheless we agreed upon supporting him if needed.

I will share the insights next week.

[Patricia Kistenmacher]

you’ve done great with this person. Please let us know how it works out. As the other colleagues said, they are more prepared than we are. And I think that it really helps us, as facilitators, to understand better the power of metaphore and story-telling……………… maybe, because I myself am so bad at building, that I always trust the other 2 skills. Thanks for your love!

[Dieter Reuther]

A related article, not about LSP though: HOW LEGO CAN HELP BLIND PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE WORLD: http://nerdist.com/how-lego-can-help-blind-people-experience-the-world/. Perhaps some more inspiration for you.

Have a great workshop Safak!

[Dieter Reuther]

Following up on the article HOW LEGO CAN HELP BLIND PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE WORLD, I just received this:

http://legofortheblind.com/

This site hosts text instruction to help blind people build LEGO Models.

[Christopher S. Robinson]

It it is in our best interests to seek out an align ourselves with facilitators in our regions that have disabilities. There is an under tapped group of experts that would be able to weigh-in on making inclusive sessions for everyone. Perhaps we would all discover alternative building options and strategies for our clients by listening to LSP Facilitators that have disabilities.

Christopher

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