Video Interaction Guidance With Adults With Intellectual Disabilities and Their Support Workers: A Service Evaluation

Background: This service evaluation focused on support workers' perceptions of Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) offered by an NHS Community Learning Disabilities Team. Methods: A mixed-methods design was employed. Support workers developed goals and rated their progress before and after VIG sessions. Thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data on the nature of the goals developed, and the strengths and working points identified. The differences between progress ratings before and after VIG were analysed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Retrospective interviews helped to further understand support workers' experiences of VIG. Findings: Support workers identified goals, strengths and working points that emphasised their relationship with the person, and their confidence as workers. VIG appeared to increase their self-rated progress towards goals, and their understanding of their clients, which they felt helped them improve their quality of care. Barriers to VIG were identified, namely anxiety about being filmed and the expectation that VIG would not be helpful. Conclusions: VIG has potential as an intervention to enable support workers to develop their practice with people with intellectual disabilities. More research is needed to extend and generalise these findings.