“…the people that we consider face the most barriers are the ones who are turning up every week…”

I am an employment consultant and with my colleague Jacki Maissin have been trialling Shared Reading as part of my role at Break Thru People Solutions. The people we work with need extra assistance because they are living with a disability or mental health issue.

One of the issues that we face as workers is encouraging people to open up so that we can help them. Sometimes you can be at a loss. Even open questions can be met with silence. It might take months before you can get the information you need to start to address people’s barriers.

When I experienced Shared Reading [in the training] I thought that it was something that could help me to help my clients. I am very passionate about my job and about helping my clients so I was willing to give it a go. I am so glad I did.

In Shared Reading groups people have started to open up. We have a young man who stutters when he talks. When he reads in the group however, his stutter disappears. He also lives with depression and recently came close to taking his life. To see the change in him in the reading group though, you would never know he had depression; he laughs, he smiles, he is excited. He enjoys what he is reading!

I am also finding out things about my clients that enable me to help them. For instance we read a story recently called My mother was sitting by the fire. It is about a grandmother who outstays her welcome with a young couple. One of my clients responded to the story by telling the group how much she loves her grandma and loves caring for her. Up to that point I had never considered aged care as a career for her. That information would ordinarily have taken me about six months to get. With Shared Reading I got it in three weeks.

I am also using reading one on one with some of my clients. One is a young woman who had a job, but because of her anxiety and depression could not get to it. She has started to open up now through the reading and has identified that she would like to study childcare.

Also, when she came to us she would not make eye contact and her body language was hunched up. After a few weeks of reading she is now meeting me eye to eye, is completely comfortable holding a conversation and enjoys her meetings.

Interestingly the people that we consider face the most barriers are the ones who are turning up every week, not missing a session. It gets them thinking about issues differently. Sometimes these are directly related to employment.

For instance part of a story that we read was about how you present yourself and what people think of you, and one of the clients was able to identify that presentation is important in an interview, and that you can be disadvantaged if you don’t present well. So we might do a mock interview to help him.

Another was referred to us with anger management issues and I noticed that he was attending each week in the same outfit. Through reading with him, I have built such a rapport that I have been able to address this and he came to see me today in his new boots and new pants and was excited about having a work trial. He also has developed the confidence to talk to people on the train.

This is how it is moving our clients.

Shared Reading has opened up another way for me to communicate with people. I have another avenue to help them and as a case worker that is what you are looking for. It helps to get an outcome quicker, so that instead of waiting two years to help someone, I can help them in three months.

Susan Taktak works as an employment consultant with Break Thru People Solutions. She and her colleagues have received training from Shared Reading NSW to integrate reading groups into the work they do with their clients.