Background: Persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities form a vulnerable group within the Norwegian health and social care system, whose needs can be poorly understood due to their cognitive and communicative challenges.

Aim: This article aims to contribute to a richer understanding of persons with profound disabilities as narrative agents, and to highlight how the narrative competence of healthcare staff can be instrumental to a person-centred approach.

Method: The methodology used was a practice development project in residential housing for persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Dialogue seminars and reflection seminars with staff were conducted, and a group interview was carried out.

Results: Episodes of emotional, embodied and silent narratives were identified. These episodes illustrated the staff’s narrative competence in bodily enacted caring encounters.

Conclusion: This small-scale practice development project can contribute to changes and new ways forward towards person-centred care for adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities living in residential housing.

Implications for practice:

• Staff narrative competence is crucial to facilitating person-centred care for persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
• This narrative competence can be developed through providing arenas for discussion and reflection among staff
• Sharing various interpretations of the non-verbal and bodily expressions of persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities can contribute to a richer understanding of these individuals, and promote and strengthen their fundamental human rights

This article by Anita Gjermestad is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.