Case Studies
Paula Story (told by her mum)
Paula had been away at residential school for the last five years. She has a severe learning disability and has physical disability as well. She came home most weekends and also during the school holidays. We had been using Living Ambitions at half term and during the summer holidays to provide support for her to go out, access things in the community and other sorts of daily activities, particularly while I was at work. I work part-time in a local firm of solicitors. I also received domiciliary care support from a local agency to help at weekends to get Paula up in a morning and put her to bed in the evenings, bathing her, etc. Although it would not be another three years before it was time for Paula to leave school I began to get concerned about where would be the best place for Paula to live in the future. Whilst I wanted to continue to support her I realised that maybe Paula coming back home wasn’t the best option for her and for me and Paula’s two younger sisters. I’d been speaking to Paula’s social worker who said we should discuss it further at her next review, which we did. At the review we agreed to put together a transition plan that would set out what should happen over the next two to three years. I didn’t really want the agency that provided domiciliary care to do much else other that that as they aren’t really that well versed in issues around learning disability and didn’t understand about transitions. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Living Ambitions knew exactly what it was and had a lot of experience at supporting young people and their families through the period of change.
So the school, the social worker and Living Ambitions are currently all working together to support us through the process. There’s still about a year to go but Paula will be coming back to her home town and will be moving into her own home provided by a local housing organisation. Paula will have support from a team of staff employed by Living Ambitions and will have her own tenancy agreement with the housing people. This was another service I wasn’t aware of until it was explained to me by Living Ambitions, who are going to be providing Paula’s support in her new home. In addition Living Ambitions were able to identify two other young women with similar needs to Paula who will also be moving into the house along with Paula. I’ve been able to build a friendship with two families who have been in a similar position to me and we are all really relieved and looking forward to when our daughters move into their new home together.
Living Ambitions have really pulled out all the stops for us and the main thing is they have built up strong and positive relationships with all three of the young people and their families and so have taken away a lot of the stress and worry for us all involved. I feel extremely confident and positive that Paula has a safe and bright future with people who know and understand her, not just what her physical needs are, but her emotional ones too.
