How often do we sit back and reflect on how much has changed over the last twelve months? A year ago, my daughter Amy and I wrote a blog for World Down Syndrome Day 2024. Reading through it again has made me realise how much has changed.
Amy has always been ambitious and from the age of fourteen has wanted to work in a café and live away from our family home. She left school at eighteen years old (her insistence not mine!) and then was a weekly boarder at a specialist residential college for four years. Covid and the national lockdowns impacted greatly, and the reality was that the equivalent of twelve months of these four years was spent at home.
Leaving college and moving back home full time brought its challenges. We were fortunate to find a great support team to work with Amy, but she desperately wanted to move into her own accommodation and couldn’t understand what the delay was.
It took us 18 months to navigate ‘the system’ and for Amy to move away from home. The process is unclear, and everything is bound with red tape. We consulted numerous people and were given conflicting advice about council regulations for young people sharing a house. We sought advice from MENCAP and from our local Social Care Team. For months it felt like we were going round in circles and no progress was being made. When a suitable house was identified the formal process was able to begin. Support needs were reviewed, mental capacity assessed, and numerous emails exchanged.
One year on……
Amy is now sharing a house with a friend. They both have personalised support packages and live very active lives. Amy helps to create the weekly meal plan and go food shopping. She takes turns in helping to prepare meals. Amy has an active social life and has come to understand that cinema trips, bingo, discos, swimming, meeting up with friends and other fun things must be planned to allow time for doing less exciting things such as routine chores. Amy now has a paid job which she loves and she also continues to enjoy her other 2 work placements.
