Jo talks about the experiences of supporting her Son to live independently and the difference it makes to her

So my son, um, is 22 3 months ago he moved into his own flat, which I had to obtain deputy ship in order to sign the tenancy for him because he's not deemed to have capacity to do that. I have finance and property, Deputy that took about 15 months to get because of covid court protection was pretty overwhelmed, I think at the time, Um, but we got the tenancy, and this is after I've requested from social care full time support for my son. And, um, because his behaviours were getting very difficult to manage in the family home alone. Um, so I would say, two years ago I was He was probably only getting about 22 hours of support two years ago, and then that went up to about 50 hours a week of support when I kind of stamped my foot and said, this is really difficult

Um, and that was when he had been excluded from college because of behaviours there. Uh, so that was a really, really difficult time. So we got the extra support and we had staff coming in 50 hours a week

So I was doing the other 118 on my own. Um, my son, his sleep pattern is now much better at that time. It was he was up until two in the morning, Um, and then waking up again at about 67 o'clock

So it was just really hard work. Um, he has autism, learning disabilities, epilepsy and very limited. Um, verbal communication

So there was a lot of frustration for him around the whole scenario of not wanting to go to college anymore. That was where the behaviour started. So anyway, we got the support

We got the 50 hours, and then I said, Look, this still isn't working because there's no night time support. I'm still exhausted. Um, that support was only 1 to 1, and I said, I think what we need is 24 72 to 1 waiting nights, and I'm happy for that to happen in our family homes

And I will start looking for accommodation for him, which again took a very long time. But it all came together three months ago. So the tendency, um, for a, um it's called a coach house, which is like the ground floor is the garage and the front door and then upstairs is a two bedroom flat

And so basically, we had lived with his 2 to 1 24 7 support team provided by an agency, um, which involved between I'd say 11 and 13 staff. So basically, it took 13 staff to replace what I'd been doing for quite a quite a long time. Um, dealing with is difficult and sometimes challenging behaviours and lack of sleep and all of that

Um, so we did the move very gradually, as I say, the staff had lived with us in our family home for a year. And when we moved Chris to his new home, we did it really gradually. So it took about a month to get everything

So you fly with us. But it's now working really well, and he's even had covid quite recently. Um, I think he, um it was a week ago

He came out of isolation. Two members of staff who were with him when he tested positive, then stayed with him for the 10 days of isolation. So they isolated with him, and he had that consistent support, which was amazing

So this particular agency, they are doing really well, and there's still a lot of staff. But, um, my son's coping with it, and I have a completely new LE of life. I'm now training for a new career, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed, but it all carries on going really well

.

Comments
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.