Over the last year or so Warren has been supported to learn many new skills and now uses them to go out in the local area, catching the bus into the town centre to his day services and to get his shopping.
Warren did not always have the confidence to go out of the house unsupported as he frequently got anxious which told the staff at the Summit that he was very unhappy. The local day service was a 5 minute walk from home but Warren felt he needed support from staff to get there and would often be unhappy on the journey.
The team discussed how we could support Warren to reduce his anxiety as we felt that he was capable of taking more control of his life. Warren’s key worker Seb discussed this at Warren’s annual review last year with Warren and his family. Everyone agreed that with the right kind of support Warren could achieve much more.
We thought really hard about how to support Warren to take more control and be able to complete the journey to his day service independently, and although it's hard for me to pinpoint the exact things we did to support Warren I know the team were responsive in their approach and tried new ways of doing things.
To start with staff began encouraging Warren when he was unsure of something on the journey, so if Warren asked "What do I do next?" staff would ask him "What do you think you should do next". This process of supporting Warren to think about the situation and make decisions for himself really seemed to help build his confidence.
By supporting him in this way, we knew that Warren was learning all of the steps in making the journey to day services and the thing that we needed to work on was his confidence to be able to do this alone. Over a period of time, the team members gradually reduced the distance they walked with Warren and encouraged him to continue the rest of the journey alone. Before long Warren was making the journey to the day services with less support.
Then we tried something new, the next time Warren asked for support to walk to his day services I said "Do you think you could walk by yourself today?". Warren and I have a good relationship so he knew that I would make the time to support him with this if he really needed it but we found that sometimes this prompt was enough for Warren to be
confident enough to try it by himself and have success!
Having achieved this Warren is now experiencing new adventures with MacIntyre's Outreach Service and his self esteem continues to grow.
Matt Bennett
Senior Support Worker, The Summit