Moving Home: Peter’s Story

One Move, Hundreds of Tiny Steps

Here at iBC Healthcare we recently become the subject of a beautiful and honest account (soon to be published) in Your Autism Magazine, written by Mary Long-Dhonau OBE, about her son’s move from one supported living home to another. On paper it sounds like a simple change. In reality it was a huge undertaking, built from hundreds of small steps over many weeks, each one designed to help him feel safe enough to take the next.

Mary’s story has captured something we see time and again at iBC Healthcare. A move that looks straightforward from the outside can be one of the most significant events in someone’s life, especially for people who rely on routine and familiarity to feel secure. Her account of slowly introducing new furniture, moving belongings a little at a time, and adjusting plans when things did not go smoothly on the first attempt, is a wonderful example of what good transition planning looks like in practice.

You can read Mary’s full story, Moving Home: Peter’s Story, One Move, Hundreds of Tiny Steps, in Your Autism Magazine below.

It is exactly this kind of thoughtful, patient approach that shapes how we plan every tenancy signup and every move at iBC.

My son Peter is twenty-nine. He has severe autism, a severe learning disability, challenging behaviour and epilepsy. He is 6ft 3in and has the mental capacity between 15 months and four years old, which can make looking after him somewhat challenging.

He lives in supported living accommodation with 2:1 support, 24 hours a day in a small complex of bespoke housing just outside Birmingham. As he has got older, the number of seizures he has has increased. One some occasions, the paramedics had to call out extra support to get him downstairs and into the ambulance. They questioned the wisdom of him living in a home with stairs, as it was very challenging to get a heavy, unconscious man safely into the ambulance. I too was terribly worried that he’d have a seizure when at the top of the stairs, fall down them and break his neck in the process. When his care provider built three new bungalows on the site, it was agreed that Peter should move into one.

You would think it would be easy to just move him almost opposite to where he was living, but for him, because of his need for strict routine and familiarity, this was huge.

Transition planning began. Meetings with the care provider, Peter’s social worker and us took place well before he actually moved.

Firstly, we bought him a new trampoline and put it in the bungalow garden. At the same time, we put a new reclining chair in his new bedroom. Staff took him there daily for several weeks to help him become familiar with the new bungalow and garden. Soon he was having his daily bath or shower there. Then we put a new sofa and table in the living room, so he started to have meals there, cooked using his air fryer. During this time, his wonderful key worker was slowly but surely taking items from his old kitchen to his new one, so eventually most of his meals were eaten there.

We also moved his swing from his old garden to his new one. (This caused some angst, as he hates things being moved.) Staff also took his toys and TV to the bungalow, so he began to play there and watch Thomas the Tank Engine on repeat, as normal.

As he’d wrecked his old bed, we bought a new one, and that was made up for him so he could become familiar with it. He had the odd nap in it, but he still slept in his old home.

Finally, overnight, while he was sleeping, everything else was moved and, when he woke, he was taken straight to the bungalow and his daily routine started from there. That night, he was put to bed in his new home, but he was having none of it, so late that night staff took him back to his old bedroom to sleep.

The following day, while staff took him out, we removed the old bed, so when he asked to go to his old bedroom, he was taken there and saw that the room was empty. He then returned to his bungalow and, thankfully, slept there.

However, after that episode, he has settled in so well and appears to be very happy there. He delights in his new trampoline and loves to stand waiting by his front door watching us go home after a visit.

To us it may have seemed like a relatively small move, but to Peter it was absolutely massive. Looking back, it wasn’t one move at all but hundreds of tiny steps, each helping him to feel safe enough to take the next one.  Careful planning and patient project management really did pay off in the end.

We’d like to thank Mary for her kind words and her trust to support her wonderful son Peter.

#DoAmazingEveryday