Steve’s milestone move is a mark of success

Steve lived and was supported at Ty Hendy from December 2011. He moved there from Gloucester after his placement broke down, he was socialising with a challenging crowd of young adults and he was struggling. Whilst living at Ty Hendy he became more independent, developing and expanding upon his daily living skills, doing his own budgeting, shopping and cooking.

Steve is an aspiring chef, and loves to cook for others and experiment in the kitchen. This did not come easy though as Steve lacked confidence and was reluctant to socialise outside of Ty Hendy in the early years, and always relied on the support team to accompany him. Steve was supported by the team at Ty Hendy to become more confident and they encouraged him to access the local community first with support and later by himself. As he gradually accessed the local community and wider community, Steve was supported to travel further by getting on public transport and visiting people he knew locally, including people who had lived at Ty Hendy and since moved on. This helped immensely with building relationships and as his confidence grew further the team were able to support Steve with developing skills allowing him to self- medicate. This extended the time he could spend away from Ty Hendy and gave him increased independence when wanting to stay overnight when visiting friends.

When the difference in his confidence started to be quite evident, he was ready to move onto a supported living service. Even though Steve has been ready to move on for a year or so, he struggled with the motivation and confidence to do so.

The team worked hard to ensure this time that an appropriate place was sort after, so that when Steve was ready and confident he could transition and manage living on his own with only specific targeted support. Steve did start to doubt himself as the move came closer, but he sat down with members of the team and discussed his fears and was re-assured by them and by colleagues from the service where he was moving to.

Steve packed all his belongings himself with a little support from the team and moved to his new home in January 2017. Colleagues helped move all his furniture in and supported Steve as he settled into his new flat.

It had been a pleasure supporting Steve, supporting him to live more independently in his flat, and the team are very proud of what he has achieved. Steve still keeps regular contact with everyone at Ty Hendy calling most days and one individual supported at Ty Hendy now goes to visit Steve in his new home on a regular basis.