We’re two days away from four weeks into Jude’s new placement. And I think we can safely say it’s been a learning curve.
For anyone with a young person edging towards adulthood be warned. Adult care is not ‘care’ in the sense it is with children. I may be speaking from a rather narrow boundary of experience so perhaps I’ll reword that. In my experience, I don’t feel that adult supported living is the same caring environment as it is with children.
For additional context, there should be a caveat that this wildly depends on the carers involved. And probably the ethos of the care provider themselves.
I think that’s me covered.
I don’t want to come across hugely negative. But, I think the trauma of the past couple of years of admin and liaising with the Local Authority (LA) has taken its toll on my brain.
My main current worry is the fact that Jude is now not doing anything at all. He is yet to bond with his carers and as such is spending a huge amount of time pootling about the house.
One of the primary reasons I wanted him to go to a residential college was to avoid exactly this.
Jude is inherently very lazy. But create a strong bond with him, behave a bit silly, and he’s your best friend. Once you’ve befriended him via water fights, messy play, silly word games, etc, he will do so so much. Bribe him with a treat and he’ll do even more. My goodness, his wonderful teacher even managed to coax him through his silver level Duke of Edinburgh award. An achievement I don’t think she was given enough credit for.
Jude really benefited from the routine of getting up for school. He had a responsibility and a meaning. So he had school during the day, and then the school house afterwards. A great distinction of lessons, fun and chill time.
I’ve sent a bunch of his favourite games to his new house, given suggestions and tips to win him over and now I have to give the carers the chance to do their thing. They are professional carers and I hope they have experience of adapting to different needs. It shouldn’t be Jude that has to adapt to them.
I’ve been popping over a couple of times during the week on my lunchbreaks. But the main visit with wee Judith is at the weekend when he comes home. I can’t do much more than that right now with work and the girls at home too.
And each time I’ve been there, I see the differences between adult and children’s care more and more.
Jude is now an adult and they treat him as such. A great thing, you may think – but Jude isn’t cognitively an adult. He still needs the play time, the encouragement and fun. And at the moment, that’s sorely lacking.
Anyway, there’s very little point to this post today. I’m blurting out random thoughts that don’t really flow from one to the next. I’m very confused. I’m worried and I just want to bring Judey home.
Then my mind flits to ridiculous thoughts like – maybe I could open my own adult supported living home. One that’s based on fun and silly games and nothing boring and adult at all. Isn’t that what Zoolander did?
Right, shut up Alice.
I’ve started my parents guide to moving your child into adult services so will post that later this week. It’s long. And definitely not something the LA will be sharing with parents. You’ve been warned.
Love you all!
