Your Story - Autism and SEN Documentary (Full Version W/Subtitles)

your story in partnership with bernardos and Allstar your story is a unique storytelling experience documenting the life times experiences and journey of parents carers and young people with lived experience of sen and neurodiversity living in the Bradford district and surrounding areas please note this documentary contains sensitive and emotional content and is a true representation of the participants views and experiences which are respectfully their own open honest and genuine a special thank you and respect to everyone that took part in this project without their bravery openness and honesty it would not have been possible hi I'm Jord and I'm here to talk about life at home I'm here to speak about my daughter Amelia Amelia's undiagnosed but she's suspected ADHD and autism and we've been waiting for a diagnosis which I've been on the Cam's waiting list for 2 years and I've not had a single appointment through so I went down the route of the right to choose and Amelia has being placed on a private assessment waiting list now Amelia she can be really challenging she displays some violent behaviors um she's been permanently excluded from mainstream school so she's at a pro which I think that has an impact on life at home as well because if she's not having a bad day and she's coming coming home she's you know displaying outburst and behaviors at home what's a struggle for me and Dad and you know siblings in the house like s you can tell if she's going to be okay she's going to be having these [Music] outbursts school and you oh you you ask her to do anything she don't want to do it baffing she don't want to get a B so she don't really care about you know personal hygiene or a appearance um like smelling sometimes you know I'll say to her you're going to smell if you don't get a bath and just like getting a dress for school she'll refused to put her shoes on the other day we had a problem where she won't get her shoes on so her dad like put the shoes on the floor and then she limping around youve just thrown the shoe at me but nobody threw the shoe at her it got put on the floor but in Amelia's head the shoe got thrown at her and then that led to her having a bad day at school it's just always a battle with Amelia with breakfast asking her what she wants for breakfast from her getting in from school she's carrying on she's demanding things and she wants to make deals you know I'll make a deal with your mom I'll do you know I'll do this if you let me have this or buy me this asking know what she wants for te if we don't have what she wants at evening for a meal she won't want anything you know I'm not eating anything and then bedtime refusal to get ready for bed then refusal to go to sleep I have to have her in separate bedrooms and my house is only two bedroomed so I have baby in my in my bedroom and then I have AAR in her own because I'm scared that you know she'll hurt her or she she wakes her up and settling her from asleep you know kicking off tantruming banging and then she goes to bed don't settle down till 12 1:00 in the morning then she's having an accident com and getting in my bed so then I'll have to change beddings you know put up try to get her back in her bed which leads me and Dad then to having an unsettled night sleep because we've got Amelia in the bed with us there's no rest spite I did get him informed to contact social services and ask for a careers assessment which I did that and I I got a call and then they tried referring me to early help again but I just said I don't need early help involvement for feebe with Amelia I do feel sorry far you know they're always nitpicking with each other um when when a has a moment she'll hurt feebe and I just I do feel like it um sorry sorry I do feel sorry for Fe because obviously we know what it's like living with her so so um for fa it must be hard as [Music] well like weekends are okay they more you know relaxed because there's no rush you know getting up but School mornings oh they're horrendous I actually hate mornings in this house well I feel a bit fluster because I need to try to get myself ready as well and that can become you know hard like I don't even sometimes get a chance to go to the toilet and it's like I feel like my head's like a m way it's always you know just zooming around yeah well we went to Allon Towers last week and that were really nice you know um just getting her out there you know seeing her how fast she can open up to challenge yourself to go on things you know cuz sometimes you know the scared out and she actually did really well and I thought I'm proud you know kept telling her I'm proud of you for going on that you know I wasn't expecting you to go on that you really surprised me we do a lot of baking as well so like show showing how she can independently you know mix all the ingredients and stuff like that and just how intelligent she is she surprises me all the time telling me things that I don't even know I think think who was the adult here I think why are he's so intelligent should maybe maybe talk just in general about something so we're talking about school on the way here what's school like for you on on a day-to-day basis do you like going well I do my handwriting reading but on Friday we do dad is it's where you see a picture you have to word verbs adjectives nouns you have to and you have to use lots of describing words and I don't like that do you have lots of friends at school I only have one and what are they called kayen what do you like about him he's a good goalkeeper in football like me and he's nice to me school had an impact on home life then but School tried thinking the problems were at home you know trying to blame me and Dad for the behaviors like something must be happening at home which we had early help involvement from school they pushed us to get them involved which we did because we had nothing to hide at home and with the work approved that it were problems within the school and the environment and maybe not meeting Amelia's needs like they should have been the schooling and the echp plan and just getting support and finding suitable provision for Amelia she got permanently excluded from the original mainstream school she attended for displaying violent behaviors and multiple breaches of the behavioral policy but I think that could have been like that could have been avoided if the assessor for the echp plan and the pr referral unit is for our you know bad behavioral children rather than SC you know Naro diversional children like when I tell people that she's only eight and she's in a PR like wow you know when were at school the pr were just full of bad kids but now it's full of special needs children who don't need to be in that sort of environment I got told by the head teacher at the pr and our Amelia here we'll get you the plan yeah that when she started and Amelia had so much evidence to support getting the plan when we sent the first not appeal sorry the first form to apply for one there was so much evidence and they still refused to assess her on that which led to going to mediation and then you've got to go to tribunal but it never actually gets to tribunal the issue the plan because it costs the local Authority so much money they'll just issue you the plan anyway but if it was if it takes all why I would to just give you it on the evidence and support you've got already oh she loves him Hercules is her boy that's what she calls him you know she's dead proud when she's walking him but she's a bit stubborn as well like pulling him back you know around there with her dogs she gets a bit a bit too much with him but she loves the dogs yeah yeah that she sits there watching them quite often you know when she's at a bit of a height and moment CU I just tend to leave her to it so she'll just come sit down and see the fish My Hope for the future for Amelia would be to get a diagnosis maybe get some support for it and find now we have an echp plan maybe find the suitable provision for Amelia to get her out of the pr and maybe once she settled back you know to school routine home life may start becoming a bit more easier and my advice and tips for the parents would be to just keep going and waiting on your waiting lists and not to give up because it is a quite a process and a battle but once you get there it'll be worth it in the end I suppose [Music] uh I'm Beth and my little boy is called Luke yeah I'm 36 and I live at howth just on the outskirts of howth I'm a care assistant look after a young disabled Chap and also look after my little boy as well who was autistic got a diagnosis of autism well I noticed that there was something um something different about him when he was still a baby maybe about 6 to eight months old just the way he were playing with his toys and um sort of messing with labels and stacking things behind his back uh and obviously I raise my concerns with my family like you do naturally and they all said oh you know there's no wrong with him take him to to El visitor they'll give you know they'll give you a peace of mind um and I took him and she said you know I'm glad that You' brought him you can just tell that there's you know I've seen a few red markers of autism and he's only been in room for 5 minutes and we just went from there and we got a really fast diagnosis to be honest yeah I think it was in a matter of months and so we were really lucky in that aspect being a care assistant myself I'm I'm used to being around people with disabilities both physical and you know learning difficulties and I just thought I'm just going to embrace it and that's exactly what I've done and I still do now um probably a lot of the challenges have been his behavior and his aggression um we we went through a phase of him being really violent and damaging a lot of stuff in our house and so I've been very very physical with me at the time I think it only lasted a few months but it felt like it went on for about 10 years but I think he's just probably grown out of that like kids do go through phases of certain stuff whether they've got extra needs or not I think everybody runs up against problems and everybody's just going to out a roll with it with like you know like I've done you know and we've come out of end you know and everything else has sort of been like you say positive everywhere we've gone we've always ended up having a good result and you know we've also made some really good friends on our journey as well so that's probably one of the best things about you know mixing with other other families um and we all share stories and it's been really [Music] good well he's got um ehcp at school they're working on that at moment but they did say to me when we started it about a year ago they said look Beth you know this process is you need to have more evidence it works in your favor the more evidence that you've got um so what they said to me was they was going to start it and work on it through him being what from in year one and two right to the end to year six because they said it was a likelihood it would get sort of denied if if it didn't have enough evidence so I'm just following their lead with it really because this school's been really good with me I feel like I can trust them I know a lot of people have had really bad experiences with school and ehcps um and we're quite lucky fingers crossed he'll get the ehcp for the one to one when he does go into high school I think that's going to really benefit him it's like now it's only a small school so he's happy with with what's going on there's only about 100 kids in all school um so it's working well for him but when he goes to the school that I want him to go to there's going to be a thousand kids or more is't there so I think when he gets that one to one I think he'll need that person more then than he does now so touch wood it all goes in our [Music] favor probably food not that it's been a challenge um he's had sort of like a really good eating habits he loves like vegetables fruit whereas a lot of people would struggle to get the kids to eat some like that um but he'd go through a phase of being here he'd only eat certain things here like broccoli and um popping chicken and peppers but they would only eat that and then say my mom's it would only eat beans and sausage with toast but that's all he would eat and weat a bits and it were quite not like I say not challenging but this is how it is and this is what we have to do you know you'd like to think that you could have quite varied things for your kids to eat and they'll have it Whatever Whenever um but that's just that I like how it's been and yeah amazing beautiful and lovable [Music] my name is Melissa I'm 35 I teach math and I have two kids Nathaniel who has autism and Raphael who's his brother who is our little helper I'm married and and I live my life to the fullest with these two boys really Nathaniel is almost eight now he'll be eight in November he's nonverbal or semi- verbal I like to call it he says a few things just is not as broad as most children his age so he can say the most Basics like um when he needs to toilet when he wants when he's hungry when he wants a particular thing he's not fully independent as well so he needs he needs a bit of supervision getting dressed um having a bath he can't read or write he can recognize words yes but he can't read a child's book so that's where re really he is at at the moment so he he needs quite a lot of support um onet to One support he can't go out on its own I used to work in care um I worked with learning um adults with learning difficulties or learning disabilities and there were just a few things that I noticed from the ladies and gentlemen I supported with additional needs more or less comparing my him to my older older nieces um it was just he was very delayed in the speech and I know they had this thing where um girls progress a lot quicker than boys but he was just very delayed in say his speech or his developmental um growth like he wasn't he crawled at 11 months he literally started walking 18 months um in 18 months which is the borderline of okay there's something is there something wrong or you know but there was this also the speech as well he wasn't saying the typical Mama D things that kids say it was just a lot of say granting and just odd noise is that he used to say with the help of the nursery he used to go to at that point um they got a senko involved they got a speech and language um therapist involved and it it just went from there we saw a pediatrician um we got put on the list for um the autism assessments luckily we got an appointment just before lockdown just before he went to school and yeah they told us he was um autistic um which wasn't so surprising because we knew there was something there but we just didn't want we didn't know um much about what he had and why he was so delayed or why he wasn't given eye contact why he wasn't developing as much as or was at the same Pace at um other kids and I remember when the doctor told us that he had a chromosome deletion and they got it from he got it from me I actually broke down like a baby cuz I thought it was sorry I thought it was my fault that he was um he was the way he is but it's not really my fault either that I have that chromosome deletion as well I I think it's parents should be more accepting to what the children have um and and as much as they would have wanted children to De to develop everybody is different and it's just accepting that their child is different but the more support they give to the child at an earlier stage the better they will be at when they're older and even if they don't your child doesn't end up being um at Uni or working that's who their child is and they they went they didn't didn't ask people like that that's how just how they came and it's not the parents fault that they came it's just everybody is different and you can't change that you can only change how the quality of their life and by educating themselves the parents and by knowing what they can do for their child you know that's more better than blaming themselves or making it seem like it's their child's fault that they are there um they who they are and that's the only thing I can say just making sure that they provide the best for their child whether through education or just accepting who they are really and that's the first step to developing their children and themselves and bettering themselves I'm Lauren Southgate I'm an All-Star project worker at the moment which is uh the job role that I'm in now I was diagnosed as autistic when I was 11 years of age so it all started when I was about um 10 or 11 and uh I was getting to the stage in my life where um I was transitioning between primary and secondary school um it was kind of apparent when I was younger that I was different because I'd always walk around the playground by myself I had friends well I had people I hung out with but I wouldn't say they were necessarily close friends back in school um but then as I transitioned between primary and secondary school it became even more apparent that I was different everyone was like growing up faster than me I had that immaturity that they were losing faster than me so I guess that was really challenging because um all I really wanted was um to be accepted and that's kind of the stage where my parents were like oh something's up here we're going to have to um see what she has um cuz something's wrong transitioning to Secondary School felt really challenging because all my peirs around around me with just growing up much faster I kind of was well I seem to be stuck in this um this Loop well I'm not sure how to explain it I was stuck in this um at this age so I was kind of slowing down and uh because of that um maintaining relationships and actually developing relationships in the first place was just extremely challenging a lot of um neurod Divergent people are normally either really creative or really academic or they're just kind of in the middle everybody has their own set of strengths and weaknesses and I don't think they should be judged for that really I mean I'm myself and very creative but academically I'm just kind of average at first I had absolutely no idea I was masking but then as everybody as as I said earlier started to grow up much faster than me that's when I started to realize that I'm Different I think I properly started to un mask when I started um as a healthy Minds Apprentice because I was more openly telling people I have autism back at school I wasn't telling people as much but because of my job role I was kind of revealing that to more people and as a result um because all my colleagues were so understanding because of the positions they were in I was able to be myself more often I found myself stemming more and more stemming is um self-stimulation it's kind of moving your hands around fiddling one of my main stems is actually platting my hair over and over again um which um to my parents dismay but that's another story and um I lost my trainer for again which is also something which um I struggle with rather a lot as I've unmas asked I found myself losing my train of thought much more often hence which led me to uh believing that I could have an attentive ADHD but that's another pathway I'm going to fight for what advice would I give to a younger May well I don't know I'd probably tell that younger self that you have autism and I know it isn't really advice but I'd kind of give her a pre-warning to say um all of this is going to happen to you in the future prepare yourself because it's going to be a bumpy ride I don't really know where I'm going personally but I just have to see because life isn't planned out I'm going to actually quote something from one of the resource videos I did with uh in my apprenticeship life's full of twists and turns but you just have to keep yourself on the right track I'm Amber um I'm a carer for my younger brother Alex who is 13 and is at a specialist school and I'm neurodiverse [Music] myself I realized I was neurodiverse when I was 9 years old my younger brother had been diagnosed at 2 and I was struggling with a lot of um anger management and anxiety within my primary school life and myself my mother decided to um explore that revenue of possibly having autism and or anxiety it felt like I was different and I didn't know why and I was very upset because my brother is high needs and I felt like I was been grouped in with someone which I resented quite a bit growing up but now we're older and I realize we're just the same he he's going through what I went through a few years ago and I could be there for [Music] him going through puberty was something that really affected me because of the the hormones the anxiety around change and it's definitely a transition which I believe should be um supported I'd say um communicate with your family more because um they're basically the only people that have known you forever and can support you through what is happening and definitely relationships with parents I see myself living in a cute little cottage um with an office office so I I can work from home cuz I find that easier and um taking care of my brother for for as long as he needs me I hope to have a little Annex at the bottom of my garden so he's always close yes I'm jod I'm 23 and I've got autism I've got a little boy and a little girl on the way so I got diagnosed when I was about 16 so it was during that exam period um I think I got my actual diagnosis a week before My GCSE exams um so I just did a lot of studying but as I said just like being in my own little world it's just kind of talking to myself telling myself jokes kind of things um rally have moments where I'll burst out laughing and it's just because I said something funny to myself in my head kind of thing um which is why I've always said I prefer my own company over other people's cuz I'll just talk and talk in my head I was quite lucky in my diagnosis in the fact of it only took about two weeks to do from start to finish um however I actually failed the actual assessment of it um and it wasn't until the person doing the diagnosis had read through the notes from the therapist and she actually diagnosed me based on my therapist rather than my answers um which I'm not quite sure how that worked out but basically just looking at anything that my therapist wrote down during my sessions with her I got the diagnosis based purely on that instead of the actual question at the time it was quite scary cuz obvious as I said I didn't know a lot about it autism was just a word that was used as an insult in the classroom rather than an actual like thing I was a bit worried and scared about it at first but as I said you just kind of learn that it's don't change who you are kind of thing yeah so growing up I've kind of I thought I was always different anyway I was never overly one to have friends I like my own company me um I found it really hard to understand people you know I didn't like the social aspects of things I didn't want to go out and play games um lunchtimes I kind of sat in the classroom on my own I didn't want to be in the canteen um and I didn't quite understand the whole kind of hype around people I just very much just like my own company and I just wanted my little Zone um so I guess that was a major thing in that as well and that was something that my therapist actually picked up on was the fact of I was alone a lot of the time but I liked being alone yeah got a little boy and a little girl on the way it's good and scary at the same time I've always kind of wanted a big family I've always wanted kind of children but with the autism it can be very over stimulating and very hard and parenting for anyone's very hard um but if you've got loads of noise going on you've got people talking to you if the baby's crying you're thinking of all the things you need to do for him it can get a lot as well so it's kind of a mixture between having excitement and having that nerves of am I going to cope [Music] okay I think for me it's autism isn't a barrier in your life it's not another problem to add you to your list it's literally just word to help people understand you and support you um and I think you just got to remember that you are exactly who you were before during and after a diagnosis it's not a massive barrier it's not a blockage and it's just something you've got you can still live the life as much as you want to don't overly make you different you just see the world in a better place right my name is Brian uh I'm Lauren's father um we live in our house with uh my wife uh Penny and uh We've Lauren's adopted she was adopted when she was 1 and she's now 22 Pro well probably um when she started going to see and no uh which is a toddler group um that she was sort of spending a lot of time on her own uh not mixing with people quirky quirky things that she did um not eating not eating a lot so it was sort of round about that we thought something was wrong but obviously we didn't actually upon it at that time because we just thought it was part of a growing up you know maybe she was a bit behind or whatever um and just sort of we let it ride for for a bit until sort of she got to what 67 when she started going to school and finding it difficult to concentration stuff like that communication was a big thing I don't know showing love if you if you like towards other people you know towards parents really as well she won't come up and give you a hug for instance you know if you give her a kiss kiss her on the forehead you know because that's the way she likes it and so I think the longer you go on through it all the more adaptability you get and you get used to to that and you know at the start it's hard because it's right well hang on a minute why don't you like me you know and and you get that feeling but you learn to get over that and know what's right and what's wrong you know and how to how to um accept that you know what boundaries to sort of push if you like to sort of oh you can have a laugh with her but don't take it too far you know obviously there's different aspects of autism and there's different ranges of it as such um within the scale but to sort of look at the basics and sort of understand or try and understand why your son daughter is like that and I think then then you then can act upon that and work it out for yourselves or speak to somebody else if you know somebody else that's going through it um and and get that their ideas because everyone's different aren't they you know what suits one might not suit another if you've got that basic understanding of it at least you know where the person's coming from yeah and it I think I think talking talking to people is is important and going to sort of groups like aware um that do a fantastic job you know and the people there because you're mixing with other people that are in the same circumstances as you are um and I know I know it certainly helped Penny um going to a way and talking about talking about other kids and how they're doing and what they're doing and how they coping with it you know and I think she still does to a certain extent she'll talk to a couple of people you know and it's it's but it's just basically getting a basic understanding of it and not losing your temper or bottling it up you know just try and adapt to it as best you can if I was to Su up in three words challenging um fantastic and it's not three worse but achieve so much because she she's you know she's achieved absolutely beyond our wildest dreams that's school with a results at school with a exam results at school and being able to hold down a job the older she gets probably the more um not worried but you think what's going to happen in the future you know what I mean and sort of try to make Provisions for that as as she's growing up and as we're getting a bit older trying to make Provisions for that you know because it's obviously it's a massive worry I mean it's great that she's that she's got a job and that she's holding down a job because that's that's something that you know a lot of people uh are a lot of parents with kids that have got autism and stuff like that and special needs and stuff like that they worry about what's going to happen in the future my name's s is here I have um two boys um 18 and 20 it's been difficult um to be honest since they were very young um and it hasn't really got any easier um if I'm honest and I think the main things that I've I've have been a struggle is really trying to get diagnosis for them in the initially and then trying to get them in the right educational environment then it was it also trying to fight for rest fite trying to fight for like gaining a social work trying to get support for us as a family um trying to balance um working life with having two children so to be honest it's been a Non-Stop fight if I'm honest and it's it's been very very difficult but um I kind of feel I'm in a better place now than I probably was 20 years [Music] ago there should be more training for parents there should be more support and it should be on the onet of anyone receiving a diagnosis or any parent feeling like their child may have a special need that is when the intervention should take place because I feel like it is where you're just sort of left to it and like I said the internet is brilliant but it's wrong it shouldn't be it should be the professionals who are paid to do a job that they're obviously not doing to the full extent they should be doing it and if they're I asked the question because if they're telling us there's like hundreds U maybe thousands of young people and adults now with ADHD but you're telling me there isn't not one single support group and that is something that 20 years ago I mentioned and that is something I was hoping they would set up um that's still not being set up and I feel like for me again I've had to fight to get my son into a specialist environment again I feel why should I have to do that you know and I feel like it's always where you're doing it on your own I think there was um a lot of resentment resentment around services around family around friends felt very let down and I think it's not having any expectations um I think when you have expectations you you and you get let down it's very very heartbreaking the isolation the mental health side of things um was very difficult so the physical side obviously 100% is hard you you get tired you know you're human it's very very difficult and I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves like I mentioned about doing things the right way making sure sure the kids are always fed healthy make sure they're always clean make sure you do as much as you can to meet their needs um so in in a nutshell I feel like yeah the isolation very difficult the mental health side of things um the anger the frustration with services um and I feel like the loneliness again would probably link him with the [Music] isolation I think and positive is always to stay positive and and always look at the the the you might see them as minor positives but actually really really celebrate any really small achievements that your child might be making and also yourself you know celebrate yourself um how amazing you are doing and how difficult it is but you're as long as you're trying your best and having reasonable expectations as well um I kind of feel are really important it's just to to be positive to really look at the fact that you have a support network around you and really reach out um and really feel like it's there's nothing negative about having children with special Le is like absolutely amazing in our religion we kind of have a quote that from God with hardship comes ease and that's one thing that really I think get me going is to have that Focus to thinking if God has led me to this he would lead me through it um and it's just kind of if you have a focus and you have some kind of vision um you will get through it and I think that is the key for any parent and any family to sort of just keep in yourselves and again like I always come back to the fact that making sure that you have time for yourself as priority as well as trying to do what you can for your children other people around you as [Music] well let go of the picture of what you thought life would be like and learn to find joy in the story you're living grieving the life I thought I would have letting go of expectations I once held for myself accepting life is beautiful and real since I entered work I've matured quite a bit recently because it's kind of it's not like school school and college were school and college this is way different there's more responsibility when you're undertaking a job you're being paid that's another thing which kind of motivates you as well and because you're being paid you have to a good job and also you have to do a good job for the young people that you're working with as well and uh so that they're getting the right um support and they're getting um the right resources that they can understand and help them develop yeah work is challenging especially when things don't go to plan but I have been able to adapt what I'd want to do is I'd want a role that incorporated my special interests where I'm looked after but not like um smothered just um given the opportunity to be me without um criticism and obviously I'll get some positive criticism to help me improve but um I just want an understanding employer for my next role somebody who um can give me an opportunity to use my talents and who is kind because kindness is the best thing that um any autistic person could receive and understand him so that they can feel validated and not aliens because honestly for most of my life I felt like an alien I'd say try because there's so many autistic and neurod Divergent people in this country who are unemployed or they haven't got a full-time job I actually read one point that it was only 14% of um neurod Divergent people especially autistic people that are in full-time employment very few people are in any employment let alone full-time so all I would say to those people is try because if um you let your disability keep you down stop you from doing what you really want to do then you're not going to get anywhere in life and you're going to be lonely and you're not going to you're not going to be well off enough to actually enjoy your life so I would say try I'm olle um I'm currently I'm looking for work I'm an employed at the moment I love to either working like I've got a few things in mind either like music production would be really good like sort of doing audio engineering things um i' I think I'd love to like teach piano I think I'd be I'd be quite good at that I kind of feel like I do have like the skills set but like in some skills that I might be lacking I think I could pick up fairly fairly quickly but I think a lot of it based on like a lack of experience and things like that and I think as like an autistic person I do kind of I I don't know if this is quite what you asked but I think I do sort of struggle to put myself out there in the same way really like I can I can struggle to like Express like express myself and kind of get get my name and like stuff out there whereas like I think um I think without my ISM I think I might find that easier I suppose I'm trying I'm trying to like sort of get like get my foot in the door of places like not even um like like I might like I'll I'll do some like volunteering or something it doesn't necessarily kind of just developing those experiences I guess I haven't had that many interviews um kind of I'd say two or three maybe cuz it feels like you put you put a lot of you put a lot of effort into doing a good application and you if if you like you're successful with that and then it feels like there's so much you don't get much time like maybe 10 15 minutes and there's so much like on the line then like that that 50 minutes completely can change your life it sort of feels like it's right now you have to perform and it does I think that that has like got the better of me really is sort of like my mouthful completely dry up and I'll like lose I won't be able to think of stuff what I'm planning on doing is I'll probably get like a a part-time sort of like retail job hopefully local to me and then cuz it'll be part- time I'll have time to like pursue like the stuff I'm really into like the music and all that i' I'd love to yeah work in sort of like the music industry so of helping helping others and stuff like that yeah say almost before you get to like the interview stage like kind of getting the training there I think would be really good like yeah the pre-employment training I think is is really useful I know that would help me personally a lot and I think it'd help a lot of other people that are probably in a similar similar sort of position to me say so I'm roxen Coleman and I'm the director for colan training development limited um and we run various programs around career transition and education of career transitioning our main program is based around a supported internship so it's for special educational needs so it's for Young Learners 16 to 25 with an hcp um with a learning disability difficulty or Autism and it's to get them into independent paid sustainable [Music] employment at the moment we work on the the Learners need an ehcp educ educational healthcare plan uh because it opens doors and that creates the funding um from the esfa and the local Authority if they don't have that we can't afford to run the program the program we run is quite an expensive model it's um it's one of the higher cost models because we're bespoke so we look at each individual and yes they've got to get from A to B they've got to get from the beginning of the program to the end but how they do that it's kind of their way we do it in their way um each group has 12 people in it that's or 12 14 um and we're like a bridge in between we're not school or college and we're not work we're like a bridge in between and they've got to get from one end to the other if they want to zigzag we zigzag with them if they want a hop skip jump and then stand there and go oh that was a bit fast um we do that with them and that's okay and we tell them it's okay it's about educating employers around reasonable adjustments don't have to cost Fortune they don't have to be massive they're not an upheaval doesn't mean ramps and things it could do it can be small things like overlays um a particular computer but there's so much funding out there as well for reasonable adjustments that employers don't realize is out there so we do a lot of Education around inclusivity and all that we had one uh particular employer who um said we said oh we'd love some workplac with you we have a very similar company we work with who are absolutely amazing they're great and it's like but we'd like some workplac with you oh I'm really sorry we we wouldn't be able to do that uh it's not safe no no no it wouldn't be safe we wouldn't be able to uh facilitate that no not at all no everything we've got is not safe and I said well do you not have admin roles yeah but just being around everything else that we do machinery and things it's not safe and I'm thinking I know what you just heard you heard learning disability and your head automatically went to something else it went to the gosh years and years and years ago when you heard disability um you'd have thought of wheelchair bent hands dribbling it's it's awful I hate it I hate even saying it but that's quite often where people's minds go when you say learning disability I'm just going to come out and say it what would happen to your young person if you weren't here tomorrow and I get that you want to wrap them in bubble wrap I want to wrap mine in bubble wrap um you know I don't none of us want our children to fail but they've got learn to fail it goes back to that failure learn to fail to be to know what good feels like and and looks like but it's most the parents then sit there and it's the most nerve-wracking time for me cuz I know so many of them have had tragedy I sat in one and I had three parents who I knew within the last 10 years had had a co-parent loss um and I had to then and I was about to say this and I said it and you just look at them and they think and you feel the H squeeze with their friends or whoever but actually most of them then say you're right I need to think about what this you know my young person is capable of being independent but I'm doing everything for them so quite often the parents can be quite a big barrier as well not purposefully in any way shape or form we coach we coach and nurture the parents as much as we do with our Learners advice to young people seeking employment is don't be afraid to ask for help don't be afraid to take those reasonable adjustments it's not cheating you do fit there is a place for you but actually to know what one of the phrases we use which I just adore what makes me different makes me

Channel: All Star

Views: 2,096

Keywords:

Id: eATrj2JI9ng

Length: 55min 48sec (3348 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 26 2024