How to Support the Move into Supported Living – Practical Tips and Ideas

In my last post I wrote about how we found James’ new home and the process we went through leading up to him moving in. Now I’m going to share in more detail some of the things we did to support James through the transition process. Some of these things may help you and your son/daughter. Some of them may not be appropriate. You’ll have your own ideas too as obviously you know your child better than anybody and know what might work for them.

Work Together

Once you’ve decided where your son/daughter is going to live you will want to spend as much time as is feasible getting to know the staff team who are going to be caring for them. You need to build a relationship with them and the management too. I can only speak from my own experience but you would hopefully find that they are receptive to this. If, as in my case, you live locally and wish to remain fully involved In your child’s day to day care and decision making then you want to have a good working relationship. You are a team and together your priority is making this as smooth a transition for your child as possible. If you don’t feel this is the case then I would be questioning at this point if indeed you have found the right place for your son/daughter to be moving to.

Make a Plan

You will need to sit down with your child’s new home and make a transition plan. This may involve other professionals who work with your child too. In our case James’ home manager and I did this together. This detailed when and who from James’ care team would be visiting us at home. We planned a month at a time. The Social Worker will have needed to agree the hours required for funding this but push for as many hours as possible. If your child has very complex needs this is crucial. As I was recovering from hip surgery at this time James’ home manager visited me at home and he was especially helpful in planning the initial visits at times when I needed the help to bath James etc. Having said that, it is important that staff visit at varying times to be able to see your child throughout different times of the day. Not only bath times but mealtimes, during the evening and bedtime, time during the day so they can see what activities your child likes to do etc. This time is invaluable for you to be talking to staff about everything from what texture their food needs to be, how they like their hair washed, what there particular ‘signs’ mean and everything in between.  

Write it all down

During these visits staff will be making lots of notes and taking lots of information from you. I also compiled a folder of practical information about James day to day care myself that could be kept in his flat. This could be very easily accessed by staff at all times so if, for example, they were packing James bag to go to day service one morning and weren’t sure what he needed to take, or if staff couldn’t remember what radio station James likes the information was there to hand. Within this folder I included notes on:

Morning/eve/bath time routines                          Food and dietary needs

Gastrostomy feeding                                               Attaching pump for night feed

Clothing                                                                      Medication

Contact details for family, day services, dentist, hairdresser etc

What James needed to take out every day to his day services and carer.

Familiar places James liked to visit.

Making a Home

What preparation you need to do to your child’s new home will depend on what type of accommodation your child is moving to. James was moving into a newly refurbished flat in a house. It had a newly fitted kitchen and bathroom, had carpets, laminated flooring and window blinds. Apart from this it was a blank canvas with white walls. I spent a couple of weeks whilst I was recovering from my surgery online furnishing James flat. As soon as I was physically able, we spent time at James’ flat painting, putting up furniture and making it a home from home. I gradually started sorting through James’ extensive collection of puzzles and books and taking those there. I didn’t take anything he would miss from home though.  Personally, I found it important to involve everyone in the practical side of getting James flat ready, his brother, my sister and my parents. Think about the things that are important to your child and you know they will want to have with them. This is the fun part.  

Life story work

James loves his books and I knew it would be beneficial to have this as a tool to talk about James’ move. I took lots of pictures of James flat and I used Snapfish online to make a book.  I worded it carefully in a way I thought would help James understand. I think life story books can be so helpful, it’s visual, it’s a physical thing that can prompt conversations. James’ books have lots of pictures and as he can’t read, they have brief sentences that we can read but we often detract from those. You can include whatever you feel is appropriate for your child.  I love making books for James particularly as I know he gets so much enjoyment from them. 

Inform Everyone

Keep everyone who looks after or works with your child informed of what is going on.  James attends 2 different day services and also goes to a carer one day a week. They were all going to remain involved after James’ move. In order that they could support James in the best way possible I made sure they were all aware of when James would be moving, when we were starting visits with him etc. I didn’t want them to talk to James about it before we were ready.

Look After Yourself

Doing the practical things is quite honestly the easy bit. But whilst all this is going on you are very well aware that moving day is looming. For us this was complicated by Covid as we were in and out of lockdown and moving day was rearranged twice. This did not help my emotions at all. You will be all over the place emotionally. Make sure you get some support. I have a close group of friends whose children are in a similar situation to James. They really helped me a lot throughout this whole time, and still do. Of course, my immediate family did too, but you are aware that they are feeling it as well and you don’t want to overburden them. I’m fortunate to be able to say as a family we all supported each other. I also found it helpful that early on I was put in touch with another mum whose son lives in another home run by the same company. She really did know what I was going through and gave me a great deal of support for which I’m grateful. We are still in contact now too. 

The First Visit

You’ll need to think about when you feel is the right time to start visiting with your child.  We did this 4 weeks before James was due to move. That morning I started reading his life story book ‘James’ New House’ to him. Staff, who were by now very familiar to James, welcomed us to the house but Darryl, Harry and I took James into his flat ourselves. We showed him around and watched while he took it all in. The difference here to any other day service, respite unit etc. we had ever visited before was that this was full of his own things. Posters on the wall with pictures of his friends and family, a bookshelf of his own books, shelves of his own puzzles. It’s hard to know what he made of it but he soon settled happily at the table to do his puzzles with me. Think about your first visit and what your child may like to do but be flexible, things do have a horrible way of not always going according to plan.   

Plan as many visits as you can

Having introduced your child to their new home you need to visit regularly.  I took James to visit every Thursday. We gradually increased the time we spent there; we took our lunch with us. Staff would come in and spend time with us and then in the last couple of weeks I came away and left James there with staff. Darryl and I took James for visits at the weekends too. During this time, we read James life story book a lot and by now everyone knew that they could talk to James about his new house. James has no real concept of time which is why we didn’t start visits with him too long beforehand. You may choose to start visits sooner or later than we did.  

Organise Moving Day

Have a clear plan for moving day. It will be a difficult enough day without any added confusion. James went to his day service as normal. This allowed equipment services to be able to come in and dismantle James bed. This would have been too stressful for James. Not because of moving just because he would always be anxious with workmen around the house. Make sure staff at your child’s new home know what time you’ll be arriving, whether you want them to be with you and when you expect to leave. Talk to them beforehand about how you are feeling, they will support you, they do understand how difficult this is going to be. 

It’s Going to be Emotional

No amount of forward planning is going to make it easy, not from an emotional standpoint, but I do believe it helps if you know you have all the practical stuff covered. Even following James’ move we had a plan for the next few weeks, For example, the first weekend we visited we didn’t take him out. We didn’t want him to think he was in respite and we were taking him home. When we did first visit to take him out, we purposefully drove somewhere in the opposite direction to our home. James recognises the route to our house and again we didn’t want to let him think he was coming home. As hard as it was, we didn’t have James home to sleep over night until 4 weeks after he moved. We felt it was important he had time to settle in. We were, and still are very careful with the language we use making a clear distinction between ‘James’ house’ and ‘mum’s house.’ I don’t want to say we are going ‘home’ and him be confused. 

As I said at the beginning, I can only speak from my perspective but we found transition went as smoothly as can be expected. There will always be some bumps in the road. James still has his good and bad days, that’s James and how he will probably always be. I wish it wasn’t but it is. I’m sure having such a detailed transition period with staff from his home helped a lot and I’m very grateful to them for prioritising that. 

Everyone will have their own ideas that will work for them. I hope some of the things I’ve talked about will help you or give you ideas of how you can plan what is going to be a life changing experience for you and you son/daughter. But please, if something doesn’t go quite according to plan, don’t beat yourself up about it. We cannot always predict how our child is going to react in certain situations, we can all only do our best. 

 

If this is something you are currently experiencing or will be experiencing in the future then I really wish you the very best of luck. 

If I can help, or be a listening ear please do get in touch.   

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