Taylor’s story
Taylor receives short breaks support from our Bristol team. Her mum explains how the support has helped Taylor become more independent whilst also providing respite for the rest of the family.
Our daughter Taylor is now 13 years old. She has Down’s Syndrome and also still experiences the side effects of having meningitis when she was a baby.
Taylor really enjoys her Short Breaks with her Kids Support Worker, Siobhan. I think it makes her feel more grown up and independent to be out with someone other than her parents. Taylor is very situational therefore she will go places and do things with Siobhan that if we were to do with her she would not enjoy as much. Possibly because we ‘protect’ her too much and constantly tell her to be careful!
Taylor now has more confidence that she can do things on her own or away from us. Siobhan encourages Taylor to pay with her own money and make her own choices. It’s great that she gets out into the community more and in different settings.
Originally Taylor’s dad was working away all week so we never had any time to discuss things or get things done and I was exhausting through working all week and being responsible for everything. So, from our perspective the time Taylor spends with Siobhan has allowed us to either discuss things or get things done that we could not necessarily do during the week or when he was home at weekends as Taylor wanted to spend time with him.
We are able to relax when Taylor is with Siobhan knowing that she is in safe hands; the value of this cannot be underestimated.
Taylor has become even more of a ‘home bird’ due to lockdown so coming out of it maybe more challenging but hopefully this may be made easier with the support of Siobhan when normal services resume. In the meantime, Siobhan has kept in touch and had video calls us – Taylor knows that others are still thinking of her and want to stay in touch.
