Ben's story

People in this video
Sandra Whittington, Community Support Worker
Ben

Sandra: This is Brighton Outreach. What we do at Brighton Outreach is set up support packages for people depending on their needs and we work with their local authorities on this. We have got quite a complex support plan for Ben.

He is a guy that has got high-level autism and deafness and faces discrimination on a daily basis.

Today we have been out in the community. That’s part of my job, to be with Ben and go out.

What our aim is, is for him to be able to live independently in the community with a limited amount of staff support. But at the moment he is still living with his parents, so this is why we are going in to gear him up so that he’s got the skills to be able to live on his own.

Road safety awareness is a massive part of the work we are doing with him. Today we have done some road awareness and traffic lights and looking both ways and just making sure he is aware.

Benjamin lives quite out of town so really what our aim is is that he’s able to travel to college independently without staff support, so we have been doing a lot of bus routes from his house to the colleges he goes to, which involves him buying tickets and talking to bus drivers and finding alternative ways to communicate. We give him all the equipment that he needs, maybe pen and paper or visual cards, and even one of the drivers on his route has said to me ‘I need to know how to say hi, good morning’ and that is really nice because you see that people in the local community do want to help.

Another thing we have done recently is to open him a bank account and he has his own cashpoint card and he can go and withdraw funds as he needs them and we have drawn up a comprehensive plan about how to manage his money with staff support and support from his parents.

Shopping - he loves to go out shopping and part of my role working with Benjamin is that he is able to attend the shops and buy his own things, and so he needs to budget build and look at how much he has got for certain things and what he needs. Although we have got quite a comprehensive support plan with him, we do have some fun times too. Sometimes he goes to the library and he has a fantastic memory so he stores all that information really well.

Seeing the shy person when I originally first met Ben ... he was quite shy, couldn’t give anyone eye contact, hated being in group situations, and now he is totally different, really confident. You go out with him and often he'll tell me where I'm going wrong, saying 'this is where we need to be going', 'this is what we need to be doing' ... yes totally different…it just makes your day really. He's a guy that just gets up in the morning and goes right, 'here we go'.

Ben: [signed, interpreted by Sandra] I'm going to be a carpenter. Woodwork.

Sandra: He's just done a first year diploma in bricklaying, which initially everybody thought this was a big jump from the courses we had done previously, and will he be able to cope, but with this right support and us going in and giving him that support, it has made a tremendous difference.

Ben: [signed, interpreted by Sandra] I want to learn to drive. I want to go to driving school.

Sandra: We have so many success stories. It’s a job that people are now recognising and saying we need this. We are promoting people’s dignity and independence.

I got faced with the question the other day, somebody asked “Why do you charge this hourly rate?” and I said, because you’ve got the best. I could say that with confidence because that was true. I know that every staff member that goes out and does work within Brighton Outreach, in the community, does the best job possible and has all the right skills and qualifications to do so.

This is what we do, this is what we are about and we can come in and change people's lives potentially. Because some people are still in really vulnerable situations, really lonely situations with no support networks and RNID can go in and they can provide that, and actually give people their lives back. This is what it's all about and this is why I do my job. I feel so passionate. It really does make me think yeah, I'm going to work and I'm doing something and I'm changing things, and how many people can say that when they go to work?