Lorna’s first steps to her new career

We want to celebrate Lorna this week, as not only has she taken the first steps to the rest of her career, but we love how she is embracing life and has achieved so much in the few years that we have known her.

We met with Louise and Janet, who work at Coventry Connect, FitzRoy’s day service, who told us more.

Louise, deputy manager, has supported Lorna for about six years now:

“When I first met her, she was 18, living in her own flat, with staff supporting her for 15 hours a day. It was felt that she needed that support as she was unable to do a lot of things on her own. As  a support worker at the time, I became quite frustrated, as I felt that we were preventing her rather than supporting her. I tried to support her to do things for herself but I was always told that it was too risky. When Lorna’s support was taken on by FitzRoy in 2022, I noticed an immediate step change. Not only did they recognise my potential and promote me to deputy manager, but they also supported the approach I wanted to try with Lorna.

“Lorna – prevented from doing things for herself – was bored, and would become frustrated and angry. Her resilience for dealing with sudden noises or change was very low. I started working with her and supporting other staff to let her learn and try. And Lorna loved it.

Over the past few years I have seen her flourish and find so much joy in her life. She loves Disney, she loves nature and animals – she adopted a stray cat –  and she is brilliant at making her own clothes.

“We now only support her for 15 hours a week, as she has managed to get on with her own life. We do check-ins with her, and when she tries something new, we support her if she needs us to.  When she did travel training, the first time she went on a bus on her own, I travelled behind her and just let her know that she could text me if she needed support and after that she was fine. Now she travels everywhere she needs to on her own, she doesn’t need to wait for staff to be there to accompany her. She goes on the train to visit her nan in Telford too.

“We recently started looking at jobs, Lorna wants a career that is something to do with nature or animals, so we researched local opportunities. We found a work placement at a local charity who recycles paper to make pet bedding.

We showed it to Lorna and she loved the idea. It is such a big step for her, and she has achieved it. She started three weeks ago and through this job,  she will build skills and experience to add to her CV, which is our next step.

When she isn’t working at her placement, Lorna is making her own Disney princess dresses, she likes to make a new dress for every occasion. Sometimes Louise or Janet take her to Warwick Castle, where she wears one of her princess dresses and has been known to delight local children who ask if she is a real princess.

Janet said “She has achieved so much, we are so proud of her, and she is overcoming challenges every day, and I have never seen her happier. She still gets frustrated or annoyed, like anyone else, and she has no worries about telling you exactly what she thinks!”