Lightbulb momentsand reflections
Lightbulb moments and reflections
Throughout the research, especially in the Learning Community, there were lots of occasions where people had a ‘lightbulb moment’ when they recognised that something was possible or relevant. This section contains those reflections and examples of how attainable a good life can be. Before you dive in, remember to be careful that everyday moments of enjoyment do not become packaged as a formal activity and somewhat stifled.
10 minutes of Britney
I love listening to Britney Spears. Any of it, absolutely anything, guilty pleasure. I just find it, like, if I’m having a particularly stressful day, or I’ve got a really big piece of work coming in that’s quite stressful, or I’ve got a lot to think about when I’m driving home and I don’t want to, I put the music on and then after about 3 or 4 minutes find myself humming and singing along to it. So it must take my mind off it subconsciously, I always feel a little bit better I suppose. Cassandra | Service Manager
Oi,
what do you mean you like sushi?!
I’m thinking, I was with a lady that we support a few weeks ago and we were doing a bit of an icebreaker. One of the questions came up was what food we like. And we heard McDonalds, burgers, you know, what you expected to hear, and she said “sushi” and it was like she had said a foreign word. People were like Sushi?!? You like Sushi?
And I was like “go, go Cheryl you love sushi, it’s brilliant” but then she said to me, “I don’t know who would take me to eat sushi, because my staff don’t like sushi” and that kind of “ohhhh, OK” so that was a real eye opener for me and I drove home that day worried that I thought “god, that’s, is that going to be a barrier, because of who can take her for that, or, you know, she’s the only one in the house that likes it out of 5, let’s go to McDonalds, she’ll be fine, she’ll eat that she’s a bit compliant, la la la”
That’s just, yeah, I don’t know why that’s in my mind, it’s come into my thoughts, I hadn’t sort of thought that out loud since that moment, but, yeah, that worries me, those kind of barriers, just to do with normal things that we would do, you know if we were to go round the room now and someone said sushi, we’d go “brilliant” we wouldn’t go “Oh, god, that’s shocking” and you know, it is, it was, it was different, very different to hear. Nicola | Support Worker
To walk and run,bunny hop and clap
Josh particularly likes walking. He’s six foot six, so walking is… he’s got a lot of energy and being able to just walk seems to give him a sense of being in control of the world. Especially when it’s places that he knows. Where he’s got freedom. […] But being able to just walk in open land and places that are familiar to him where he isn’t having to be given instructions for his safety and just be himself and be free, he really likes. And it also seems to get rid of a lot of his nervous energy and his anxiety, is just to be able to walk and run and bunny hop and clap and be excited. Jane | Josh’s sister
Wind in hair
There’s a gentleman who likes to sit outside with the wind in his hair. So how do I capture that and make sure that’s built in? But given the, the importance and praise that it’s worth, ten minutes out there is worth just as much. Cassandra | Service Manager
Michael’s perfect day
Michael’s perfect day would be getting up and having a bacon butty with loads of brown sauce, half a bottle of brown sauce, and going out. Travelling around on buses, trains, sometimes he doesn’t even care where he goes. Talking to the staff at the underground stations asking them lots of questions. Going around on the underground or going somewhere. June | Michael’s mum
One bad day
He had one bad incident where he perhaps wasn’t feeling great, and they took it to mean that he didn’t want to go trampolining anymore. Jane | Josh’s sister
Tickbox Leisure
The telly might be on all the time, maybe not on a channel that has any interest to them. And the telly being on, that’s a kind of tick-box for leisure activity. Lisa | Alan’s sister
Absolute happiness
His ideal day is when he’s on holiday. He flourishes when he’s abroad, in a hot climate, with a sandy beach, to be able to go and paddle in the sea, to be able to go and have ice-creams and do long walks, to have lots of quality time with people he cares about. Those are the times when I’ve seen him at his absolute happiest. Jane | Josh’s sister
Saying no
Yes I think it is, because you’ve got to speak up for what you want really, if you want to do something, like if you’d like to do it I’ll say. Because I haven’t always had choice in my life really, I've been told ‘you have to do this, it’s mandatory you can’t get out of it’. Whereas if I wouldn’t want to do it, I was always afraid to say no. But now I know that I can choose to say no if I want. Martin
Recognition and achievement
One thing that’s missing for me from that is recognition and achievements I think. You do see people with learning disabilities achieving so much these days. And I know how Robert responds when he's recognised because he's done something well or been good at something. If I tell him that I've spoken to his manager at work and they've given me some really good feedback about how well he's doing at work you just see him grow. Helen | Robert’s sister
One of the pack
I have four dogs, and quite often when I’m out with them I just do feel like I’m part of their pack, you know, weird I get like an unspoken sense of belonging with them Michaela, Support Worker. Michaela | Support Worker.
Maintaining confidence
I don’t know, we see it a lot in care, where we have to argue with social workers to keep certain activities in with staff support “oh yes, but they can go to that dance class now, they know the way, they’re confident at going, they’re confident at you know, dance teacher and they get their way back, thank you very much, you’ve done a brilliant job.” But it’s not about the route, it’s not about them taking part, it’s about the person being there and you know, providing that little, you know, could be two or three words through that whole hour potentially, just at that reassurance, or that confidence that knowing that if anything does go wrong, there is somebody sitting in the corner who they can go to. And I think it’s very difficult for people to unpick confidence in an activity sometimes. And it can all crumble with just sometimes the removal of one corner. Cassandra | Service Manager
