Living a Goodlife - Adam
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Ivan (Adam’s father): I think a lot of 22 year olds would want to have as much variety in their lives as
Adam has.
Karen (Adam’s mother): He is quite an active, happy person. Likes to be out and about, likes to be
walking, riding in the car, bus, ferry - all sorts of transport. And he’s engaged with people he likes
interacting with people, he’s really quite happy.
Voiceover: Adam has a strong network drawn from his extended family and a young team of support
staff.
Harri (Supporter): We are all around Addy’s age, and we do go out and have social outings as well
as supporting him with his work and things like that.
Ivan (Adam’s father): So we are pretty confident that the mix that he has between his work and his
play and his living is reasonably on track. He has a pretty full life.
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Voiceover: Adam has come a long way in recent years, with the help of his circle of support.
Karen (Adam’s mother): This is the idea of a group of people coming together around the person
with the disability. Most of our circle are family members and a couple of close friends and a few of
Adam’s cousins who are in his age group. So this started whilst Adam was still at school and we
were really planning for what was going to happen after school. We worked on who would be part
of the circle and they come along and meet about every 6-8 weeks.
Ivan (Adam’s father): There has always been a realization that we needed to have something
beyond what just Karen and I could provide. The issues sometimes are bigger that what Karen and I
can deal with.
Karen (Adam’s mother): They are like the engine room who help make decisions, so it’s not just
Ivan and myself making decisions for Ivan it’s a wider group of people.
Ivan (Adam’s father): But at the back of our minds always is what happens when we are not around
and that’s where the circle logically kicks into gear big-time.
Karen (Adam’s mother): This is one of the newsletters that my brother writes “Adam’s apple” and
this was the edition after the big five-year planning meeting. So everyone’s ideas about Adam
having enjoyable productive work, skills for everyday life, communicating my own needs and
personal goals.
Voiceover: Karen and Ivan used a facilitator at first to get the circle of support started.
Ivan (Adam’s father): The real task at the outset is to ask people to step in, that’s always difficult. So
the initial approach needs to be facilitated I believe. I am not sure we could have done it without
that. But then you need to own it. There comes a point where the consultant slips away and you as
the family have got to drive it. And sometimes it’s hard work. But when you have members like the
ones we have it’s a whole lot easier.
Karen (Adam’s mother): My brother is actually the convener of the circle so he will email everyone
and remind them when the meetings are on and send out notes and he does take notes and
disseminate them so that part is a bit formal. That’s more to remind everybody what was said at the
meeting and what people might have offered to do or ideas. But the actual meetings themselves
aren’t so formal, it’s really everybody chatting and hearing about what Adam has been up to and
making the suggestions.
Ivan (Adam’s father): Too actually share in someone’s life is something that a lot of people don’t get
the opportunity to do and so I think if there is a genuine respect and there is a genuine recognition
of what people are doing then people feel valued. And I think if you can do that then that is the way
to sustain it.
Voiceover: Members of Adam’s circle do a lot of the big picture thinking and his support staff
implements it on a day-to-day basis.
Karen (Adam’s mother): Monday and Friday that he does volunteering. On Monday he goes to
Centennial Park and replaces all the park brochures in the stands around the park so that involves a
big walk around the park and restocking the brochure stands and then they have lunch there. And
Friday the volunteering is at Neilson Park where he picks up litter and helps tidy the grounds.
Zoe (Supporter): The rubbish collection that we do, that’s like an activity that is pretty much
designed for Adam because he likes picking stuff up.
Karen (Adam’s mother): So this is Adam after receiving his Woollahra Council Award for Young
Citizen of the Year.
Voiceover: Being productive is important to Adam and his family. Adam works two days a week
doing food deliveries for an organisation called Food Connect.
Julian Lee (Food Connect Sydney- Enterprise Coordinator): Adam came to us he is the son of one of
our subscribers who came to us with the idea that he might be able to help us with home delivery.
So Adam basically comes to the warehouse picks up the boxes that he has been assigned. He has to
check off what he has been given by us is correct, figure out where they are going to be dropped-off,
and then go to those locations and drop the correct number of boxes of the right type at those
locations. If there is somebody there then be friendly and charming.
Karen (Adam’s mother): Its helping him build up his physical strength a bit lifting the boxes, putting
them in and out of the car, navigating to the point of drop-off and putting the box down gently that
took quite a lot of practice to learn to do that. So there’s quite a few skills involved. I really do think
that Adam realises and is happy to have had a productive day. The interaction with people along the
way and the feeling that he had a job well done is a good thing. At the moment he is doing half a
day at a Mitre 10 store in Matraville, he does quite a few tasks there: he stacks things onto the
shelves, he puts the store stickers on a lot of the merchandise which is his favourite task really and
he is really good and quick at that.
Voiceover: Adam has self-managed funding to tailor a way of life to suit his interests.
Ivan (Adam’s father): I think with Adam’s issues being in a group situation would bring the worst
out of him, and so to be able to do something individualized, there was no consideration it was just
something that was instinctive and was something that we wanted to put in place from the outset.
Harri (Supporter): Addy’s team and family can make decisions and spend his government funding in
a way that is very positive and suitable to Adam and his life.
Karen (Adam’s mother): It just means you can choose what to spend the money on, which people
will be around to support Adam, who will be paid through this funding. You can tailor the program
instead of being a program where people go and do a program like everybody else. It’s really Adam’s
program, it’s what he likes to do and the self-management has allowed us to do that.
Playing in the park
Voiceover: Adam employs a young team of enthusiastic staff. They take their job seriously.
Harri (Supporter): I always see it as the opportunity for me to see the world through very different
eyes.
Karen (Adam’s mother): They are mostly uni students and at the moment most of them have come
through knowing one of the previous ones. One of them coordinates all of the others and writes the
rosters and runs meetings and is like a link person between them.
Last year for Adam’s birthday his team leader organised for all his support workers and other
members of family and people to contribute to an iPad which is excellent that Adam now has for
communication and other things and all of his support people enjoy taking photos and posting them
on it and they look at it with Adam and they are to encourage him to use Facebook.
Voiceover: With such an extensive network it’s important to have good communication between all
parties.
Karen (Adam’s mother): This is the diary that the supporters write in each day, what Adam’s done
and the heading just says what he does for the day. And there is a different thing that we are
working on that they will tick off and each read what the previous people have done. For example
this says, ‘Excellent clear speech when ordering at lunch,’ which is something everyone is working on
and they would all be very happy to read that Adam ordered his lunch clearly on that day.
Ivan (Adam’s father): Their input is valued, at the end of the day when they write the stuff in the
book you were looking at, they don’t do that because it’s a job, they do that because they know that
the next person coming on wants to have an idea of where Adam’s at.
Karen (Adam’s mother): Living in my own place these were all the things that came up at the
meeting so he has documented this and the main one is that Ivan put it so well “It’s all about
keeping Adam in the driver’s seat”. Eventually we are hoping that Adam will move out of home and
be living in his own home with a few, one, two or three or more house sharers we are not quite sure
about that yet. So that will need quite a lot of planning. The young ones are getting to the picture I
think that this is a long term thing that Adam really needs people planning and structuring his life for
him, it’s not just going to happen.
Ivan (Adam’s father): It just does require a fair amount of planning. But there is a lot of solace that
comes from that. For me to just sit back and let the situation take hold would be the greatest stress.
The fact there is movement and progress; it gives me a lot of satisfaction.
Voiceover: Adam’s circle of support helps him take part in the community in an enjoyable and
meaningful way.
Ivan (Adam’s father): Adam has a very strong, non-verbal way of communicating things. There is no
doubt the fact he is doing things that he wants to do means that he is having a better quality of time
doing that.
Karen (Adam’s mother): There are times when you think, what the point of all this, does Adam really
want to do it? But I think when you see him and his smiling face, his willingness to take his bag and
go out the door and approach the day I think that it is clear that he is happy with what he is doing.