Is living your dream having complete independence or just having your own space and identity?
As long as I can remember, I have always dreamt about living independently. These dreams were filled with numerous visions of me living in a little apartment somewhere in the middle of town, where I could easily access any jobs or social events I wanted to. As I grew older this dream changed, I started to realise the reality of my needs.
Although I didn’t mind this set up, it did become a little frustrating in terms of expanding my opportunities for getting more work and furthering my studies, as both my parents live in pretty remote parts of Sydney. I found myself continuously thinking of how I could move out on my own. These ideas included house sharing with some friends or entering a group home.
It was thanks to my friend, Kristy, that I found out about Specialised Disability Accommodation (SDA). This setup is renting out an individual apartment that has accessibility features, such as doors that I can control with my iPad, plus a support team on site that I can access when I don’t have my own support.
So after a year of planning with the NDIS, I’m finally living in my apartment. I now feel that I’m right in the middle of my past dreams and it’s absolutely perfect.
One of the main reasons I call this so perfect is because I’ve had some situations when everything hasn’t been ‘perfect’ and I’ve had to develop my problem solving skills.
Some of these skills focus around me organising my own support team. Having a proper support team was the key to me being able to successfully live independently.
It involved me planning my roster as well as planning ahead if something does go wrong, like if a support worker has to cancel a shift at the last minute or if there’s something that I need to notify my team of quickly.
One of the strategies which I use to do this is through a Facebook Messenger thread. I find that this is a great system to communicate with all of my team at once and also bonds my team that little bit more.
- Ask your NDIS support coordinator or planner about starting the process.
- Have conversations with others including your family, support team and friends. For me, my support coordinator and occupational therapist were the key to making my dream a reality.
- Start working on your personal skills such as organising your team and systems like rosters and back ups.
- Build up your team. I’ve accumulated plenty of connections so I tend to do a Facebook post once in a while to see if anyone in my existing networks wants to join my team.
Written by Gretta
Darug land (Penrith, NSW)
A blog from the Hireup community
