This is Katy’s Story. Katy lives in Sheffield and has an acquired brain injury that affects various aspects of her health. This includes her mobility, energy levels and her emotional well-being.
Following a referral by her social worker, she was introduced to the team at IBK initiatives and had their help in employing a Personal Assistant (PA) to support her with everyday living. Initially Kate, IBK’s PA Recruitment and Development Worker, advised Katy how a PA could meet her needs, then together they compiled a list of interview questions to find the most suitable person, “Would you do arts and crafts with me? Can we have girly film days? How would you be able to help in situations where I am stressed?”. Katy instantly connected with Abby after chatting about shared interests and they have happily been employer and PA for over a year.
Katy told us that having Abby visit her 2-3 times a week had made a significant difference to her quality of life and self-esteem, “When Abby first started with me I was having loads of low days all the time where I just couldn’t be bothered to get up, to get out of my pyjamas or anything like that. I was very anti-social; I wouldn’t leave the flat or anything”. Slowly, with Abby’s help this changed. The pair made a plan to get “adulting” done and out of the way each day, from food shopping to paying bills and have a “happy project” to look forward to afterwards, for example upcycling furniture or building gerbil cities for Katy’s six (!) gerbils. This new routine, Katy says, has given her, “more of my happy days compared to what I used to be like… [Abby] adds all sorts to my life and it’s just amazing”.
Abby’s assistance extends beyond the practical, to being a consistent source of emotional support for Katy. Katy feels comfortable being open about any worries or concerns she has with her and they both “have that sisterly understanding when girls just need to vent”. For Abby, this is where IBK Initiatives sets itself apart from other similar organisations; by ensuring one dedicated, carefully matched PA, “[you make] relationships that you can build trust and confidence in… [being a PA is] more than just doing jobs and… being checklist focused, it’s being there to have somebody to listen to”. Katy agreed with this and said Abby “was there for me when it felt like no one else was”.
Through having a PA, Katy has developed her life skills such as eating healthier and managing her shopping budget. She used to find shopping stressful, relying on online shopping that sometimes led to overspending. However, with Abby’s help she has started pre-planning meals, buying ingredients using the supermarket Scan and Go machine to work to a set budget. This, alongside buying diced frozen vegetables to overcome problems Katy has manually chopping, has resulted in a more manageable, healthier diet that she enjoys, “before I just had takeaways because I wouldn’t be up for preparing food or anything whereas now, I have Abby and she helps me prepare things. I have to go and cook them or put it in the slow cooker. My favourite is healthy chicken lasagne.”.
Katy and Abby have shared lots of happy times together including a visit to Yorkshire Wildlife Park to celebrate Katy’s birthday. Katy remembered, “I was in my wheelchair and this wallaby came up to me and showed me its baby and put its head on my leg and I was just like I want it! So, I wanted to bring that one home. Actually, I wanted to bring them all home. There were ring tailed lemurs as-well, they were amazing”. Besides this, the pair have enjoyed visits to the Deep, York Christmas market and Graves Farm and regularly go out playing wizards unite, exercise that has improved Katy’s mobility. Above all, Katy enjoys arts and crafts, a pastime that has thrived in the last year with her flat adorned in paintings, such as fish made by melted wax crayons – a technique using Katy’s tremor to create beautiful art.
