What if there was somewhere i can go with my daughter (who has Intellectual Disability/Autism) where she can be involved in engaging activities that are part of life in a village-type environment? Where she receives "natural" community support, and the care-burden on myself is reduced and I can feel supported - by being with other families, where other families with special needs children can come and visit; where we can offer affordable engagement therapies, training and support for people whose passion lies in helping others while contributing to the greater good of our community, society and life?
I invite you to visit for a day, a week, a month... and help co-evolve this model for co-operative living. Whether you are a person with a disability who would like to experience a supported holiday, or a whole family who would like to be able to have a supported holiday/respite time TOGETHER with your family member with a disability, a member of the community/volunteer who'd like to help out and work together with special needs kids/adults or are an individual or family with other skills to contribute and a desire to create community
....My vision is to crowd fund between families of kids with special needs to create a time-share Super-Natural-Annuation type model for meeting the needs of ourselves and our children now and into the future. I aim to create a model that parents and people with disabilities themselves may co-invest in to propagate disability-friendly, accessible, inclusive, fun and natural spaces for people to coexist and work together and in the long term become self-sustaining through our activities and sharing new possibilities With other families for harmonious supported living.
What's so
For most families, it’s hard to imagine being able to go away on “holiday” with a family member with a disability. Often it's actually harder than living/staying at home because the usual respite or care supports can't be relocated (affordably...) And new environments often don't have the safeguards needed or what we have adapted for our homes in order for them to be "safe".
Currently, when families go away on holiday, they usually have to leave their PWD at a respite house somewhere and go holiday by themself/ves; or, take their family member with them (without their local carer support) which doesn’t then turn out to be a “holiday” (for parents of kids with high needs) at all!
Having a child with a disability can and does exclude families from reasonable and necessary family bonding time that most "normal" families take for granted. Not only in terms of care needs, but also some “normal” family holiday venues can cause parents/carers to feel uncomfortable/socially isolated and/or excluded.
This is especially so if the child demonstrates “inappropriate behaviours” (such as violent/vocal outbursts, unusual echolations, repetitive behaviors (stimmimg), having no sense of danger, need constant supervision, incomprehension of social norms and appropriate behavioral codes, and/or difficulty adapting to different situations). These children have high-support needs which limit their parent/s’/carer/s’ ability to participate in “normal” social/holiday activities.
This is especially so if the child demonstrates “inappropriate behaviours” (such as violent/vocal outbursts, unusual echolations, repetitive behaviors (stimmimg), having no sense of danger, need constant supervision, incomprehension of social norms and appropriate behavioral codes, and/or difficulty adapting to different situations). These children have high-support needs which limit their parent/s’/carer/s’ ability to participate in “normal” social/holiday activities.
What if families COULD go somewhere WITH their person with a disability, who can have appropriate care while the parents can also have some time out/retreat time... What if there were somewhere parents/Carers could regenerate themselves, Feel Supported and spend time with other parents in Similar situations...
Be able to do things They couldn't usually do like an early morning yoga class, go and meditate, have help with their family member with a disability's personal care, have organised activities s/he can be involved with with other kids where people are trained to know how to manage or redirect challenging behaviors (stimming and repetitive behaviors, nail biting, destroying things, incontinence,...) Where They can just have some time For themselves while knowing Their family member is still close by and Able to participate in holiday time In a village/family type environment.
Be able to do things They couldn't usually do like an early morning yoga class, go and meditate, have help with their family member with a disability's personal care, have organised activities s/he can be involved with with other kids where people are trained to know how to manage or redirect challenging behaviors (stimming and repetitive behaviors, nail biting, destroying things, incontinence,...) Where They can just have some time For themselves while knowing Their family member is still close by and Able to participate in holiday time In a village/family type environment.
Matching and catering for different physical support needs in terms of accommodation and behavioural support skills and communication methods will be the challenge but we hope to in time be able to accommodate everyone at varying stages or help inspire the set up a specific Trajectories or pods/replications of the project to assist target/niche groups - assemble a variation for their specific needs. See map C.
(Interesting Possibility: If a support worker supports a few families... those families could all crowd fund as one group and come to the respite village and still all receive their "normal" support time. TOgether, families could all pay for the transport and the support worker could have a kind of working holiday experience.)
This model has a large reliance or invitation for volunteers to be involved and share their skills. In addition there would be local support workers (Balinese, Indonesian)
This model has a large reliance or invitation for volunteers to be involved and share their skills. In addition there would be local support workers (Balinese, Indonesian)
Different physical support needs in terms of accommodation will be the challenge but we hope to be able to accommohe project to assist target/niche groups - assemble a variation for their specific needs. See map C.
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