KS's Story
“I’m gonna shine like a star, because i’m the only me in this world”
KS came to live at Cascade in August 2017 after experiencing an episode of psychosis and coupled with a mild learning difficulty, it was felt that her needs were best met in a residential care environment. When KS first moved in she was very shy and needed lots of support in various areas of her life. It’s been one year since KS came to Cascade, and what a year it has been! Quickly, KS settled into life with us and her true cheeky character started to shine through.
With support from staff KS was assisted to make a morning routine to help her to start learning about her self care needs and become more independent in tending to them. Now, she's able to get herself ready to go in the morning almost without staff assistance. KS goes to a local college where we’ve been able to see her grow in confidence and learn new skills. KS is always keen to tell staff about her day at college, whether it be doing yoga, music making, learning money skills in the cafe or doing not so fun paperwork. At the end of last term Cascade were able to see some of her art skills when her class made cards to sell at the college fete. Alongside this, KS participates in Living Skill sessions at Cascade where she is learning about topics like the environment and money skills in creative and fun ways (which is always the best way to learn!) The two biggest things education at college and in the home has given KS the belief in herself that she can achieve confidence in her own skills. Lately we’ve been able to see this growing confidence in her own ability in other areas such as meal prepping, drink making and decision making.
KS’s medication comes with the side effect of increased appetite and the risk of weight gain. With a strong passion for encouraging the physical and mental health benefits of healthy lifestyles across all of our homes, Cascade has worked with KS for her to not only learn about her medication and why she takes it but also learn about what a healthy lifestyle is and empower her to be able to make healthier choices around meals and activities. Recently, KS was able to recognise that she wasn’t making healthy choices and this resulted in a fluctuation in weight. KS was able to work with staff to identify what changes could be made and picked some fun physical activities to do with staff to make her feel happier and healthier.
A big passion of KS’s is music, in particular listening to music, specifically Little Mix. Whether you’re a fan or not if you’ve worked with KS over the last year you will know every lyric to every song! Before coming to Cascade KS needed a lot of support to access community activities and could often display behaviours which made time in the community unsafe. With support from staff using ‘mutual expectations’ and ‘social stories’ KS was able to learn how to keep safe in the community and start to access activities which she enjoys. Most recently, KS was able to go with a staff member to go see none other than Little Mix, a dream come true for KS and something this time last year that would not have been possible.
By providing a caring, nurturing and safe environment KS has been able gain and develop many new skills which will help her to lead a more independent and meaningful life.