A parent’s love for their child is all-encompassing, even when that child grows up. This blog shows how great support can make the world of difference. Thank you Chris for being so open about Rupert’s journey in this blog.

Steve is a locality manager for Brandon; he’s worked with us for four years and began as a team leader. He tells us about his journey in setting up a brand-new service for a group of young people in Yate.

Simon was born into a very loving family. Our father was a hard working parish priest, and despite clergy incomes being quite low, our mother has never worked for an income, but always saw her role as full-time mother. We were both cared for so well, and our parents could not have done more to give us both as good a childhood as you could wish for.

Mary is a student, an artist, and she works for Brandon as a Quality Checker. Having been supported by Brandon for the last year, Mary became part of the first group of Brandon Quality Checkers six months ago. Mary is keen to help make sure other people receive the same level of support that she does. And if she can help to improve support generally, that’s even better.

At one flexible support service in Wiltshire, they are keen to enable everyone they support to take part in the sorts of activities that most people take for granted. In December 2018, they took a group of people ice-skating to the largest outdoor rink in the south-west.

Tony began working in the care sector 37 years ago and for the last 25 years he has been supporting people with learning disabilities, autism or both. As support has evolved, he has found he has more time working with people and providing direct support. This enables him to better support individuals to make their own choices, to give them time to do that. The difference time makes is obvious. He explains that one of the gentlemen he supports, Clarence, has gone from saying single words to short sentences.