Musings on Section 5

We pray for young people who have disabilities or who are ill.

Young people who need support to live from day to day.

Young people whose lives are frequently interrupted by trips to and from hospital.

Young people who each celebrate their own personal achievements.

These are your young people and we pray for them: We know you love them

In the week leading up to Easter as I write this whilst preparing for Dawn Live on Easter morning I am thinking of those young people who find it difficult to celebrate and are not able to be with their family at this holiday time.

With study leave for many now starting we must remember to celebrate all personal achievements with young people. For many the simple act of making a meal or dressing themselves can be a personal achievement.

For some their achievements are not recognised as their difficulties living in society are focussed on. For some young people who cannot achieve highly in a standard academic sense of GCSEs and A-Levels they bring their own learning and knowledge. Perhaps their strength is greater than that of the academic young person or they have learned to live in the wilderness or build a fire in the wet that those more used to learning by paper and pen cannot do.

Support for such young people is essential, however this support must not be crippling. I am reminded of one restbite week where I was working with a young man, Rhys, aged 14 who came out to the minibus at the start of the week being pushed by his mother and two volunteers had to assist him into the minibus from his wheelchair and go to collect his bag for him. Through active support we learned that he could walk unassisted for short periods and despite the assessment we had received stating that he had to be dressed by adult staff with a little assistance there were parts of dressing he could perform himself. Through that little attention to the things he could do we built on his skills using the wheelchair less and preparing his clothes in a way that he could put them on himself. This gave Rhys a sense of self that he had not been able to have before as he had to dress in what was prepared for him when someone did it for him. The week went on as did his progress. By the end of the week when we returned to his house to return him to his parents this young man walked out of the minibus, grabbed his bag and walked into the house past his mother whilst we were still unpacking the wheelchair from the bus. His mum was amazed at the progress he had made and I can still picture her face as we then went on to tell her that the clothes he was in he had chosen and put on himself for to Rhys this was an amazing personal achievement that his support had just not seen as something important to Rhys before.