Our first case in Essex a year on!

The Cascade Foundation was supporting a 33-year-old man with a diagnostic of epilepsy, Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and fractured spine.  He is now divorced from his wife and only allowed to see his children at appointed times, in the presence of his mother.  He was unable to work because of his physical disabilities through two serious accidents.

He was due to go before the court having been offered the chance to move into a self-contained flat.  This meant that he had to be released from the tenancy of the family home.  His wife was to be present at the court hearing and our CEO was allowed to accompany him during this time, giving him much needed moral support.  Throughout the hearing he remained very calm, which prompted the Judge to ask his ex-wife and solicitor to thank him for attending.  All those present agreed this case was to move forward and he would be able to get his own flat by leaving the tenancy of the family home.

His mother, who had been caring for him was in full time work was at her wits end. 

Several years ago, he had fallen from his attic, breaking three bones in his back.  The pain was so severe that he was given morphine which started him on the long road of dependency on prescription drugs.  Two years later he was involved in a car accident which left him with frontal lobe brain damage, leading to more medication and severe epilepsy.

He had been living in a halfway house in Southend and was in contact with estate agencies to find suitable living accommodation for him to move to.  The night before he was due to move into his flat, he had a severe seizure after forgetting to take his epilepsy medication.  He was taken into hospital overnight and sent back to the halfway house the next day.  From here both our CEO and one of our trustees helped him to pack all his belongings into the car and were ready to move him in.  They were so shocked to see how ill he looked, he was very disorientated, but they managed to move him in to his new flat and helped to set up with temporary bed and chairs.

After the first lockdown The CEO and trustee decided to give him a surprise visit.  He was asleep on the settee with left-over food, birthday presents, and medication all around him.  There were jars of old cigarette ends and ash all around the floor and on his new settee which was now looking the worse for wear.  His bedroom was even more shocking, with cigarette burns all over his bed clothes, which proved to be a serious fire hazard and at the side of his bed were his hospital trousers which covered a pool of stale vomit that had been there for some time. 

The previous evening the trustee was on the phone to him.  When the carer arrived, the call was ended but unbeknown to the client the phone had not been switched off.  Although the trustee had tried to call to the client to switch off his phone he did not hear.  The carer was quite abrupt with the client and spent very little time at the flat, clearly not making any attempt to deal with the mess that it was in.  The client passed on the message to another regular carer that his visitors were unimpressed the way the flat had been left and straight away another carer had been sent in to clean the flat thoroughly and wash all the floors.  Later that day the trustee took the client to the shops where they bought brand-new bedding and stripped the whole bed and hoovered all the loose ash and sprayed the whole mattress.  He has since stopped smoking completely and makes sure that his bed clothes are kept clean regularly.

The CEO research into this company and found that the company had not been running for long so there were no accounts or CQC available.

The client is in constant contact with a neurologist team who have given him a red flag for surgery to his spine.  This has been cancelled many times due to the COVID-19.

He has many interests which have been his salvation.  He is a musician and with much encouragement from family members he is now back into playing the piano and guitar.  He is completely clear of his addition to morphine and keeps his flat extremely clean.  His other love is technology, and he was original employed as an electrical engineer. He has since carried out electrical repairs and checks for family and friends.

In September 2020 the trustee had a call from an ambulance team to say he needed to go to Basildon hospital after having a severe seizure.  As this was out of their area they asked if someone could take him to the hospital.  The CEO and trustee arrived to take over from the ambulance crew and took him to Basildon where he stayed for one week.  They were carrying out many tests on his brain activity and found a chemical imbalance that was setting off his seizures.  They found a new medication that has calmed the seizures right down.  He looked so well when he returned back to his flat.

He had always love to tinker with mobile phones or computers and so with the help of our trustee he was set up with a spreadsheet that would help him to budget his money each month.  He has now purchased tools to help him take old phones apart and repair them or build new phones from parts of damaged phones that have been sold on eBay.  He has now set up a small company where he can buy parts and sell new phones on eBay which is proving to be quite successful.

He spent this last Christmas with his mother which gave them both so much happiness.  He is now on the road to recovery and everyone is seeing the change in him.  This last year has been so hard for him and yet he’s turning himself around.  his family and friends are so proud of what he has achieved.  He is in constant contact with his children by phone and hopefully he will be able to have regular visits with them again.

He is now taking much interest and has become involved with The Cascade Foundation.  He wants to be able to provide support to others who have been in similar situations and help where he can.  Nobody could have for seen how these two accidents would have completely torn his life apart, but with his own self determination and support and love that surrounds him he has been able to turn this around into something positive in helping others.  A great part of The Cascade ethos!

 

 

 

How fate intervened and how Cascade came home

It’s exactly a year that The Cascade Foundation left Doncaster.  It’s strange how things turn out, we were meant to leave and return home, as if fate had intervened.  I didn’t want to leave the Hub, new ideas were developing with the Children’s Trust and the council who were beginning to understand our ideas, our Hub and our ethos.

The feeling was strong, it was time to move on and cut our overheads, passing our furniture and items on to great homes.  We had spent a lot of time observing the River Don just beside our Hub, where we had planted blue bells and daffodils on the bank.  Four months after leaving the Hub it was flooded, taking weeks before we could return to see the damage the water had caused.  We were so relieved to have moved everything out to safety in time.

Our two bids had just been turned down.  These took place in three areas, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield, and were with two of our ex-offender social enterprise companies.  We could not find any monies to continue our courses, so the difficult decision was made to return home.

We had our first meeting in Essex January 2020.  We had been inundated with support from bid writers, volunteers, teachers and a new trustee.  Although we were moving forward, our learners from Doncaster were staying in touch by text messages, Facebook and phone.  We continued to support them and were asked for many references.  Many of our learners continued their learning at the local college, which was such a great achievement as it took such a lot of courage for so many of them to return to education.

In February 2020, I was to stay with our trustee (Sue Blackburn), who is also the  secretary of The Cascade Foundation, until we had found our next project and funding.  Something was happening. Sue became ill, she was feeling lethargic, unable to carry out her daily routines or attend the gym for over a month.  After two visits to the doctor, a course of antibiotics and a really bad cough, we had hit the Covid-19 and did not know it!

On 23 March just before lockdown, I moved back with my mother and Candy the dog.  My last project was as the aftercare supporter for the ‘Write Offs’ programme.  During lockdown I continued supporting people through FaceTime and phone, much to the disbelief of my mother who could not believe the calls, chats and laughter coming from every call.  Another failed bid attempt had set us the impossible task of knowing that over 3,000 charities had applied for the same monies.  I spent time writing a report of 66,000 words telling of our work in Doncaster.  I was contacted by a journalist who offered his help and input to the report, helping me to focus and filter out five important sections to make it easier for readers to understand the full extent of our work.

The report, ‘Dyslexia Behind Bars II: The Co-Production Teaching, Mentoring & Coaching within Doncaster Prison and Through the Gate into the Community – over 6 years (2013 – 2019)’ is in its final stage before we launch it to the world!

In Julie’s blog we spoke of how Julie had been unable to get a job and had been unemployed for several years.  She is now employed and people can see the dedication that she gives to her employer.  Julie has now been working for the last year and she received a letter from her employer which said: ‘Thank you for being a star in this most challenging of years.’  The support and kindness that she gives to Cascade learners and management is amazing and her donations help us all to continue our work with The Cascade Foundation.