Reflecting on the Past: The Story of Hayden
Hayden is an 11-year-old boy living with autism and ADHD. Through the years, Hayden’s parents encountered many challenges in finding care where his needs and requirements are met and where genuine care intertwines with expertise. They attended courses to learn strategies to assist the process, seeking to better understand and support Hayden’s unique communication challenges and to create an environment where Hayden could feel understood.
Hayden faces challenges in everyday living, and the circumstances he has experienced have influenced his behaviour. Despite Hayden’s unique strengths, he had difficulty managing his daily tasks and interacting with his family.
After he was released from the hospital due to media coverage of his mother, Jaycee, who publicly told the story about the case, he expressed himself with feelings of isolation. But the story took a positive turn and gave Hayden hope when he needed it most.
This profoundly moving case study highlights the importance of the person-centred and proactive support Leaf Complex Care provides for Hayden, leading to an inspirational journey of positive progress and impact.
Facing the Challenges
Actively seeking the right support, his parents needed assurance that there would be more investment in their child’s future – to receive the support that would suit him and make him feel safe.
“We (parents) don’t have a chance to look out for our mental health, and that is what’s impacted most. I think it’s the isolation, being able to socialise, feeling trapped, feeling like you can’t help your own child, but yet you can’t get the support you need to enable you to do that. And that feels awful as a parent, for any parent to have to go through, let alone you’re still battling that and having doors shut in your face when you just ask for support so your child can thrive.” – says Jaycee, his mom.
How Meeting the Right Support Enables Positive Outcomes
When Leaf Complex Care’s support workers were placed to support Hayden’s journey, we knew that his well-being would be at the heart of the support we provided so he could live his best life.
With the initial 5:1 support, the staff got to know Hayden better and developed a strong bond based on trust and great friendship. With an established personalised Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) care plan that reflects Hayden’s social needs, the support workers ensured they knew the care plan before supporting Hayden, focusing on the right care.
Highly trained in managing behaviour that challenges, the support staff understood Hayden’s triggers and how to support him at those moments. After some time, Hayden started being happier and more social, completing many activities such as swimming, trampolining, bowling, and writing. He started visiting different parks and landmarks he saw in his favourite books and wanted to visit them with his support workers. He then goes home, shares the adventure with his parents, and draws pictures of the whole experience.
Hayden had built a positive and trusting relationship with his team, which resulted in reduced challenging moments. He has a consistent team that knows Hayden well, encouraging him to achieve his personal goals in every aspect of life. Due to this positive shift, the support has been reduced to 2:1.
His mom adds: “Hayden is happy and can go and choose the activities he wants to do. Hayden has two carers who support him every day. They have built a great relationship with him. They know him very well, almost as well as us as parents. They can see him getting dysregulated before it happens, which often makes the whole difference to the day because it gives him a chance to be supported at the moment and do what he loves the most.”
The Impact of Meeting Hayden’s Needs
To help him achieve greater engagement with the local community and enjoy life to the fullest, as his care provider, Leaf Complex Care ensured that Hayden has an extensive network of support from the internal team, such as our PBS practitioner and speech and language therapist, to provide a personalised care plan.
Hayden does many new community-based activities, which he enjoys and has been incorporated into his timetable.
“I started working the care package when Hayden was 11 years old. It started 5:1, and now it is 2:1. We worked so hard; it was a long journey to be where we are with Hayden. He used to protest so much in different ways, but knowing your passion for care, we supported him to be who he is today. We don’t see much of the risks happening now.” – says Steven, one of Hayden’s support workers.
It’s all about coming together to improve care and people’s well-being. Integrated care allows us to rethink the way we care for one another, so we prioritised working with Hayden alongside his family, the local authorities and the educational setting to meet his needs. Hayden began his educational journey with successful regular tutoring for 2 hours daily, providing personalised support. Hayden’s team continuously meet to discuss and review the support plan and ensure they all support the same person-centred and humanised approach.
”It’s refreshing to have a team that understands and has the knowledge of how to support Hayden.” – says his father.
“Things are going well; we are really happy with how everything is going and more importantly, Hayden is so happy and looks forward to each day. We can’t thank you all enough. Even professionals visiting him are shocked at the difference in him.” – adds Jaycee.
We aim for Hayden to feel safe and supported, have a stable home environment where he can spend time with his family and have his care team in one place.
