By Sarah Kilby, Inclusive Behaviour Manager
Dom is 29 and lives in his own bungalow in Wigan.
He has a small, consistent staff team who know him well. He splits his time between support from MacIntyre and with his Dad. Dom has big plans, ambitions and things to look forward to.
For a long time, Dom’s life was unsettled and hard to predict.
Dom is autistic and has a learning disability and ADHD, which weren’t recognised until he was in his early twenties. Before that, he moved through mainstream schools and adult mental health services that were not able to support him in the right way. When things became overwhelming, the response was often about keeping things under control, rather than helping Dom feel understood.
By the time MacIntyre first became involved in 2019, Dom had already spent time in secure setting due to his self-injury and despite this Dom still had no way of expressing his needs other than using behaviours of concern. Dom was spending a lot of time in A&E, as his way of coping when things felt uncertain or overwhelming was to hurt himself and was, at the point MacIntyre met him, at risk of being re-admitted to secure mental health services.
Plans to support Dom were slowed by the pandemic, but relationships still began to form. The MacIntyre PBS team led and kept in contact with Dom and his dad, taking the time to get to know the both of them properly. They listened carefully to Dom’s experiences and took time to understand what life had been like for him, shaping specialist support in ways that made sense to Dom.
Dom began spending short periods in his home, which helped him settle and build relationship built on trust and real understanding of Dom’s past and his present.
To support Dom’s mental health needs his PBS Specialist worked with the Greater Manchester Mental Health team and supported Dom using an adapted version of Dialectal Behaviour therapy as part of a bespoke PBS framework approach. Dom worked on learning ways to manage anxious feelings, and practiced these skills in everyday situations, with support from people who knew him well. Over time, Dom became better able to express how he was feeling and ask for help without hurting himself.
Today, Dom receives two-to-one support and has a small team who have worked with him since he first joined MacIntyre. Who have experienced every up and own alongside him and been a constant, the very thing Dom needs most to overcome past trauma.
Dom now uses his experiences to help others. He works as an expert by experience as part of MacIntyre’s PBS team, sharing his perspective with professionals and contributing to wider conversations about care and support. He’s involved in theatrical performances, enjoys being busy, and takes pride in the life he’s building.
Dom’s life today is made up of ordinary things: a home of his own, people who know him, work that matters to him, and plans for the future. For Dom, living a gloriously ordinary life is possible because he has the right support in the right place, with people who stay.
