How low ...

There is always the concern that we really do not know what is happening behind closed doors … particularly where it involves vulnerable people.

There had initially been a regular turn-over of staff, which was destabilising, as each new person had to learn all the best practice procedures for each of the clients.

However, as the next couple of years passed, Jonathan’s Day Program was varied and interesting for him and it seemed that the disability service had gathered together a group of committed staff members for the Group Homes, people who enjoyed being with Jonathan because of his happy and sociable personality. We related well with them.

Many of the Group Home workers were fine people, understood my concerns about his eating, and did their best to meet Jonathan’s needs by unofficially and surreptitiously deviating from the dietician’s plan whenever they could. They would tempt him with food from other countries, frequently their own cuisine – and were delighted at his response and obvious pleasure.

Despite the ongoing and regular pressure from the hierarchy to have Jonathan tube-fed, we continued to resist.

We visited regularly, and I continued to buy for him anything which we thought would make his life easier and more comfortable. Knowing he enjoyed music, I bought him CDs of his favourite music genres, to be played on their music system in the living areas. For one birthday he received a foot spa, so his twisted feet could be soothed and massaged by warm bubbles.

Another purchase was a comfortable Ikea chair with white fabric cushion covers for the living room. It would support him well, and he could rock in it. It would be a change from his wheelchair.

I bought him new bath towels as needed, and clothes suitable for each season – and I always bought things I thought my son Joe would choose for himself. Jonathan should always dress as well as any other young man of his age.

In short, things were settling well.

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When she and Jonathan were both twenty-one, Bella was getting married. We bought a fine outfit for Jonathan to wear to her wedding – a very expensive pair of trousers and two dressy shirts. One was suitable for warmer weather, and the other if the weather had turned cool, as the wedding was to be in March, our early Autumn. The weather was therefore unpredictable. We wanted him to look as good as anyone else in the wedding party.

Everything went according to plan, and he enjoyed the celebration, and he did look good!

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Soon after, a new staff member was introduced to me – a woman of around my age who declared she had a particular affinity for Jonathan.  She seemed to consider him as her favourite, told me that he was very special, and she had noticed his innate intelligence. I agreed with her. Because someone can’t share what they understand does not mean they don’t understand anything.

In fact, she told me another day, I myself was underestimating his ability. I was? In what way?

Well, she explained, he was far more intelligent than anyone else had perceived.

She would therefore like to initiate a little project with him – and teach him to be really independent and manage his own money. If I could just set up a little bank account for him, and transfer some money across regularly, she could teach him about numbers, help him punch in a PIN, and voilà, he would be able to do some shopping for himself, even simple things like buying an ice-cream or choosing his own clothes.

Clamorous alarm bells rang loudly. I thanked her for her “kind offer” and declined. What a nice little side income for her that would have been. Did she really imagine I was that stupid? She should have realised I understood what she was up to.

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Over the next few months, I rarely saw him wearing any of the new clothes I bought him for each birthday and Christmas. On visits to us he was dressed in Hawaiian style shirts, often in synthetic fabrics, or “comfortable” track pants – but they looked old.

At first, I said nothing about the shirts, thinking maybe Sheryl had brought them to him on one of her visits. When I later asked her, she said she had never taken clothes to him, knowing I still looked after all that.

One evening after one of Jonathan’s weekend visits, I took a look in his wardrobe after driving him back to his home. I was quite surprised that I couldn’t see any of his “good” clothes, the ones we had bought him for Bella’s wedding. Oh, they must be in the laundry, waiting to be washed, this new lady told me. I was a little surprised. Where had he worn them? Some special occasion that hadn’t been mentioned to me?

 Later, I asked my husband about his Ikea chair – neither of us had noticed it in the living area.

We questioned the other staff who told us the chair had been missing for a while – they believed the new lady had taken it home to make a new cover for it. A new cover? A new chair did not need a new cover! And why had we not been asked, as a courtesy, if we would in fact like her to make one, seeing as we had bought the chair?

I was incensed. Further investigation revealed that his chair had indeed been in her home for a couple of months at least, but the “new cover” had not yet been started. I challenged her about Jonathan’s wedding outfits which were not in his wardrobe. Oh yes, she had taken them home to mend. But she had been too busy ….

To mend? He had worn the trousers and one shirt just once, to Bella’s wedding, and the other shirt he had not worn at all. They did not need mending!

Her employment was terminated. She refused to give back the chair but reluctantly returned the wedding clothes. It seems she had three sons – and Jonathan’s clothes fitted them well. And all his other outfits had doubtless looked good on her sons also!

The Disability Service replaced his Ikea chair for him.

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The new Disability Service Group Home Management Team decided to move the clients of Jonathan’s Group Home to a more convenient one, adjacent to another Group Home. It was situated in a less hilly area, and there was a wide veranda overlooking a pleasant garden. Moreover, with the two homes side by side, they could have a nurse on duty overnight, in case of emergencies, shared between the two houses. It seemed like a reasonable plan. Yet another change of home for Jonathan!

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After the move, it was very clear that it wasn’t only his clothes and his chair that the woman had stolen. There didn’t seem to be any CDs or foot spa. All his special things were gone. His towels? No, he had no new ones, only old worn-out ones. I bought him some new towels, and had his name embroidered on them. She may not have been responsible for the disappearance of all these things – but someone was!

Unbelievable! No, one never knows what goes on behind closed doors, especially where it concerns the vulnerable!

No, I was not yet ready to step out of Jonathan’s life ….