By way of a little background to those who haven’t read any of my previous travel articles, this trip was part of my travels around the world during my time off from work. I work as a solicitor as at a commercial law firm in the City of London and took up the offer of extended leave when I was offered the permanent role in July. So far I had travelled to Scotland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Poland, US and South Africa, and this Singapore and Bali holiday was to be the last leg of my travels before starting my permanent role in January.

I booked my flights with Singapore Airlines, who I have to say were really good and provided an excellent service.  I had a three day stop-over in Singapore before heading off to Bali. But when reaching Singapore a mini-disaster was encountered, where I discovered that my wheelchair charger was not working and couldn’t be easily fixed. This had the potential to ruin my holiday, as I am unable to walk at all, and I had only about a day of charge left in the wheelchair. I really did not want to spend an entire holiday trapped in a hotel room with a wheelchair on a low battery. In my jet-lagged state, I frantically phoned Otto Bock (the company which makes the wheelchair) HQ in Germany to find out they had a dealership or engineer in Singapore. The contact they provided was unable to help as he all he did was process sales orders for Otto Bock in Singapore. I then remembered that I had used the charger of a friend who is also a wheelchair user when we travelled to California, which was made by Invacare (another large mobility products company). I was able to track down an Invacare contact in Singapore by calling Invacare Asia HQ. Unfortunately, all this contact could do was provide me with the name of another contact, who in turn gave me another number to contact! This carried until person number 8 on the chain of contacts told me of a mobility store he know of which sold powered wheelchair and chargers. I went to this store the following morning, and was fortunately able to buy a replacement charger which worked. Disaster averted! Holiday saved!

Aside from the little drama when I first got to Singapore, I had a fantastic time in the city. I have some good friends who work in Singapore, and it was great to spend time with them. The ease of travelling to and around Singapore made it all the better. Singapore is an incredibly modern and efficient city, thus accessibility and facilities for wheelchair users are as good (or even better) as anything you could find in Europe or the US. I was able to easily find accessible taxis (http://www.smrt.com.sg/taxis/our_services.asp) and a hotel which had the wheelchair access and roll in shower I needed (http://www.meritushotels.com/en/hotelinformation/marina-mandarin-singapore/about). To my surprise, while in Singapore I also discovered that the metro was wheelchair accessible, which meant that I did not have to always book taxis, and hence save quite a bit of cash!

After three great days in Singapore it was time to catch the flight to Bali. As accessible transport and accommodation are not so easy to identify in Bali, Andrew and I managed to find a local tour operator called Bali Access Travel (BAT) (http://www.baliaccesstravel.com). BAT have a wheelchair accessible van with space for two wheelchairs and use two hotels in the south of Bali in a place called Sanur, both of which have specially adapted rooms. We spent the first few days exploring the island, which included a couple of road trips into the mountainous regions of the island where we were able to see the Kintanami volcano and Mount Agung. We also spent a fair bit time chilling out at the beach on the days when we had not hired the van.

During these first few days we also finalised our diving plans. We had arranged an adapted diving session through BAT who in turn used a local diving organisation called the Bali International Diving Professionals (BIDP) (http://www.bidp-balidiving.com). Our dive was to take place on the east coast of Bali at a resort near the small town of Tulamben. The resort of Tulamben is a popular Bali dive site as it is the site of the wreckage of a US Navy transport ship, the USAT Liberty, which was sunk by a Japanese submarine during World War II. As I had never been scuba diving before, my dive would be an introductory dive, whereas Andrew, who had been diving many times before his accident and had his PADI diving certificate was able to book a full dive session to see the wreck. As Tulamben was on the other side of Bali, we planned to stay there for two nights at an accessible guest house which BAT had identified.

When we arranged the dive, in all honesty we had no idea what to expect! We hadn’t a clue what “adapted disabled diving” would entail and what kind of accessible facilities would be provided. On arriving at the USS Liberty Dive Resort we realised that in Bali “adapted” meant that there would be lots of strong and friendly people provided by BIDP to help, but absolutely nothing in terms of accessible facilities! At the resort, there were lots of large stairways to navigate which required the help of the BIDP team and about four portable ramps. This was no simple feat as Andrew and I were in two heavy powered wheelchairs, and all this was just to get down to the beachfront. On a patio covered area of the beachfront, our dive instructors went through the safety steps, gave us a basic tutorial of how to use the equipment, and as this was my first dive, taught me how to equalise the pressure in ears. This tutorial also included learning some all important key hand gestures to indicate if there was something wrong!

The next challenge was getting changed into the wet suit. There was no accessible changing area, so we had to improvise! I took my portable hoist with me, so in the end, I got changed on the floor, with a member of BIDP team holding a couple of towels up to give me some privacy while my PA got me ready. The wet suit felt a little strange, but I was very excited, but was a little nervous about the next step, which was to lift me into the water.  Again, some improvisation was required. We basically put the hoist sling on me as if I was to be lifted by the hoist, but taking the place of the hoist would be six very strong Balinese guys and my PA, Jozef, who is also very strong. My two dive instructors were already in the water, and the plan was to lift me out to sea to the waiting dive instructors, who would strap the oxygen tanks to me while lying on back in the water. Here is a video to show you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DLngk4jm2g&feature=player_embedded

Fortunately, all went to plan and I was safely lifted into the sea, where my two dive instructors attached the oxygen tanks to me, and I started breathing via these tanks. We then slowly went underwater with one of the instructors holding on to me, and the other always in front of me to check I was ok and able to equalise the pressure in my ears. Going underwater for the first time and breathing through the oxygen tank was an insane experience. The adrenaline rush was exhilarating and exciting, and I as became more comfortable with short and shallow dives, we were able to dive deeper to a depth of about 5 metres. Being underwater was amazing. The sea life was so colourful and beautiful, and I felt the most bizarre sense of tranquillity just watching shoals of fish swim past me. In the weightlessness of the underwater world I was able to move my arms and legs a little. Apart from when I am asleep, I am always in my wheelchair, so it was a great feeling to escape the confines of my wheelchair and have the freedom to move my body. This is a video of me underwater http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFDETicgipw&feature=player_embedded

In the final few minutes of the dive, I was able to see the distant outline of the stern of the USAT Liberty shipwreck, which was an unbelievable sight as it was teeming with coral and sea life. The dive unfortunately had to come to an end and sadly I had to head back to the surface. To get back into my wheelchair, a mass of people each grabbed a strap on my hoist sling and lifted me out of the water and back onto dry land.

For the rest of the day and pretty much the rest of the holiday, I was on an indescribable high. This was the most thrilling and exciting thing I had ever done, and I simply can’t wait to go diving again. We returned to Sanur from Tulamben the day after, and the last couple of days of the holiday were spent relaxing before commencing the very long journey back to London.

The Bali scuba dive was the biggest highlight of my travels, and I can’t strongly recommend enough anyone with a disability trying a scuba dive as long as it is a medical possibility. As I write this article, my work start date draws near, and in the next few months the only thing I will be diving into, is a busy office with a massive pile of work to do! But nonetheless my aim for 2011 is to hopefully complete my basic scuba diving certification and hopefully go another dive in the not too distant future.

Martyn’s blog entries provide a great account of our trip!

http://www.prioritytrust.org/blog/travel-planning-with-my-disability-its-10-times-more-important/

http://www.prioritytrust.org/blog/accessibility-in-las-vegas/

http://www.prioritytrust.org/blog/california-dreaming-teething-problems-and-jack-black/

This is an article about my most incredible adventure to South Africa which took me to Johannesburg, the Kruger National Park and its surrounding highlands in the province of Mpumalanga.

On first glance it would be reasonable to think that more adventurous travel such as an African safari would be out of reach for a person with my level of disability. However, this was made possible thanks to an amazing tour operator called Endeavour Safaris (“Endeavour”) which specialises in disability travel.  I found Endeavour simply via Google, and took the plunge and booked a safari holiday with them to Johannesburg and the Kruger National Park.

Apart from being very long, the flight to Johannesburg went smoothly. On landing at the airport late in the night and waiting in the plane to be lifted out, I was greeted by the most cheerful airport passenger assistance staff, who were more than happy to lift me out of the plane and into my own wheelchair. However, my wheelchair did annoyingly have a small amount of damage to the armrest, which although had no effect on the utility of the wheelchair, was still rather irritating. There was no point making a big deal out of it in Johannesburg as the repairs would need to be done back home.

We were met by our guide at the airport, Andy from Endeavour who took us to our nearby hotel for the night. The next day we travelled by road in a wheelchair accessible van that we were to use for the entire tour, across spectacular countryside to a guest house near a town called Sabie that was about 40km from the entrance to the Kruger. The guest house was fantastic in terms of its beautifully stunning location and was run by the incredibly hospitable Zeederberg family. The family had adapted their guesthouse by placing ramps around the grounds and a further ramp in the bathroom to make it “roll-in”. The lodge was used for the next couple of days to explore the surrounding highlands, where we saw the Blyde River Canyon, God’s Window, Lisbon Falls and Bourke’s Luck Potholes. Each site a spectacular and awe-inspiring feature in what can only be described as an awe-inspiring part of the world.

After two nights in the highlands, we proceeded to the Kruger National Park. We were to stay in a camp within the Kruger, which had guest rooms that were wheelchair accessible and had in roll-in showers. In the Kruger, each day we would go on two driving tours lasting three hours each at 5am and 3pm. Yes, 5am in the morning! Andy, our guide, was really experienced, and seemed to intuitively know where to find the wildlife. No easy feat, considering the Kruger National Park is about the size of Belgium! Over the several days in the park, we saw lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants, rhino’s and a plethora of amazing creatures that roamed free across the vast and wild expanse. Seeing these animals in the flesh and sometimes within metres of our van was simply breathtaking. However, notwithstanding the brilliance of the wildlife and the experience of being there, it did require a level of physical endurance that was a little testing. The heat in the middle of the day was pulverising, where temperatures could easily reach 42 – 43^OC, which I found very tough to handle, given that air conditioning was not always available in all parts of the camp. Nonetheless, me and the rest of the tour group battled through the conditions and had a wonderful time in the park.

The final stage of the tour was to spend some time in Johannesburg, which included a tour of Soweto, an epicentre of the fight against apartheid. Our tour of Soweto covered the key sights such as the Apartheid Museum and the cultural district. Soweto was a moving place. Monuments to those who had lost their lives in the struggle against apartheid were numerous. Extreme poverty and wealth were side by side, but at the same time, the city was colourful , vibrant and home to a fantastic vibe and very hospitable people.  We finished the tour by driving past the stadium used for the football World Cup final and the Johannesburg commercial centre. Unfortunately, Johannesburg can be a little risky for the uninitiated due to some areas of the city having a high crime rate. Therefore, evenings were spent in the hotel! On the final day, I met up with a friend who I knew from university, before heading back to the airport for the long trip back.

My time in South Africa was incredible. Prior to travelling there, I would have thought that Africa was inaccessible for someone in a wheelchair. But Endeavour Safaris made this possible. Their guides were very helpful, the hotels were wheelchair accessible and their van was specially adapted for a wheelchair passenger. South Africa was a brilliant adventure and I cannot recommend enough anyone else taking up a similar challenge to explore a wonderful part of the world!

It terms of adaptations, I really couldn’t find any flaws with the cruise liner. It was easy to move around the ship, getting on and off the ship at each port was straightforward (although the ramp could be a bit steep depending on the tide) and my cabin was of a good size and with all the adaptations I need like a roll in shower and space under my bed for the hoist.  The thick carpet in the room made moving the hoist around a little difficult and the swaying of the ship when in the choppy waters of Bay of Biscay was a bit uncomfortable. But on the whole, you could see that P&O were accustomed to passengers with disabilities and considerable thought had gone into the design of the adapted cabins.

At all stops apart from Florence and Rome, the port area where the ship docks is pretty much a short walk from the port’s town centre, again making it relatively easy to wander around. However, some of these ports, especially Gibraltar and Ajjacio were very hilly and cobbled, with many roads lacking drop downs. Cruise operators organise tours at each stop known as a shore excursion. At some ports, P&O were able to offer wheelchair accessible shore excursions using adapted vans. I went on such excursions at Rome and Florence. Although only whistle-stop tours through cities that you could easily a couple of weeks enjoying, it was a lot of fun visiting the picture postcard attractions such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Coliseum in Rome.

Cruise liners are essentially floating hotels with tons of food and drink available. They are a very relaxing and somewhat indulging experience. There is quite a bit of dead time while at sea where you have to keep yourself entertained. I usually prefer holidays that are a little more “busier” and hectic, rather than one where you end up spending a lot of time sitting around. But the ease of travel and the ability to see so many great places in one go more than made up for the occasional lack of action! While there are many activities available on the ship, I did find myself enjoying nothing more than reading my book on the ship deck. There is something incredibly beautiful and hypnotic about the open seas, which is very difficult to describe in words. It was very easy to simply stare at the sea and watch the world go by.

A cruise holiday from an accessibility perspective is pretty easy and straightforward. I would definitely go on another, but maybe somewhere a little further afield!

If a cruise ship holiday lacked a bit of action and adventure, the next trip I went on to South Africa was nothing but action and adventure!

I love going to the US. Everything always seems so straightforward and simple when it comes to all things “disability related”.  I have been to the US many times before and I find people over there just seem to “get it” when it comes to disability. By this I mean staff at airports know exactly what to do, finding wheelchair accessible cars or taxis is easy, hotel staff know exactly what a wheelchair accessible room is and wheelchair access is the routine norm rather than the exception, and I could go on with many more examples.

Orlando was great. It’s a place that brings out the kid in me that never quite grew up (and probably never will). I loved the beautiful weather, the pristine beaches, the ample quantity of food portions and the unashamed cheesiness of the enormous theme parks. I was even able to go on some of the rides in the theme parks (albeit the less cool and scary rides!), which were adapted to allow a wheelchair to drive right onto the ride.

The only little hiccup was on the first day, when I realised that a UK wheelchair charger requiring 220V supply does not work in the US where voltage supply is 110V. Even though I had been to the US before, previously I had always rented powered wheelchairs and hoists locally. This time however, I brought my own ‘Molift Smart’ portable hoist and Ottobock ‘A200’ collapsible powered wheelchair.  However, this being America, there existed a solution, and we found an electrical store which sold a step up transformer. Problem solved! Panic over! Holiday resumed!

Going to a country where accessibility is the norm rather than exception is a great experience. I did wonder why this was though. Some tell me that this is due to the pervasive and onerous nature of the Americans with Disabilities Act (as I write this post, I am yet to have read  the Act in any detail so can’t really say whether I agree with this or not), others tell me Americans in general are more willing to stand up (excuse the pun) for their rights and hence service providers have to ensure that any service they provide to a person who happens to have a disability is up to scratch. I am not sure what the answer is, and if there is an answer, it is probably due to a multitude of reasons. But what is interesting and somewhat ironic, is that in a country where state intervention and legislation with respect to social issues, which may place further obligations on the citizen or on a business are generally frowned upon (see Obama’s struggle with healthcare policy for a good example of such recalcitrance), the US in my opinion is far more accommodating for the disabled traveller than pretty much any part of “social” Europe. See my previous blog post on a trip to Brussels for a good comparison.

By writing this article, I have probably inflicted upon myself the bloggers equivalent of the “commentator’s curse” whereby next time I travel to the US it will be an utter wheelchair inaccessible disaster! Let’s hope not though as I am planning to go to California in November!!

The next leg of my travels is a two week cruise around the Mediterranean stopping off at various places in Spain and Italy, and no doubt will have some thoughts to share when I get back.

For me, travelling can be a concoction of challenging adventure and painful ordeal. I have many things to take with me such as my wheelchair, portable hoist, foldable shower chair numerous cables and chargers associated with such gadgets, as well as many things to organise such as airport assistance and accessible airport transfer. Additionally thrown into the mix is fear of baggage handlers damaging my wheelchair (which has happened several times previously!) and a nagging worry that quite possibly the accessible hotel room that I booked is not as “accessible” as claimed on the hotel website. Suffice to say, I have to be well organised!

Nonetheless, the trips were great! Everything went pretty much to plan. Nothing broke down, all the equipment I took remained intact and all hotel rooms were fantastically accessible (and had the all important roll-in shower). But even more importantly, it was great to catch up with friends that I met up with in all three cities!

But for this blog article, instead of droning on about how much of a good time I had, I thought I would share some interesting observations and discoveries.

1.       Brussels has dreadful wheelchair access!

Although a beautiful city with many friendly and helpful people, getting around can be really difficult. Much of the city centre is cobbled, which for me wasn’t too much of a nuisance. But what did annoy me was the fact many curbs do not have proper drop downs, most bars and cafe’s have steps to enter and local amenities such as banks and shops were routinely inaccessible.

Now…. I accept it is unfair to request that a historic section of the city be dug up and re-laid in smooth tarmac or small independent cafe’s invest a fortune re-building their premises. But it did seem strange, especially in the “modern” part of the city that is home to many prominent EU institutions, that wheelchair access could be so under par. Crossing a road en route to the EU Parliament should simply not be something that causes a problem!

2.       Warsaw has surprisingly good access…

This was a real surprise to me. While not as accessible as a city in the UK or US, getting around Warsaw city centre was much easier than I thought it would be. My friend also found an excellent taxi service with a fleet of London cabs called WaWa (http://www.wawataxi.pl/ – the site is in Polish, and also note that drivers and the person taking bookings may not speak much English). Additionally, Warsaw International Airport is very new and spacious.

3.       Travelling can be expensive, especially when a PA is needed to travel with you

I guess this is stating the obvious, but interestingly though, the UK hotels in the Holiday Inn chain do not charge for a spare room for a PA. I am yet to find a major chain outside of the UK that operate a similar policy.

4.       Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands are amazing!

Having good weather during my time there (which I hear is rare that far up north!) helped considerably as well! Despite parts of Edinburgh being really hilly and some areas (especially near the castle) having quite a few cobbled streets and inaccessible buildings, it was relatively easy to get around.  All buses seemed wheelchair accessible and all taxis were “black cab style” and this is further assisted by the fact that Edinburgh is quite a compact city.

The Highlands are simply awesome, but naturally, the degree to which you can venture of the beaten track is limited by an individual’s level of mobility. However, many fantastic towns and villages are spread across the Highlands and the places we visited were really convenient locations for venturing around.

I finish writing this entry just after coming back from Florida, but I guess, I shall leave any thoughts on Florida for next time.

I searched the internet to see if I could find any views or thoughts about particular wheelchairs, but only ended up finding a scattering of blog / message board postings and a handful of sites with some generic comments on particular individual wheelchairs.

I found this quite surprising, since it is possible to find detailed user reviews for nearly every product imaginable, but yet could not find anything particularly substantive or informative for a mobility item as important as a wheelchair.

Therefore, without any previous knowledge of website design, and with the assistance of an excellent beginner’s book on website design, I created a simple site called www.abilient.com which allows users to post reviews of their wheelchairs.

A review can be anonymously posted by downloading the questionnaire by clicking here; and returning it to info@abilient.com.

In time, I hope the site can become a useful, in-depth and informative guide for anybody interested in buying a wheelchair. I would also like the site to be a helpful source of information as to the quality of service that various companies provide to their customers. This will hopefully highlight instances of shoddy customer service, but also, and equally as important, give credit to companies where due, who provide excellent service.

Unfortunately, the site is still at an early stage, and is not as of yet compliant with accessibility standards. I will try to improve the site where and when I can with my rather rudimentary knowledge of website design!

Any feedback (either positive or negative) would be greatly appreciated!

Srin

I knew that I wanted to do something that could keep my mind occupied and give my easily bored mind, enough to do. Many careers are completely impractical to a person with my disability to pursue, and careers where only a functioning mind and an ability to communicate are required, are few and far between. After much time being spent in careers offices, recruitments fairs, and talking to people from various professions, I ended up setting my sights on a legal career in the City.

Unlike going to school or uni, there isn’t really a well worn path for a disabled person to follow, when it comes to entering the work place. The high unemployment rate for those with disabilities is an unfortunate testament to that. Also, it quickly dawns upon you early on (whether rightly or wrongly so) that convincing an employer to employ you over fellow able bodied candidate is not going to be an easy.

Working through this and my experiences of successfully obtaining a job as a trainee lawyer is long story, that would be probably be best covered in another article in the future. But suffice to say, it required much hard work, perseverance through setbacks and plenty of bloody mindedness!

The next big challenge is getting the help you needed sorted out. Luckily, my firm have always been supportive and understanding with whatever assistance I need, whether that be allowing my support worker on site, or ensuring that one of many secretaries in my office is assigned to give me a hand with things such as getting folders of shelves etc. For those reading this, if such help is not sufficient, I am aware that Access to Work can provide funding for a whole host of things that are needed to help you in the workplace. In my case, Access to Work helped fund the installation of automatic doors in the workplace, and made a grant towards purchasing a new wheelchair. Irrespective of funding issues for whatever assistance that may be needed, the only other important thing I can think of from personal experience, is to ensure that you as open and honest with your employer about the help you need as early as possible. It is much easier to get this help in place at the beginning of your job rather than in the middle of trying to complete a task, where you may be kicking yourself that you did not ask for the assistance you needed earlier.

Like with going from school to uni, making the next transition to work brings up a whole new host of difficulties that are unique to each individual and their particular disability. To avoid this blog entry being turned into the length of a book, I have only talked one type of issue that arises, i.e. assistance at work. But for some who read this, it is likely that assistance at work is just one of many other problems such as finding accommodation, transport, organising support workers etc. Therefore, drop me a message if you would like more information on how I dealt with some of these other issues.

I will be using this blog to share some of my experiences of major transitional periods of my life, which are faced by many, but involve unique challenges faced by those with disabilities.  The first such period for me involves moving from home to live at university.

I started making preparations for moving to uni back in the summer of 2002, more than a year before starting a course, and before even receiving any offers! Moving to uni essentially brought up two key areas of difficulty:

1.       Finding a uni that is accessible or getting that uni to make building adaptations

2.       Independent living

An accessible uni…

Before making applications I toured various universities for their suitability in terms of accessibility and general character. Some were more accessible than others, and some were more willing than others to make adaptations. I ended up accepting an offer from i.e. Kings College London (KCL), who were very accommodating and willing to make any changes that were needed. This included building an accessible room at my halls of residence, and fitting automatic doors in various locations. An additional room adjacent to mine was provided for a support worker.

While sorting out accessibility issues, I was arranging with KCL and my LEA the support I would need while at college. This included help with taking notes during lectures, and help with various tasks while doing practicals in the labs. Funding for these arrangements came from the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) provided by my local LEA. In order to receive the DSA, an assessment was required at a specialist centre in Central London. Apart from confirming that I needed support, the assessment centre serves to allow you to try out assistive technologies such as voice recognition software. If such equipment is useful, the assessor will ensure that the DSA is used to fund its purchase. During this time, I also made the decision that any educational support needed like notetakers etc, would be kept separate from the personal care which I needed. This ensured that the most suitable people could be appointed to such roles. By this, I mean that an individual, who is taking notes during a lecture or seminar, may not be suitable to help with personal care.

Nonetheless, by virtue of starting the process early various issues of difficulty could be identified and sorted well in advance. Moreover, my accessible room and the support that I needed while at college was already organised by the time term started.

Independent living…

Arranging personal care is probably the most daunting challenge faced when moving out. If you are unfamiliar with having strangers provide your personal care, this can be something which takes some getting used to. To further complicate matters, depending on your care needs, it may be necessary for your funding package to come from more than one source, which may require additional assessment and form filling!

As is probably still the case now, back in 2002, my social worker was the main point of contact in putting together the care package. Various assessments from a variety of professionals were needed in order to assist the social worker in determining the level of support needed. Even though these professionals may come to conclusions that may be completely obvious to you, unfortunately such formalities are required.  In my experience, it was very important to be as honest and open as possible about the help needed. Requesting the personal support that forms the care package often works on the principal of “if you don’t ask, you won’t get”. It is important to prevent yourself from being in position where you have to ask social services to increase funding and the care package on an emergency basis while in the middle of a university semester.

After social services and the ILF agreed to fund a 24/7 care package, I also made the important decision to receive funding through the Direct Payments system. Direct Payments is a scheme where money is forwarded to a personal bank account, for which you account to social services at the end of every year. This system allows you to organise your own support and who you would like to employ. Direct Payments can be challenge to manage, and it is vital to make sure your social worker provides you with all the facts to help you make your decision.

Before starting uni, I chose to employ support directly by advertising, rather than through an agency. I held an application and interview process and initially decided to employ a single person, who started two weeks before term began. Social services also put me in touch with local advice centres and a payroll agency to help me understand my duties as an employer and to assist me with the required admin that arises when you are an employer.

How you decide to choose your support workers and whether you organise your support through Direct Payments is a personal decision, which is influenced by a multitude of factors. It is best made in consultation with your social worker who is there to help you, and those in your life who you rely upon.

Six years on, managing and administering personal care needs is still a challenge, but rewarding nonetheless. Even after six years, it is a continuous and ongoing learning experience. The entire process can be quite laborious and time-consuming, but in the end, the reward of having an easier life at uni where many of the above problems are dealt with before starting makes it all worthwhile.