Garry and Clare’s Story

Garry and Clare – a safe, secure and spacious home for our twin daughters.

Whilst our tenants – adults with autism and learning disabilities – are the focus of our work and the reason for Fairoak’s existence, we appreciate that the voices of their parents and families rarely feature.

Please be assured, this is in no way intentional.

So having chance to talk with the parents of two Fairoak tenants, sisters who share a house near Lancaster, as part of the Starts At Home campaign was an opportunity to hear their experiences and understand how their supported accommodation has impacted the lives of everyone in the family.

Pip and Alix are twins, Clare is their mum and Garry is their dad. The girls had attended a midweek specialist residential school since the age of 11 and during their latter teenage years had attended Beaumont College, a specialist college in Lancaster.

This was initially on a full time basis, before this was then reduced to two days per week, before leaving completely in 2022.

“For the girls to have a place of their own was never really in question. We’ve seen the stress placed upon other parents trying to support their children [with a disability ] in their own homes when they come back from college, and it’s sometimes ended in a lot of problems within the household.” Its not the young person, it’s the lack of privacy.

“Having a team of carers in your house – three, four, even five people each day – means that it’s no longer really your home. We really need our privacy and it’s not ideal having an argument with your husband in front of them!”

“That may be a selfish reason but then there’s also a practical reason for the girls in that we’re getting older and less able to support them, and we didn’t want the prospect of them having to move into home in an emergency situation.”

“It’s also only natural as well, all kids get to an age when they want to ‘fly the nest’ and be exposed to new experiences, and the same applied to Pip and Alix.”

“I’m the last person to be painting nails or experimenting with new hairstyles but now the girls can do that because their lifestyle enables them exposure to new people and experiences.”

“Where we live is also very rural which isn’t always great for any young person as there’s limited public transport, limited services and limited opportunities for the girls, so the options were either Kendal or the Lancaster area.”

Bolton-le-Sands is just a few miles north of Lancaster and it’s here that Pip and Alix now live, an area in close enough proximity to Lancaster, Carnforth and Kendal yet equally blessed with easy access to the surrounding countryside, Arnside crags, the canal and coastline of Morecambe Bay.

Clare and Garry undertook a good degree of research before identifying Bolton-le-Sands as being suitable for their daughters, along with what Clare refers to as a “…3D jigsaw of getting everything in place: getting the care team sorted, getting the housing sorted and getting the funding sorted.”

“Each one needs to be before the other, but you just end up going round in circles, so we started with the funding, and then the housing and care team to run in parallel, something which was really quite hard.”

“You don’t get a handbook or whatever guiding you through all of this, but it did eventually all fall into place which feels like something of a small miracle to us, and to our friends who are in a similar situation because I don’t think many of them have been able to pull it all together just yet.”

The Covid pandemic through 2020 and 2021 caused delays in completing this most challenging of puzzles, most worrying being the funding required to meet Pip’s supported living needs, but after three years the girls were able to move into their new home.

“You need to overlay the time for the girls to get to know and trust their new support team well enough before the transition into their new home. This is something which the College were great at helping with, enabling two of the new carers to ‘shadow’ whilst the girls were at Beaumont.”

Fairoak supported Clare and Garry in finding a suitable property for Alix and Pip and, as Clare herself confesses: “I don’t know much about the durability of houses so John [Holmes, Fairoak Asset & Compliance Manager] was brilliant. He also took time to get to know the girls which helped him finding suitable properties to look at.”

“We were close to buying one property, but the kitchen was just too small. The girls and their carers pretty much live in the kitchen and, as John pointed out, when you consider that at changeover there can be six adults in that space at the same time then it made sense not to go for it.”

“The bathroom was another consideration – most bathrooms are not big enough to swing the proverbial cat but there needed to be enough room for two adults, anything less just wouldn’t be workable.”

“Alix is very wobbly,” explains Clare, “and John was adamant that a downstairs bedroom would be best for her; I think this was very wise and I’m not sure we would have held out for it, but he saw it through for us.”

“He also engaged with all the tradespeople, builders and everything. There were a few issues here and there, but John just sorted it.”

“It would have killed us doing all of that, it honestly would.” explains Garry, “Having Fairoak taking care of it all was such a help and dealing with John and Lisa was an absolute pleasure.”

The purchase of the house was made possible by a grant from the JMS Supported Living Trust, something which Garry concedes could have been a challenge in practise: “There were solicitors involved, and Learning Disability England, plus ourselves, Fairoak and the JMS Trust… it could have been a nightmare.”

“The legal teams determined that the best was for the money to be awarded would be to Fairoak who would then buy the house in perpetuity for the girls so that if anything happens to Clare and I then they will always have a home.”

“I think we were the first instance of its kind where they [JMS Supported Living Trust] awarded money to a housing association in an arrangement like this.”

“They [JMS Supported Living Trust] have visited the house and the girls a few times as they are looking at using this as a model or creating a handbook for how they can enable similar schemes in the future. All I would say to them is make sure they are working with a decent housing association like Fairoak!”

Once the sale had gone through, John was able to set about ‘future-proofing’ the property to help ensure it would meet the needs of the girls and their support staff for the years ahead.

The purchase of the property was completed in October and once all the modifications and alterations had been completed, the house was ready for Alix and Pip in May 2023.

Garry says that moving into the new house was something the girls took in their stride, to a degree, having been at residential school and college during their teenage years.

“Alix settled in straight away and loves her care team; Pip took a little longer as she’s an anxious girl. We ask them every now and then if they want to come back home and stay with us for a few days, but they don’t, they always say they want to go back to their own home.”

The girls’ care team comprises personnel from Westmorland Home Care along with additional personal assistants, one of whom has supported them since they were toddlers.

“Both girls love outdoor activities and Pip has dedicated support from a specialist carer undertaking various pursuits such as walking, climbing, caving and canoeing.” says Garry.

“They are also keen to participate in the various social activities that Fairoak organise, enjoying meeting other tenants from across the region when time allows amongst their outdoor pursuits. It was also great to meet Alison Barnes again!”

Garry loves the girls’ home and also the peace of mind it affords Clare and himself: “If something needs doing, or replacing or fixing, then Fairoak will take care of it. Like when the tumble drier needed replacing; that could have been a real hassle for us but we just let John know and he sorted it.”

“It’s reassuring to know that if Clare and I were to drop dead tomorrow then the girls would still have a home and still be cared for.”

“They have people around them – carers and support staff and people at Fairoak – that have their best interests and wellbeing at heart, and they will always do what’s best for them. That’s real peace of mind.”