My son who is now 5 received an ABI following a serious road traffic accident in April 2019.
The Family First Service
The Family First Service (BIM) has been my main source of help and information since my son’s accident. Staff (pre-Covid) came to our house to talk with me at length about all different aspects of life after ABI - medical, emotional, practical. They also commenced some play-based sessions with my son and myself and some joint sessions with his 3 year old brother which really helped guide me on how to approach getting my son to open up through play and also introduce types of play (e.g. sensory) that pre-accident wouldn't have been on my radar.
We have been using the service since mid-September 2019. We were referred to the service by Specialist Clinical Psychologist, as we were struggling to cope with the significant changes in my son’s personality since his accident.
BIM has had a very large and very positive impact on our life. The input of the Family First initiative has largely shaped our management of life and how to approach our new challenges since my son’s accident.
I have benefitted most from probably just having someone to talk to that understands the complexity of living with and parenting a child with a brain injury. Someone who has good in-depth knowledge and hands on experience of the issues, ideas of techniques to try, and also from the practical side of staff chasing up referrals and trying to coordinate some sort of cohesive plan of action for my sons ongoing treatment.
I feel that having the weight of an organisation behind you often makes these tasks easier and I felt that I didn’t really have the confidence in my own knowledge of brain injury treatments etc. to do this myself.
Coronavirus restrictions
During Covid I have signed up to the Family First Portal. I have been engaging in weekly phone calls with staff. I have also been receiving ideas from staff about different play/learning ideas to help my son during his home-schooling.
I am happy with how Brain Injury Matters has responded during the crisis. I feel that they are absolutely doing the best they can to continue to engage with our family and to help out in any way they can.
I would just like to express my thanks that the service exists to help families like mine. There appears to be precious little to help children living with brain injury and I really feel that without the service our family would be totally floundering trying to cope with our new normal.
For more on Courtney's story, check out this BBC interview
