IMPAKT housing & support offer see many individuals come through our doors most of who require more than a place to live. Our housing teams work with each individual to help them start where they are and move forward towards independent living.

Here Sophia, one of our Housing Coaches introduces us to Aydan who has tackled challenges head on and worked really hard on his personal goals and independency.

When Aydan moved in he was only eating one meal a day, dinner, which consisted of chocolate cereal. You see, Aydan is in the process of an autism diagnosis and he finds it challenging to remember to eat and drink. Aydan has safe foods and has for a long time preferred sticking to them as he often experiences social anxiety so finds it challenging to do and try new things.

 Since moving into one of our accommodation projects, Aydan has gone out of his comfort zone and not only tried new foods but has cooked them too and gone to new places solo!

In our one-2-one’s Aydan has engaged in creating a food timetable to help prompt him to eat and drink, we went to Tesco together, which was a new shop for him, and purchased meals, fruit, veg and an overall very healthy food shop. Then the following week Aydan went to Tesco independently, unprompted and again completed a fantastic varied food shop. Aydan has shared that since he has started eating varied meals and more than one meal a day his overall health has improved.

As part of the process Aydan has attended a few cooking workshops with IMPAKT Skills and loved the creations he has made with Yolanda our Skills Coach; Aydan was so chuffed with the chicken salad he made.

In our last couple one-2-one sessions Aydan and I made a tuna pasta bake and chocolate muffins. As you can see from the images he did a smashing job.

As well as making huge leaps forward with his eating, Aydan has also walked through social anxiety by attending art sessions with Yolanda and learnt new painting techniques. This has resulted in Aydan applying to study art at college.

We are all so proud of you Aydan.

Sophia – Foyer Housing Coach