Support for Nick
Donation protected
As many of you may or may not know the care in nursing homes are not always great. As sister to Nick, a person with developmental disabilities I know all too well that the system for people like Nick has not always been great. Unfortunately after all the services my family and I have fought for for Nick over the years is gone. While despite his disabilities he has been a pretty healthy guy for most of his life up until about 2 years ago. At that point he needed to have a g-tube put in due to his aspiration of food and liquid. He has been on a downward spiral ever since. Because of this he is now residing in a nursing home as many agencies won’t take him as he needs to be on a 22 hr feeding.
Nick is nonverbal and depends on others for every aspect of his care. In a nursing home if you can’t say what you need you don’t get it. My mom is there every day to make sure he is not laying in his own feces, that he gets a shower, get his medications, and maybe gets some socialization. There are activities there but she or his roommate has to advocate for him to participate but even when he goes, those activities are geared for old folks without Nick's intellectual disabilities.
Our goal now is to get some respite for my mom and some appropriate socialization for Nick. To do that we need to raise some funds to help us pay for his previous workers to do some activities with Nick in the home and be there to help advocate for him when my mom, my dad or I cannot be there.
We currently have worked with an organization to get some volunteers in the home which has been so wonderful, but is only one day a week for a short time. And we have another family friend coming to visit weekly as well(this has allowed my mom to get some respite), but there are lots of other hrs to fill. So besides money we hope to find more folks willing to volunteer some of their time to visit with Nick and get to know him. I would love to work with an agency that would like to develop a volunteer program like the one that Nick is already participating with Helping Hand. There are lots of other agencies near Westmont that I know could benefit from something like this. It is truly an awesome program.
Please consider a small donation toward my brothers respite fund, consider volunteering to visit or simply just post this to your face book page so that we can reach as many people as possible.
Thank you to all!
Nick's sister
Nick is nonverbal and depends on others for every aspect of his care. In a nursing home if you can’t say what you need you don’t get it. My mom is there every day to make sure he is not laying in his own feces, that he gets a shower, get his medications, and maybe gets some socialization. There are activities there but she or his roommate has to advocate for him to participate but even when he goes, those activities are geared for old folks without Nick's intellectual disabilities.
Our goal now is to get some respite for my mom and some appropriate socialization for Nick. To do that we need to raise some funds to help us pay for his previous workers to do some activities with Nick in the home and be there to help advocate for him when my mom, my dad or I cannot be there.
We currently have worked with an organization to get some volunteers in the home which has been so wonderful, but is only one day a week for a short time. And we have another family friend coming to visit weekly as well(this has allowed my mom to get some respite), but there are lots of other hrs to fill. So besides money we hope to find more folks willing to volunteer some of their time to visit with Nick and get to know him. I would love to work with an agency that would like to develop a volunteer program like the one that Nick is already participating with Helping Hand. There are lots of other agencies near Westmont that I know could benefit from something like this. It is truly an awesome program.
Please consider a small donation toward my brothers respite fund, consider volunteering to visit or simply just post this to your face book page so that we can reach as many people as possible.
Thank you to all!
Nick's sister
Organizer
Tara Conley
Organizer
Woodridge, IL
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