Inishowen mother sets up IIDEA group to put focus on intellectual disabilities services for over 18s in peninsula

Ros Brennan’s 24-year-old son has severe intellectual disabilities and since 2020, has only ever been provided with a maximum of a three-day (18 hours) placement within a service.

In the last two and a half years he has been at home, full-time, for a total of 13 months and Ros told the ‘Journal’ how this means he is not receiving the stimulation and services he so badly needs.

It is also having a financial, physical and mental impact on his family and Ros has had to reduce her working hours.

She is now reaching out to others across Inishowen ‘to get a real picture of what families are experiencing’.

She has set up the group Inishowen Intellectual Disabilities Equality for Adults (IIDEA) and is hoping to join with other families to ‘stand together and find a way forward’.

“I got to a stage where I thought that I have to do this. In 2017, he finished with school and was moved from an education system into the HSE or a caring system, which I don’t think works at all,” she said.

Ros stated that she was told at a recent meeting that her son is ‘so out of the system he’s probably not going to get a placement and there are no placements available’.

"I was told that priority is given to school leavers. My question is: ‘If he is and has been in a system, why has he not got priority of placement? But, I seem to be hitting dead ends.

"What makes him less eligible than school leavers?”

Ros highlighted how she and her son recently went to Disneyland Paris for four days and he was ‘absolutely amazing’, with no challenging behaviours, despite lots of new experiences of trains, planes and lots of small children.

"It really is down to communication and providing the services and stimulation these adults need.”

Ros said she wants to work alongside other parents and the HSE to move services forward ‘in a productive manner’.

“I want to get people power behind this and get an idea of the demographic – who does and who doesn’t have a service and what their level of disability is. I’m asking them to come together to push for better services and I’m trying to form a group for parents in a bid to improve these services.

"There are more and more children and young adults getting diagnosed and the number will continue to get bigger.”

Ros said she would love to see a ‘face of intellectual disabilities’ within the HSE and also praised the HSE’s ‘amazing’ Confidential Recipient, who she has been liaising with since last year.

She also questioned why, unlike other services, there are no referrals for people with intellectual disabilities into Northern Ireland.

"Why can’t I or my son avail of the cross-border initiative they are doing with other aspects of healthcare?”

Ros has urged any parent or family member of an adult with intellectual disabilities to send a message to the IIDEA Facebook page. Ros is also asking everyone to like and share the page.

"The view is to meet up and strategize on how to go forward. Also, we’d be really grateful to hear from anyone who has got any advice or can help any way to move something forward. The view is just to help improve the services and also help the HSE.”

The Journal contacted the HSE but they had not responded at the time of going to Press.